How do I upgrade from Vista to XP?

[Guest guest]

From the Tech Support Pits:From: Re: How do I upgrade from Vista to XP?Dear Webby,

I intended it as a bonus and a perk, when I got one of mysecretaries a brand new Dell laptop. Friday she heaved it through my door and quit.She couldn't get her work done, it made her feel and look

incompetent, etc., etc., etc.I cleaned off my (fairly old) XP laptop and she will be backon Monday, using that machine. Of course, now I am stuckwith the Vista crap. How difficult is it to upgrade it to XP?

I do have an XP CD that belonged to a machine that has beenretired.The data is backed up to DVD, but I don't have a clue about formatting and partitioning, so I would need step by step instructions.

ThanksDear Good for her! She seems to know how to get through to you.Since your data is backed up, all you do is stick the XP set-upCD into the drive, and reboot.

You will be asked highly technical questions, like what yourname is and what you want for the password. And you willhave to hit ENTER a bunch of times. Eventually, XP will be up and running, but most likely it will

not connect to your network. In the days when that XP CDwas made, they didn't have the fast network cards we usenowadays, so the drivers for them are not on that old XP CD.No Panic, though. Open up the shrinkwrapped parcel of CDs

and books that came with the laptop. Yes, I know, nobodyelse looks at that stuff either.In there you will find a black or charcoal gray CD with wordslike " Resources " , or " Drivers " or " Utilities " on it.

It seems Dell knew that sooner or later you would smarten up,and all the XP drivers are there, ready for you. Select Additional Tasks, and follow the prompts.One more reboot, and the network shows up.

While you scratch your head and wonder if that's all there isto it, IGNORE any attempts by Windows to update.Go to http://webby.com/tools

and download the SP3 blocker and the IE7 blocker,and run them. NOW the machine is ready. Let Windows update it allit wants. With an old XP CD it will proabbly take longer toupdate it than it took to install XP, but you can let it do that

in the background, while you work in the foreground.Next, while still in my toolbox, download the Clear Type Font Tuner,Save-My-Desktop, Launchy, and Tweak-UI. The Clear Type Font Tuner makes a huge difference with

today's glossy LCD screens, where they use a glossy appearanceto gloss over the fact, that the resolution is actually quite crappycompared to old-fashioned CRT monitors. Save My Desktop saves your icon placement, in case you

accientally pull up the task bar and they flit all over the place.Launchy lets you hit ALT-SPACEBAR and the first letter of aprogram to launch it. No need to move half a dozen windowsto get at an icon. If you have a wide aspect ratio LCD, with

the bottom third sawed off, you will really appreciate Launchy.TweakUI is for tweaking and tuning the user interface and hasall the advanced controls.There is probably a lot more stuff in the toolbox that you like,

but those are the esentlials. Get those for now and in a fewhours Vista will be just a bad old memory, like messing your diapers once upon a time.Have FUN!DearWebby

-- " Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark. " Rabindranath TagoreDownload Our Toolbar:http://.OurOrganizationToolbar.com