X201 and windoze XP SP3?

[peter-h]

Has anybody done this downgrade, and ended up with everything still working?

I cannot run win7 because some important apps I have will not work under it.

[jdrou]

Depends what you mean by everything. I have everything that I need working with XP on my X201.
I don't have a WWAN or fingerprint reader and also have not installed the security chip (TPM) driver.
Modem, sound, graphics, wireless LAN, wired LAN all work fine. For the graphics you need to make sure you have a recent BIOS update; the early versions would not allow the graphics chip to use the full 1 GB of graphics memory it is designed to support under XP.
If you have an SSD or a HDD using large sectors you could have issues.

[dr_st]

Assuming your Win7 is Pro/Ultimate, you may consider downloading Microsoft VirtualPC and running WinXP in virtualization (aka "XP Mode") for those apps that don't work.

[jdrou]

Yes but it depends on what kind of apps. Anything that needs 3D graphics won't work in Virtual PC/XP Mode.

[Bánh mì]

Has anybody done this downgrade, and ended up with everything still working?

I cannot run win7 because some important apps I have will not work under it.

Why do you want to do that? Just run XP Mode and you can have the best of both. BTW runs find in XP Mode.

[pianowizard]

I cannot run win7 because some important apps I have will not work under it.

Would these apps run under Vista? Perhaps that's the newest Windows version that they support?

Since there is a 90% chance that you will say "Vista sucks!", let me say this preemptively: It used to suck, but it's now great. I avoided Vista like the plague for 3 years because of my bad experience with the beta and RTM versions back in 2006 and 2007. Then, earlier this year, I was "forced" to use it and was pleasantly surprised that Vista SP2 ran pretty much as smoothly as 7 and perhaps better than XP.

[peter-h]

I don't need fingerprints or the security chip, but would definitely want the GPRS/3G radio ("WAN"?) and WIFI.

An SSD should not be an issue; they emulate an EIDE or SATA interface. I have installed various SSDs in XP machines (desktop and laptop).

AFAIK, the reason that app doesn't run under W7 is because (like many) it stores data under Program Files (which a purist will correctly say is dubious programming practice, but it has the benefit that everything is in one place and you can sync the app to multiple laptops very easily which would be hard/impossible if it used registry entries) and is hard coded to not go to Program Data where Vista and W7 forces that stuff to go. It also stores certain files in c:\windows. Sloppy programming, sure, but a computer's sole purpose is to run apps that have a value to the user

I have a X60S with XP which uses a Sierra GPRS/3G chip and I would guess the 201 will use a similar chip.

[jdrou]

If you turn off UAC there should be no problem with programs storing data in Program Files in Win 7/Vista.

[peter-h]

That has been tried but it doesn't work, probably due to some other stuff which this software does when it comes to storing data in certain places. XP is the only way...

Anyway, it sounds like XP runs on the X201 apart from the GPRS/3G radio. What is the actual chipset used in that? I can do some research on that.