Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

I'm planning on purchasing a new X61 and the ones available all come with Vista pre-installed. I would like to re-install mine with XP. Will it be a relatively straightforward affair or are there any particular issues I'll need to watch out for?

Thanks in advance.

nut cracker wrote:I'm planning on purchasing a new X61 and the ones available all come with Vista pre-installed. I would like to re-install mine with XP. Will it be a relatively straightforward affair or are there any particular issues I'll need to watch out for?

Shouldn't be difficult - just remember to download the important drivers to USB in advance (network, video, etc.). It can save time later.

Also, unless you use SP3 or slipstream in the Intel Matrix Disk Controller drivers, you'll need to switch SATA mode to 'compatibility' in the BIOS for XP to recognize the hard drive. After you install and add those drivers yourself, you can switch it back to AHCI.

I think that many X61 laptops are still offered with XP downgrade, which means it will either come preinstalled with Vista disks (like my friend's X61T which he purchased just this month), or with Vista and the XP downgrade disks. The advantage is that with the XP disks from Lenovo, the drivers come as part of the installation.

nut cracker wrote:are there any particular issues I'll need to watch out for?

XP does not come with native SATA drive support (just one of its many annoyances), so you will need to pay attention to that as your X61 will have a SATA drive.

Most of the current XP installation explanations cover off what to do about it.

Cheers,

Bill B.

The last time I looked, downgrades were only available until 12/31/08

I think the just extended the XP downgrade to the end of July 2009.