I confess, I'm not much of a PC user (more of a Mac guy), but my office has asked me to remove vista from one machine and install XP. Any advice on how best to do this? Just go in with the XP discs and do a fresh install?
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Re: removing vista
Thu, January 3, 2008 - 7:59 PM...yup... just backup anything you'd want to keep... ...do a new formatting, too, if you like. -
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Re: removing vista
Fri, January 4, 2008 - 1:03 AMPartition the drive before you format to insure no residual of anything from vista including viruses.
also, after you install xp, dont go on the internet for anything till you install the antivirus. -
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Re: removing vista
Fri, January 4, 2008 - 6:05 AMWhen installing winxp, (that is if you are running the computer from the power off state with the xp cd already in the cd drive) you first get to the blue setup screen.
The next screen should be the agreement page. The one you have to use "page down" then hit F8.
After that it should ask if you want a fresh copy of winxp, you need to hit Esc to say yes.
the next screen will be the partition page.
You need to delete the partition in this page.
highlight the drive to be partitioned, then Select/type the D key for delete.
Follow the directions. You will be back to the partition screen again. highlight the drive you want to partition, (usually the drive that is unpartitioned because if done right, you deleted that partition.) then hit the enter key.
You are on you way after that.
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Re: removing vista
Fri, January 4, 2008 - 6:12 AMFdisk, partition and Format.
You may need to consider whether the space is a FAT 32 or NTFS ( that horrid new file allocation format Microsoft came out with). I forget if the disk can be converted back to the FAT 32 from NTFS.
It may matter to your guy. I think NTFS sucks the bone big time.
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Re: removing vista
Fri, January 4, 2008 - 6:21 AMEither way you should do fine. just install all of the Microsoft updates from their site and you are finished for the most part.
thanks for pointing that out Cliff.
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Re: removing vista
Mon, January 7, 2008 - 12:05 PMI think programs such as Partition Magic come in when trying to convert back to FAT32 (note you need space on the drive to do this conversion, don't try it on a drive with 3% of its dirve as Free Space, doesn't work ... oops).
FAT32 has the drawback of only being able to have a 2 GB maximum file size which is a problem with DVD images and the like that can easily be 7 GB in size, hence I use NTFS (New Technolgies File System), and since the WinXP CD is a boot disk it has not been a problem for me. I know I recently got a USB drive (500 GB) that said "Disk Full" when I tried to copy over a 4.2 GB file, hence I formatted it to NTFS in WInXP and the files fit fine now.
Also if you want to share files with MACs the program I've used to set up server space for my MAC on my PC required NTFS.
Side note, original WinXP disks I think had a partition limit of 137 GB, so if they can't find their extra space that might be what happened.
*quote*
INTRODUCTION
This article describes the Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) support for ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) disk drives that can increase the capacity of your hard disk to more than the current 137 gigabyte (GB) limit.
Note Windows XP does not support 48-bit LBA support unless you are running Windows XP SP1. If you want to use 48-bit LBA support, you must apply Windows XP SP1 or later. Windows XP Media Center Edition and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition already include SP1.
*end quote*
Reference: support.microsoft.com/kb/303013
Best of luck,
David -
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Re: removing vista
Mon, January 7, 2008 - 1:49 PMAfter all your wonderful help and insight, a skilled volunteer came into the office and took care of everything. Thank you for the knowledge, though!
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