installing xp

papa_lazarou

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Hi all,

As I've bought my girlfriend a new lappy for christmas she is giving her old one to her daughter. However I would like to get rid of the godawful vista and put something more manageable on it. The laptop is a cheap acer and very little memory so it runs at a seriously slow pace. anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes to boot! Obviously there is a load of crap on there as well.

Is it as simple as formatting it and installing xp from a cd then installing the drivers afterwards? If so I was thinking of putting a wanted up on the classifieds for a disk.

Thanks in advance,

Shaun.
 
Yes, it's that simple, though you need a license key with the disc (you probably understand this but I thought I'd just make sure).
 
Thanks, yes I appreciate I need a license key and a install disk. I'll have a go advertising on here for a cheap copy.

Thanks again.

Shaun.
 
However I would like to get rid of the godawful vista and put something more manageable on it. The laptop is a cheap acer and very little memory so it runs at a seriously slow pace. anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes to boot! Obviously there is a load of crap on there as well.

That's down to the mess acer made, not Vista.

It is as simple as installing from disk and then installing the drivers afterwards but one problem you may encounter is that some of the components don't have Windows XP drivers. If this is an early vista laptop (it sounds like it might be if the hardware is that inadaquate) then you'll probably be able to find something but if it's a later one (2009-2010) then it may end up with some bits not working.

Check the acer site for it and see if that has the drivers first.
 
Which Acer model do you have ?
I would also find out how much memory you currently have against what is the max allowed and investigate the cost of upgrading the memory to allow Vista to run acceptably. (If so it may be worth looking at upgrading to 7 rather than downgrading to XP )
 
If all you want to use the Laptop for is surfing the internet and basic office functions then consider using a version of Linux. easy to install and use also a lot less prone to viruses.

For a low spec LAptop have a look at Lubuntu as I have it running quite happily on a 300mhz machine with 200m memory and a 12Gig hard disk

Advantage is its free.
 
If all you want to use the Laptop for is surfing the internet and basic office functions then consider using a version of Linux. easy to install and use also a lot less prone to viruses.

For a low spec LAptop have a look at Lubuntu as I have it running quite happily on a 300mhz machine with 200m memory and a 12Gig hard disk

Advantage is its free.

And disadvantage is that it's buggy and incomplete, and you have to muck around with the command line and it's completely opaque commands or config files even to do mundane tasks.

And I'm pretty sure your 300Mhz machine is only fit for autonomous usage I've tried Xubuntu on both a 630Mhz machine and a 900Mhz machine and neither were sufficiently fast for main computer use.
 
And disadvantage is that it's buggy and incomplete, and you have to muck around with the command line and it's completely opaque commands or config files even to do mundane tasks.

And I'm pretty sure your 300Mhz machine is only fit for autonomous usage I've tried Xubuntu on both a 630Mhz machine and a 900Mhz machine and neither were sufficiently fast for main computer use.


Brainwashed by Redmond !

I suggested Lubuntu for Browsing and Basic Office work. You do not need to muck around with the command line and it's completely opaque commands or config files to achieve either, It even managed to set up the WiFi (with encryption) as part of the install.
 
I suggested Lubuntu for Browsing and Basic Office work. You do not need to muck around with the command line and it's completely opaque commands or config files to achieve either, It even managed to set up the WiFi (with encryption) as part of the install.

Sorry, but I only use my Linux netbook for browsing and I've had to muck around with the command line/config files several times. The original Xandros install just collapsed (a flash update did it I think) and I replaced it with Xubuntu. With something like Xubuntu there doesn't even seem to be GUI-based way to edit the start menu!

I've installed different versions of linux on different computers and I've never had a system that worked 100% and those problems I have managed to solve have almost invariably involved following step by step solutions because there was no way I could work out what the random jumble of consonants presented on screen meant.

Just look at the usage figures, if something was good enough for basic users and cheaper than all of the competition then it would be on 30%+ of computers on sale today, there are plenty of retailers looking to cut their costs at the moment.
 
You will also need all the drivers (chipset, graphics, network, audio, touchpad and so on), you should be able to get them off the Acer website. Try to follow this route when installing stuff:
Windows-->Chipset drivers-->all other drivers.
 

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