How To Get XP On A New Computer

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Since there were some folks relatively recently who inquired about getting a new Non-Vista computer (plus Gordon who retrofitted his new system to run XP), I thought I'd post a link to this article. It contains a useful table of all manufacturers who currently still offer XP (albeit, temporarily) when you order a new system from them. Here's a snippet:

Get yourself an XP system while you still can

With Windows XP scheduled to disappear from store shelves on June 30, time is running out to buy a computer with that venerable OS preinstalled.

As manufacturers stop producing XP drivers, finding hardware that still supports XP is becoming a challenge, but I've produced one last shopping guide for you before the clock runs out.

...

When you buy a new computer, participating companies may (a) include a copy of XP in the box, (b) include a special "downgrade disk," which I'll describe below, or (c) make you buy XP through a completely separate ordering process. It's the manufacturer's choice, not yours.

Gordon, sounds like maybe you should've purchased your new system from a manufacturer who fell into category 'b' -- might've saved you some grief. Then again ... maybe not ...

[Ardbeg... innit]

In retrospect, I knew that most of the issues with 'downgrading' (though its commonly used, I dont buy the inference) are driver related. The actual installation of XP was hung up for a while, and the issue turned out to be the harddisk driver.

Dell (after finding the right Tech Support person) actually has a seriously brilliant system for finding drivers. If you enter the computer's Service Tag number, the Dell Support Web page with find ALL of the needed drivers for your specific computer, for whatever operating system drivers are available. If you want to back up to Windows 95, enter the Service Tag number, click Windows 95 in the drop down, and BAM... the drivers are shown, grouped by category.

Vista -> XP changeover is not for the feint of heart, and is a time commitment. I knew that going in, and was prepared for the worst (thought not the actual worst that eventually kicked my balls). If youve upgrade an OS in the past, say Windows 95 to XP, you can probably handle a Vista->XP downgrade. If you havnt and are adventurous, you be prepared! Otherwise dont try.

The comparison to old school car repair would be on the level of ch-ch-changing a transmission (I did that once in High School, didnt know what I was doing and it took me a week).

Edited: One other thought... if you do plan to downgrade, it is MANDATORY that you have access to another separate computer with internet access immediately available (a USB floppy drive would be handy too, in case you have to flash a driver into XP during the boot process)

[♥ COVID-19♥]

XP Lives (beyond June 30 ... for a while, anyway)!

Dell to factory-install Windows XP after June 30

April 25, 2008 (Computerworld) Dell will continue to install Windows XP on new PCs after Microsoft's June 30 retirement date by taking advantage of a little-known clause in the downgrade rights that come with Vista Ultimate and Vista Business.

"Dell has the ability to exercise 'Windows Vista downgrade rights' on your behalf in the factory if ... you'd prefer to have Windows XP Professional preinstalled on your PCs," Dell said on its Web site.

According to Dell, it will factory install XP after June 18 when customers choose a "Vista Ultimate Bonus" or "Vista Business Bonus" option as they configure PCs. Dell will then install Windows XP on the machine, and include backup media for that OS as well as the installation disc for Windows Vista.

[Ardbeg... innit]

As I mentioned elsewhere I recently had to get a new laptop, because my old one crapped out. I looked into Dell's XP offerings, and they had ONE laptop and ONE desktop XP models, both were way down on the technological scale and probably models that are due for retirement. Think stock reduction

[pixiedust]

There is supposed to be a way to run XP in tandem with Vista. I think you somehow do a "dual boot" but they've come out that it removes the "system restore" option on Vista if you add it this way. I'm currently looking for the article I read about it. I am not an expert on this though.

Here you go...

Make your computer dual-boot Vista and XP

By Scott Dunn

It's getting harder to buy a new computer with Windows XP installed and — after Microsoft stops selling XP on June 30, 2008 — it will become nearly impossible.

Fortunately, you can have your XP cake and eat your Vista, too, by setting up your system to boot between the two operating systems.


Add an XP option to your new Vista system

If a new computer arrived in your recent past, or you plan to buy one in the near future, chances are it will come with Windows Vista installed. Although some manufacturers still give you the option of getting XP on your new system, that option is likely to dry up for most consumers later this year when Microsoft stops selling Windows XP.

If you're not ready to dive into Vista all at once, there is an answer: set up your Vista computer to dual-boot between Vista and XP.

In this article, I'll tell you how to make your PC give you a choice between Vista and XP every time you start up. In a separate article coming soon, I'll give you some additional tips that save disk space on a dual-boot system.

Although some sources, such as Computer Shopper Magazine, advise that you need an add-on product like VistaBootPro to dual-boot, you can accomplish the same thing without any additional software other than the two operating systems.

Before starting, make sure you have your Windows XP install discs ready as well as your Windows Vista DVD. In addition, it's a good idea to make a complete system backup before beginning an operation like this.

Once you've laid that groundwork, you're ready to go to work:

Step 1. In Vista, click Start, type diskmgmt.msc, and press Enter. Click Continue if prompted by User Account Control.

Step 2. Right-click a drive and choose Shrink Volume. Specify the amount to shrink, which in this case is the amount you want for your XP partition. At a minimum, you'll need around 2.5GB for XP Pro SP2. I suggest you select a larger partition to leave room for updates and other files that may need to be on the same drive as XP. Because I wanted a 5GB partition, I typed 5000 (representing 5,000 megabytes) in the available box. Click Shrink.

Step 3. Right-click the newly available area and choose New Simple Volume. Follow the steps in the wizard to assign a drive letter now, or wait until the next step. When prompted, check Perform a quick format to format the volume with NTFS.

Step 4. When the wizard is done formatting the new volume, you can assign or rearrange drive letters as needed. For example, ch-ch-changing drive letters may also put your CD/DVD drive in a more logical order.

To do that, right-click a volume or the CD/DVD drive and choose ch-ch-change Drive Letters and Paths. If a volume hasn't got a drive letter yet, click Add. Otherwise, select the drive icon in the dialog box and click ch-ch-change.

If you're rearranging the letters on existing drives, you may need to ch-ch-change the drives in a particular order. Or you may need to give a drive a temporary letter (such as Z) to free up a letter for another drive; you would ch-ch-change the Z drive to something else later. Make your selection and click OK. Repeat for other partitions or drives until you have the order you want.

Step 5. When you're done with your partitioning chores, exit Disk Management. Insert your XP disc into the drive and restart your system, booting from that disk.

Step 6. Follow the steps to install XP. When asked for the target drive, select your new partition and press Enter. Because you already formatted this partition with NTFS, you can skip the formatting step. At the appropriate screen, arrow down to Leave the current file system intact (no ch-ch-changes) and press Enter. Continue the installation process until it's finished and XP has started.

Step 7. Your system now boots to XP, so we'll need to do some fixing to set up a boot menu. Insert your Vista DVD and restart the computer from it. Click Next in the first screen.

Step 8. Don't click Install when prompted! Instead, click Repair Your Computer in the lower-left corner.

Step 9. When the System Recovery Options dialog appears, make sure Microsoft Windows Vista is selected and click Next. In the next dialog box, select the Command Prompt option at the bottom.

Step 10. In the command-prompt window, type the following commands and press Enter after each one:

bootrec.exe /fixMBR
bootrec.exe /fixBoot

Step 11. Close the command prompt and click Restart.

Step 12. When your computer has booted into Vista, click Start, type cmd.exe, and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to make the command window open with elevated privileges. Click Continue, if prompted by User Account Control.

Step 13. Type the following commands in the command window, one at at time, pressing Enter after each one. After each command, you should get the response, "The operation completed successfully." A response of, "The specified entry already exists," is OK, too. If not, retype your command to make sure you've entered it correctly. If Vista is installed on a drive other than c:, ch-ch-change the first command below to use the proper drive letter. The curly braces around {ntldr} in each command must be typed exactly as shown:

bcdedit -set {ntldr} device partition=C:
bcdedit -set {ntldr} path \ntldr
bcdedit -displayorder {ntldr} -addlast
bcdedit -set {ntldr} description "Microsoft Windows XP"

That's it! The next time you restart your system, you should be see a prompt that will let you choose between Vista or XP. Select the one you want and press Enter.

How to customize your boot menu

When you start your dual-boot system, the menu will appear for a few seconds. If you don't press any keys, eventually Windows Vista will start. Fortunately, you can ch-ch-change this if you don't want Vista to be your default operating system. You can also customize the waiting period before the default kicks in.

Here's what to do:

Step 1. Click Start. Type systempropertiesadvanced and press Enter. Click Continue, if prompted by User Account Control.

Step 2. Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.

Step 3. At the top of the dialog box, select the operating system you want to start by default.

Step 4. In the box to the right of Time to display list of operating systems, specify the number of seconds for the options to stay on screen. Click OK.

Microsoft provides documentation of Vista's bcdedit command and its parameters in an article in the Windows Vista Technical Library.

Having two operating systems on the same computer definitely takes a little extra disk space. In a future column, I'll show you some ways to make the two operating systems share some common resources to save on storage.

[pixiedust]

Sorry for posting two long articles - but here might be an answer to some more questions. I belong to this listservice called "windowssecrets" www.windowssecrets.com - They send a newsletter once a week with good info on it. I thought you might find this article interesting too.

Colleen

Keep XP fresh until Windows 7 arrives
By Scott Dunn

When Windows XP was released, wireless routers were rare, few cell phones supported e-mail, and YouTube was just a gleam in some PayPal employees' eyes.

But like a fabled perpetual motion machine, XP keeps on going and going — and if you follow some simple guidelines, the OS will keep running in top condition until Vista's successor is ready in 2010.


XP is an operating system with serious legs

Microsoft may not have planned it this way, but XP could end up rivaling NT and 2000 as the version of Windows with the longest lifespan. According to recent news reports, Dell, Lenovo, and other computer manufacturers will continue to sell new PCs running Windows XP well past Microsoft's June 30 cutoff date.

PC vendors will do so by invoking a downgrade plan that lets them ship a system with Windows XP installed as long as the customer is also paying for an upgrade to Vista Business or Ultimate editions, either of which is included in each box.

Of course, computer manufacturers aren't the only ones looking for ways to extend XP's usefulness. One pundit has predicted that Microsoft itself is going to fast-track Windows 7 to get customers to leapfrog over the unpopular Vista and go directly from XP to the next version. In fact, according to the technology site Ars Technica, one major American corporation, General Motors, is considering doing just that.

Eight simple rules for keeping XP rejuvenated

If you're one of the many people who plan to stick with XP as long as possible, you need to take a few relatively painless steps to keep that aging OS perky. Here are my eight rules for extending XP's usefulness to 2010 and beyond.

Rule 1: The latest ain't always the greatest. As a rule, older operating systems were designed to work with older software. Unless you need some utterly indispensible feature found only in the latest Adobe Creative Suite or Microsoft Office 2007, stick to the preceding releases. Not only will the senior apps run faster, most of the kinks and bugs have already been worked out of them.

If your hardware and software work fine as is, don't bother upgrading any drivers, either. At the same time, driver upgrades often smooth out minor problems that you've just grown used to.

One way to check for out-of-date device drivers is to use the online scanner from Driver Updates. (Note that using this service requires running an ActiveX component in Internet Explorer.)

Should you discover that one of your drivers is out of date, go to the manufacturer's site to find and download the latest version available (but skip any beta releases). Remember to back up your system before installing the new driver in case it causes problems.

Rule 2: Make an exception for security. Set Rule 1 aside when it comes to your security software and services. Update your virus and spyware definitions frequently. Get the latest security updates for your browser and for QuickTime, Flash, and other media players as well. Some of the dangers of unpatched software are explained in the April 17 Top Story.

Rule 3: Stay young and beautiful. The last exception to Rule 1 is to make a cautious investment in a handful of utilities that improve and modernize XP. You'll find a number of free and low-cost programs that approximate or even duplicate Vista's best new features without having to invest in a whole new operating system.

For a guide to applications that give XP handy features of Vista's Business edition, see my July 12, 2007, column. To read about ways to add features from Vista Enterprise or Ultimate editions to XP, check out my July 19, 2007, column.

Rule 4: Shop carefully for new hardware. If your XP system needs a processor, memory, or other hardware upgrade to keep it from bogging down on your applications, there is no reason why you can't swap out an aging component or add some RAM.

However, since some new components are designed with Vista in mind, make sure the products you buy work as advertised under XP. Check the manufacturers' site for XP driver downloads before you make your purchase, and look for online reviews that mention the products' XP compatibility.

Rule 5: Don't let startup stuff slow you down. It seems like every program you install these days wants to start along with Windows. These auto-start apps are usually represented by an icon in your system tray (the area near your clock). Even if your system has oodles of memory, these little doodads can slow you down without offering any real value.

An excellent tool for finding what gizmos are starting up each time you log into Windows is Autoruns, available from Microsoft (originally from Sysinternals). Simply uncheck the item to disable it from starting, or select an entry and delete it to effect a more permanent removal.

If you can't figure out what a particular startup app does, right-click its entry in the Autoruns window and choose Search Online. This performs a Google search (rather than a Live search, which you might expect). Scour the results to find out whether the program has a legitimate reason for needing to run all the time.

If the Web search isn't helpful in rooting out a program's purpose, check the list of common startup applications maintained by Paul Collins to figure out what's getting started with Windows.

Finally, the free version of WinPatrol can warn you whenever a program attempts to add an item to your startup list.

Clear the clutter from XP's many cubbyholes

Rule 6: Save on disk space. A problem that plagues nearly all aging systems is the pack-rat syndrome. Just using a PC day to day causes an ever-increasing amount of data to be stored in ever-shrinking disk space. These tips will help you recover some of that precious drive capacity.

Eliminate hibernation files. XP's hibernation feature stores everything currently in RAM onto your hard disk, which allows you to return to your session more quickly after a period of inactivity. Unfortunately, hibernation needs about the same amount of disk space as your current amount of RAM (for example, 1GB of disk space if you have 1GB of RAM).

If you don't use XP's hibernate feature very often, you can save the space occupied by the hiberfil.sys file: choose Start, Run; type powercfg.cpl; click the Hibernate tab; uncheck Enable hibernation; and click OK.


Don't let iTunes make you hear double. If you use Windows Media Player to rip CDs to your computer in the Windows Media Audio (.wma) format and then decide to give iTunes a try, beware! iTunes will convert those songs into its Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format, resulting in duplicate files for every song iTunes manages. To avoid that, use a single music format (such as .mp3) that all media players can handle.


Store stuff online. Another way to save on disk space is to transfer files to an online storage service. You may already store your e-mail and photos online. Yahoo's Flickr service lets you store as many photos as you like, but unless you upgrade to a paid account, you'll never be able to see more than the last 100.

Google's Picasa Web albums provide 1GB of free storage. And if you're willing to pay, you can get a whole lot more storage space than that.

Of course, you don't need to limit yourself to mail and photos. A number of sites offer free or low-cost online storage. For example, Mozy gives you 2GB of free storage through its MozyHome service. MozyPro accounts start at U.S. $4.50 per gigabyte per month.

Many sites, including ElephantDrive, Omnidrive, and Box, provide only 1GB of free storage. Each service offers larger storage options at varying prices.

Finally, IBackup has economy plans that charge only $1 per gigabyte per month (and less for annual rates). By comparison, the popular Data Deposit Box charges $2 monthly for each gigabyte you use.


Offload files to a new drive. Even if you've purchased a new hard drive to expand your storage space, you may still be running out of room on your Windows drive. Fortunately, you can move your virtual memory paging file, Internet Explorer cache files, My Documents, and other system files to another drive or partition. For step-by-step information, see my column from the Feb. 28 issue.

Rule 7: Keep it clean. It makes no sense to hang onto useless junk files that Windows uses for its own purposes. Fortunately, Windows' own Disk Cleanup tool can clear out this system clutter. For details on how to customize Disk Cleanup for maximum efficiency, see Fred Langa's Mar. 13 column in the paid portion of the newsletter.

Disk Cleanup also removes the outdated restore points created by System Restore that you no longer need. In the Disk Cleanup window, click the More Options tab. Under System Restore, click Clean up and confirm that you want to delete all but the current restore point.

Unfortunately, Disk Cleanup misses certain temp files. To make a little batch file that clears these folders, open Notepad and type the following:

del /s /q "C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\Local Settings\Temp\*.*"

Replace yourname with the name of the account you've logged into and adjust the drive letter or path as needed. Save the file with a .cmd or .bat extension (for example, killtemp.bat) and put the file or a shortcut to it in your Startup group (Start, All Programs, Startup). This way, it will run each time you log in to your Windows account.

Rule 8. Do your chores. Joan Rivers described my attitude to PC maintenance when she said, "I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again."

Odious as PC housekeeping can be, get into the disk-maintenance habit: make backups, defrag your hard disks, and check them for errors. Fortunately, you can use XP's Scheduled Tasks utility (Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Scheduled Tasks) to automate or partially automate these chores by setting the program to give you a gentle reminder.

[Robin Hood]

Just some news I think you all would be interested in knowing, I learned a few days ago about some of the "goodies" that will be Windows 7. Windows 7 will NOT be backwards compatible with any of your XP/Vista software. You will need to run it within an emulator. Essentially Microsuck is doing what Steve Jobs did with the Mac OS X, this will be a complete recode of the OS which has been badly needed for years. Something else I have heard through the grapevine, Windows 7 will not be a buy it once OS, you will have to pay for a license for each separate part of the OS you wish to use, it also will not be an open ended license, it will have a "time limit" per se, so after a set time period you will have to "renew" your license with Microsuck.

These two things along with the fact that Vista just sucks ass, I think will be enough to have more and more people looking for other OS options, i.e. Linux or Mac. I think Microsuck has finally went too far and this will be the final nail in the proverbial coffin. I can only pray. :-)

[♥ COVID-19♥]

They are going the licensing route as many other software companies are because it helps the revenue flow when sales decline or flatten out (my employer follows a similar licensing model). Doing this for an application is one thing, but doing it with an operating system is outrageous. I look forward to the outcry from major customers.

[Ardbeg... innit]

Given Micro$oft's reputation for meeting its timelines, there should be plenty of time for the big corporate users to rise up and squash this before it comes to fruition.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

This recent BusinessWeek article indicates that corporate America is more receptive to the Macintosh these days.

[pixiedust]

My stepson has a Mac and that's my only real exposure in years to a Mac system. We bought him Safari for it and Microsoft Office too. It's a very nice machine. Someone actually gave it to him for free. He did a little work for it. Randy is leaning towards one if we get another system. I'm not as sure but could be swayed. If Microsoft does that, I'll be more easily swayed in that direction. Greedy bastards! Like we already don't shell out enough money to keep our computer running.

Colleen

[Robin Hood]

In the last year, I have spent a grand total of ZERO on software, however you have to willing to learn a little bit and not be afraid to step out of the comfort zone. I am running Ubuntu Linux and have been using nothing but free open source software. The switch wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it was going to be. Sure there are a few things that were tougher than others, however I have yet to have something hosed up that wasn't well documented with step by step how to fix it guides on the internet. I have my MOM running a Linux box now and she loves it. I have yet to come up with anything that windows can do better than Linux. So far I have ONE software program that will not run in WINE, it is a Flash authoring program called SwishMAX.

People fear the unknown, Linux for the most part is unknown. If you are curious about it at all I highly suggest you go to www.ubuntu.com and download the LiveCD image burn it to a disc and run it. It will not ch-ch-change your windows installation, but will give you a peek into a better world :-) If you like it, you can install it. If anyone ever needs help let me know I am more than happy to talk you through a basic installation over the phone.