I bought an inexpensive ACER Aspire notebook #3680-2633 and it came with VISTA preinstalled. I HATE this operating system. From my old dead computer I still have my legal CD of Windows XP Home. Can I wipe the hard drive and install XP without any trouble?

Thanks

Bt

Most CDs that come with computers are tied to that computer and can not be installed on another. You can always try putting the CD in it and booting to see if it would allow you to install.

HAhaha.. Vista aint all thats cracked up, I don't know how many people I have downgraded back to XP Pro. What was your other computer? Also, do you have drivers for your ACER computer? (Is it on a cd, or is it downloadable from the net?).

Acer usually has generic parts and finding drivers SHOULDNT be a problem.

You can try the cd... but usually like hank said it was tied, unless its a genuine Microsoft XP cd, and not a bundled XP cd that auto installs for that particular computer (ie Compaq and HP and some Dells).

Bruce Yes you can install xp home but unless you have the drivers for xp that darn A cer is a mofo on the video (ati) and wirless driver (atheros) I have them both converted one ;last week

i heard all of the problems with vista which kind of scared me off from it, however i just had to reformat my gard drive so just for the **** of it i partitioned the drive and i am dual booting with xp and vista ultimate x64. i am running off vista as i type this. i have had no problems at all not even with drivers (which it is harder to get 64 bit drivers anyway). it is more memory intensive and i hope this is fixed with service packs. i see problems from vista same as with xp when it came out. if you have the chance use vista ultimate, it is the only version that includes a dvd decoder in the o/s, and i see that there are a lot less people having issues with it (maybe because retail box is 400.00). on a side note, i see people all of the time saying there old software does not work on vista, i have had no issues with this either (i am running leisure suit larry in the land of the lounge lizards on vista ultimate x64

as i work more and more with vista at work.. im starting to like it... it does have its "problems" but.. for the "home user who is not a power player" it can be a bit daunting ;_)

LSL hahah.. now thats a game!

some times the older games get the best laughs, of course every game i own works great tomb raider legends is the newest title and i am waiting for crysis:thumbsup:

I bought an inexpensive ACER Aspire notebook #3680-2633 and it came with VISTA preinstalled. I HATE this operating system. From my old dead computer I still have my legal CD of Windows XP Home. Can I wipe the hard drive and install XP without any trouble?

Thanks

Bt


Vista will suck until the service pack comes out.

Go to the complementary metal oxcide semiconductor (BIOS) and set your boot order to CD / DVD first. Boot off the Vista CD. Remove the partition and repartition with NTFS. FAT32 is good but NTFS is safer and more reliable. Go though setup.

Bruce thats too funny because Jenica and I did the EXACT same thing...lol Vista will be ok when SP 3 comes out.

[QUOTE=RCMits]as i work more and more with vista at work.. im starting to like it... it does have its "problems" but.. for the "home user who is not a power player" it can be a bit daunting ;_)

QUOTE]

That's my experience too. Just like all the other OS deployments. The first few weeks were a pain then all seemed to settle down and get back to some assembalance of normalacy, for the most part. :freak: rr

i found an issue with vista and uninstalled it until it is fixed ( my floppy drive becomes inaccessable) so when this is fixed i will probably put it back on, until then it is back to xp only, also yahoo is not ready for vista yet (voice does not work in messenger under vista)

1) Go to CMOS and set boot options to DVD/CD first.

2) Place the CD in the CD drive and wait for "Press any key to boot from CD"

3) Let it load all the setup files to the memory

4) F8, ESC, then delete any paritions, and create and "QUICK" NTFS partition using maximum space available.

5) It should be automatic from now on until you enter your key, workgroup, and time. Same with languages, ect.

Bruce thats too funny because Jenica and I did the EXACT same thing...lol Vista will be ok when SP 3 comes out.


You mean SP1. SP1 now seems to solve most of the problems with Vista, from memory leaks, freezes, incompaitibity issues, to the most minor issues. '

SP3 won't be for another 1-2 years. SP1 just came out.

http://www.tweakvista.com/Article39206.aspx

heck just dual boot ;-) best and worst of both worlds...

The computer has been working fine for my wife since I formatted and reinstalled. A couple of the drivers were pesky but everything is working. Not sure if this is a problem I caused but when I leave the power cord plugged in you shut down and night and the next morning it has turned its self back on!! Un plug the power cord and it won't self turn on! Scary. Also the touch pad doesn't work anymore but not a biggie.

Bt

http://www.tweakvista.com/Article39206.aspx

heck just dual boot ;-) best and worst of both worlds...
And one of the crappiest ideas :thumbsup:

Dual booting means you'll have to PartitionMagic it, and you have the risk of losing it anyways.. and you split your HDD in half. Good luck on that !

The computer has been working fine for my wife since I formatted and reinstalled. A couple of the drivers were pesky but everything is working. Not sure if this is a problem I caused but when I leave the power cord plugged in you shut down and night and the next morning it has turned its self back on!! Un plug the power cord and it won't self turn on! Scary. Also the touch pad doesn't work anymore but not a biggie.

Touchpads require drivers, as they have the more "sophisticated" touching device, as with an on/off switch.

There is an automatic turn on switch in the BIOS in which you can alter. The second thing is the PSU. If the PSU is dying or the switch is not working properly, then that will happen.

And one of the crappiest ideas :thumbsup:

Dual booting means you'll have to PartitionMagic it, and you have the risk of losing it anyways.. and you split your HDD in half. Good luck on that !

this is not a crappy idea, first off ou do not have to use partition magic or any other software if you reformat the drive anyway ( you can use windows to create a partition, second most people today have a large enough hard drive that they will never fill it anyway (if not replace the hard drive with a bigger one), third (in the event of a desktop) just add a second, third, or however many you want and have one o/s on 2 seperate drives. i have 2 320 gig drives (one of which is maybe half full) and contains 165 movies music music videos etc, etc. i still have the room in my tower for 2 more hdd's and i have the sata connections on my mobo to support a total of 6 sata and then i can also have 2 to 4 ide type hdd's. it is a matter of how you want to go about it and whether it is a desktop or a laptop.

this is not a crappy idea, first off ou do not have to use partition magic or any other software if you reformat the drive anyway ( you can use windows to create a partition, second most people today have a large enough hard drive that they will never fill it anyway (if not replace the hard drive with a bigger one), third (in the event of a desktop) just add a second, third, or however many you want and have one o/s on 2 seperate drives. i have 2 320 gig drives (one of which is maybe half full) and contains 165 movies music music videos etc, etc. i still have the room in my tower for 2 more hdd's and i have the sata connections on my mobo to support a total of 6 sata and then i can also have 2 to 4 ide type hdd's. it is a matter of how you want to go about it and whether it is a desktop or a laptop.

FYI - When you make a partition, you use all of the open available space. Thus, you'll need to use PM to make another partition in that partition. All you're saying it "REFORMAT" which I've already said :rolleyes:

Partitioning - Make "virtual" HDD's from one HDD...

I see Download.com has named Vista as one of the years worst downloads. I'll wait to 'upgrade'.

Service Pack has come out. Should fix most bugs.

I've had it on my laptop for a year with no major bugs. Runs great!! :thumbsup: Maybe I am just lucky. Home Premium Edition. I burn dvd's run most of the office suite between school and work and it is great. Terry.

If you got the Home Premium with SP1, you're in luck. Might just be that you have very old parts that Vista has no problem running on. Newer ATI/nVidia drivers might a have a bit of problems... like ATI's Radeon 3 series and nVidia's G92 architecture.