Living with Two Operating Systems: Switching to Windows XP

Living with Two Operating Systems:  Switching to Windows XP
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I bought my laptop so long ago that Windows Vista didn’t exist. It wasn’t an option. Personal Computers came with XP and nothing else. Man, those were the days. Vista had just begun to take over the market when my partner graduated from college and when started shopping for a PC to run his audio engineering software on. We didn’t know much about it at first, and to be honest, we didn’t do any research into Vista before we purchased his HP Slimline Pavilion. Looking at the computer in the store it appeared to have it all - it was fast, had a lot of memory, was small, and came with a small price tag. But when we got it home we discovered something sinister: Windows Vista wasn’t compatible with any of his software. Nothing worked and our solution for months was to complain to anyone that would listen.

College was over and we moved back home with the computer in tow. The HP wasn’t touched for months between the move and settling and it was easy to forget the maladies of Vista when it sat it a box. Then one day my old friend and resident computer geek offered to switch Vista out for XP. Switch Vista to XP? Was this possible? The computer quickly switched hands and we put our trust in our friend.

I’m not going to pretend I know what he did to make it work, I just know that he made it work. When we got the computer back there were no partitions or trace remnants of Vista to be found. All the drivers were updated and all his files were safely returned. We thanked him with a weekend of good food and good drink and made sure he didn’t go home until his waistline burst with gluttony.

It has been almost a year since we switch operating systems and we’ve never regretted our decision. There was a minor glitch with his LightScribe software but after searching out the correct drivers it was corrected and all of his audio software worked without a hitch. He uses the HP daily and has never experienced so much as a hiccup.

This post is part of the series: Living with Two Operating Systems

Living with 2 operating systems has its advantages and disadvantages. Over the last years I have learned to manipulate both Windows XP and Windows Vista and I prefer Windows XP hands down.

  1. My Love Affair with Windows XP