Vista on XP32 - how to downgrade to XP (and is it worth it?)

[urban75]

Hi - and hello to the forum!

After a truly disatrous first attempt to buy an X31 via eBay (see the dreadful evidence here: http://urban75.org/x31.html ), I've just bought a Thinkpad X32 and my first impressions are very positive - it's a lovely looking machine!

The laptop came from a reputable dealer and has a fully licensed copy of Vista Ultimate installed, but I'm thinking that XP would be far faster.

There's a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) XP product key sticker so I assume that I should have no problems using XP, but I'd like some tips please.

If I do decide to downgrade to XP what's the best way of doing it, and how can I ensure that all the IBM drivers and apps will work?

All help appreciated!

[mgo]

Hi - and hello to the forum!

After a truly disatrous first attempt to buy an X31 via eBay (see the dreadful evidence here: http://urban75.org/x31.html ), I've just bought a Thinkpad X32 and my first impressions are very positive - it's a lovely looking machine!

The laptop came from a reputable dealer and has a fully licensed copy of Vista Ultimate installed, but I'm thinking that XP would be far faster.

There's a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) XP product key sticker so I assume that I should have no problems using XP, but I'd like some tips please.

If I do decide to downgrade to XP what's the best way of doing it, and how can I ensure that all the IBM drivers and apps will work?

All help appreciated!

Welcome to the forum. I looked at your X31 ebay pictures. Frightful!

To run Vista satisfactorily, one needs two gig of RAM, and at least a 5400 rpm hard drive. Otherwist Vista will not respond very well.

Also, settings should be in Performance mode and Classic for least amount of slowdown during routine use.

The latest Vista service pack helps speed the operating system up a great deal. Going back to XP is a lot of work and not really worth the effort, in my view. I have run both XP and Vista on identical machines with identical programs for two years and Vista is now my operating system of choice.

It handles RAM better, it loads programs faster, and the screen rendering is superior to XP.

Just run your X31 in "Classic" mode and Windows Explorer in "Classic" mode for best speed.

As I mentioned go to Advanced System Settings and adjust for "best performance". This will make a big difference.

[urban75]

Hi

Cheers for the reply.

How tricky would it be to change the OS to XP?

I don't fancy forking out for an extra GB of RAM and - annoyingly - one of my favourite Palm OS programs won't work under Vista either (NoteStudio).

[mgo]

Hi

Cheers for the reply.

How tricky would it be to change the OS to XP?

I don't fancy forking out for an extra GB of RAM and - annoyingly - one of my favourite Palm OS programs won't work under Vista either (NoteStudio).

If you have important programs that will not run under Vista then that is good reason for moving over to XP. Have you checked with the Palm site (not familiar with that hardware) to see if there is a Vista driver now?

XP isn't too difficult to install, but one MUST have the ethernet drivers for your X31 (downloaded from Lenovo) before installing XP. Move that driver to a USB drive or flash drive for later install to the new XP machine.

XP would not have that and you would not be able to log on to Lenovo for the rest of the features for your machine without that.

When you download the Ethernet driver, make sure you also then go to C:\Drivers and run Setup after unzipping it into your new XP machine.

That driver will be automatically placed in the Drivers folder, but the user must then go there and run the Setup.

Once logged back on to Lenovo with your XP machine download System Update and it will self install. (not necessary to go to Drivers for that one)

ThinkPad System Update will then automatically detect your machine and give you a list of features that you can install, after XP is running.

You will get your other features like audio, etc for XP.

Get ready for a HUGE run of updates & patches from Microsoft unless you have a XP distro with SP3 on it already.

All in all, you're looking at a three hour job, not counting installing your own programs.

Of course, you will need to have your personal documents copied over to another media because installing XP will wipe the drive.

I always recommend having a 3rd party imaging program like Acronis to create a backup of the old setup before doing a operating system switch. Not spending a few dollars for a good imaging program is an invitation to disaster should the new OS install go awry.

[urban75]

Is there no way any kind soul could just send me an X32 XP restore disk that could just do it all in one go?

Or is that too obvious an answer?

[mpcook]

I have an X32. I do not have the X32 disks, I used X31 XP disks which worked just fine. It installed most of the basic drivers and software I needed. The one I had to go get was the wireless driver. This will depend on exactly which wireless card you have. However, with the X31 disks, I was able to use ethernet to get online and download from Lenovo. X31 disks are probably much easier to turn up - post a message on this board and someone will be able to send a copy.

Mike

[urban75]

Cheers - I'll give that a go.

[TdiGuy]

Unfortunantly i do not know of any way to go from vista to XP without loosing data other then by backing up the data first. If you have a win xp cd that is pretty much all you will need after installign winxp go to the ibm site and get the system update utility that will fetch all the utilities for the ibm. You will not have a recovery partition doing it by this method but i didnt get a recovery partition when i used the ibm restore cd (which i thought was weird) with the COA on the computer you should not have to buy XP but you might have to call in to get it activated if the prev owner took down the number and installed it on another computer.