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Before I Do Something Stupid.....

Devildog73

Devildog73

SOH Staff
Staff member
Can some of you computer gurus tell me if I can load XP on my Dell Vista laptop?

I am ready to throw that cow out the window! :banghead:


It is a 1721 Inspiron with AMD Turion 2.4Gig duo 64 CPU
Has 2 Gig of RAM
Has ATI Radeon 1270 vid card
Internal Verizon wireless adapter
Onboard conexant sound
V92 modem
Wireless adapter
LAN ethernet adapter

It loads like molasses in January in northern Canada. It shuts down even slower.

What a piece of @#$%^%&*((^#(*Y#$Y)(!!!!!!!!
 
Format the hardrive with third-party partition manager software (Use NTFS formatting) and load up your new OS.
 
My lap top has Vista on it and it is absolutely the most frustrating OS I've ever seen. I sure wish I could have got one with XP on it. What was MS thinking?
 
I second that Jagd, I've tried to change the drivers for my ATI card in a Toshiba Satellite but it wont let me even after uninstalling the old CFS2-unfriendly version :censored::banghead::isadizzy:
 
DD73,
The biggest problems most people have with changing OS's is first, whether the computer is capable of running the new os and second, finding drivers for the new os so all the bits on the computer work.

Check Dell's site.

Good luck,


Geary
 
Okay, I am on the laptop typing right now. It is XP now. I found all of the drivers except one for a data interface "other devices". It boots up quickly, it functions properly like XP should.

I think that the data interface drivers missing are to the Verizon onboard wireless card I had installed at the factory. I have a wireless n adapter and a broadcom ethernet, so I don't really need the verizon wireless adapter. At the time I ordered the laptop from Dell, I had verizon everything in the house, hard phone, dsl, cells. The laptop would have been an additional cell line and $70/month for access.

Anyway, now it is time to reload all of my CFS2 theaters. I will install pristine CFS2 into the various theaters and then network with our main pc that has all of the addons and copy everything over onto the laptop installs.

If any of you have a Dell Inspiron 1720 or 1721 with Vista and want to downgrade to XP, I have all of the drivers you need. I will be happy to send you the link that has them all in a zip, or burn a DVD or CD for you.
 
Vista is a memory hog, and the more memory you have installed the better it runs. Also the more programs you install the more the memory gets used up (this is the same in XP) as they are set to start at boot-up. Setting these programs to not starting at boot-up or to manual start will help.
The cool thing about Vista is if you have a Flash Drive card you can enable ReadyBoost and plug the card into an unused usb port and this will act like more memory and will help with performance. Vista does manage memory better then XP will ever do, and with the release of SP1 for vista it has gotten even better.:applause:
I've been using Vista since the first public RC build and will not go back to XP. I do have a dual boot setup with XP but I have not booted into XP in over 6 months. As Geary posted some older systems will not run Vista very well, but I can remember the same about XP when it was first released.:kilroy:

Joe
 
I would say, that I havn´t any problem´s with vista, cfs2 run´s fine on vista 32 -and 64 also (on my PC). -The big -"but" -you need up-to-date hardware, a lot of ram ( for vista minimum 2GB - for vista64 I use 8GB) a fast CPU and a up-to-date graphic card. I thing the most laptop´s have only the minimum of all the sources, so Vista run´s bad , slow or with problem´s. I personaly use XP on my laptop, you can instal XP normaly without problem´s on all pc´s and laptops that can handle vista.

wolfi
 
My laptop was built for Vista. I had problems with it holding onto my home network. So far with XP the network has been stable. I have booted and shut down several times with updates loading. CFS and CFS2 have run flawlessly on both since SP1 came out on Vista, but Vista, as has been stated, is a resource hog. I had 2 Gigs of RAM and 4090 (max allowed) of readyboost on an 8 Gig fast flash stick. When I would boot up, I could go make a pot of coffee and drink my first cup before Vista was ready to use. It would take that and half again more to shut down.

I have been using Vista on that laptop for about 18 months. I have System Mechanic running to clean up clutter, defrag HD, and Memory, and correct any registry mistakes. It helped some, but it still took forever and I hate having a flash stick always hanging out of my laptop. I have had to replace them twice, and one, a 4 Gig stick is now only a 2 Gig stick from being bent while hanging out of the laptop usb port.

I can tell you all this; XP is better for me. I have continued with XP on the main PC and used Vista long enough to see the comparison. I will stay with XP on both.
 
Devildog73 said:
...When I would boot up, I could go make a pot of coffee and drink my first cup before Vista was ready to use. It would take that and half again more to shut down...
Click to expand...


:eek: i feel your pain :banghead:...i couldn't tolerate that more than one occurance... any OS on my machines would go :pop4: the first time that happened.
 
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