Installing Win XP on a New Computer

[Shinji-kun]

I looked in various computer sites and couldn't find a clear answer. How do you install windows XP on a computer that would normally use Vista or 7? I heard that you have to switch the hard drive to a different mode and install more drivers.

Anyway, I heard that XP outperforms vista on identical hardware. That says a lot.

[Ghitulescu]

There are answers, I found them myself when I changed my laptop from Vista to XP, try google.
The only problem are the drivers, it might be that there are no drivers for some devices. Bad luck then. Try W7, it seems to be equal to XP and it supports by default many new devices.

[Midzuki]

Try W7, it seems to be equal to XP and it supports by default many new devices.

XP doesn't :cool: have those annoying "library folders", and Se7en doesn't have the Classic Start Menu :mad: . Of course, one can make Windows 7 at least look like Windows 2000 :devil: :D , but that's not a very-trivial task. :(

[Usedocne]

I looked in various computer sites and couldn't find a clear answer. How do you install windows XP on a computer that would normally use Vista or 7? I heard that you have to switch the hard drive to a different mode and install more drivers.

Anyway, I heard that XP outperforms vista on identical hardware. That says a lot.

Are you talking about dual-booting? If so, then maybe have a read of this (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html).

[CpT]

I looked in various computer sites and couldn't find a clear answer. How do you install windows XP on a computer that would normally use Vista or 7? I heard that you have to switch the hard drive to a different mode and install more drivers.
Anyway, I heard that XP outperforms vista on identical hardware. That says a lot.

The only reason you would need additional drivers during the xp install is if you're running raid, or the drives are in AHCI mode via the bios.
If you're running neither the install should work fine.

But as Ghitulescu said, check for xp driver availability first.
After you complete the xp install you may find your pc has hardware "sound card - network card ect" that lacks xp driver support.

Slightly OT.
If you're looking for a 64bit os go for windows 7 64. Just make sure you're running 4+ gigs of ram.

[Blue_MiSfit]

There's some confusion here. Let me clear the waters :)

1) "switch the hard drive to a different mode" - This is sort of correct. XP doesn't natively support AHCI, which is an interface for natively using SATA controllers. Most motherboards ship with the BIOS set to "IDE Compatibility" mode, even if it's a system preconfigured for Vista or 7. So, just check the BIOS.

XP will work with AHCI, you just need to either A) put the driver on a floppy (yes, a floppy, NOT a flash drive), or B) slipstream the driver into an ISO image of your XP disc using nLite or a similar tool (not too difficult), and burn a new copy

2) Additional drivers - This is also sort of correct. XP will install and boot up on most any new machine these days. XP doesn't come with new drivers, so you will in fact have to install things like your motherboard chipset, video card, network interface(s), audio, etc. Vista / 7 come with tons of drivers, so most of this stuff WORKS out of the box. It's still best practice to manually upgrade all the drivers anyway though.

My SOP for this is to make sure I have networking drivers available on a flash drive before I nuke the system and install XP. That way I can download whatever I need once XP is installed. Some devices may not support XP at all, but I doubt this :)

3) Higher performance with XP - yeah, maybe by a tiny bit, in benchmarks. In the real world, everything is faster on 7 because of SuperFetch, GPU rendered desktop, etc... One can also say that Windows 2000 is faster than XP :devil:

Stick with Windows 7 unless you have a very specific reason to run XP. You'll be a lot happier :)

Derek

[Video Dude]

I heard that you have to switch the hard drive to a different mode
Newer hard drives may use Advanced Format, which uses 4K sectors instead of 512B sectors. Windows 7 has native support for Advanced Format, XP does not. If you use Advanced Format on XP the drive will perform very slow.

Western Digital hard drives with Advanced Format have a jumper you need to switch if you want to use XP. Then partition, format, and install XP.

[Ghitulescu]

Some devices may not support XP at all, but I doubt this :)
My laptop has the same flash-card reader as another one. Mine came configured for Vista, the other one (double price) too, but it could be "downgraded" to XP (mine too, but that would cost me an additional 150€). While most drivers for the "elder brother/s" could fit mine, the card reader driver refused to install, as the PCI Id was slightly different. I changed this Id in the driver to match my device and it installed ok. But this required hacking.

Therefore it is and will always be a good practice to write down all the info one could get about the hardware, then to go "hunting drivers", before installing the last-but-one generation of software.

Besides, the sound card drivers were taken from HP. Which company provides drivers that install only on HP laptops/PCs, so an additional hacking was also needed. Similar practices have Sony and Dell, and probably many others.

[CpT]

As Blue_MiSfit said, stick with or get windows 7.

Performance wise -> I was a xp die hard fan and still run it on a few machines.
Xp is better than vista for sure but windows 7 really run's well and in imo is better than both xp/vista.

There's several machines here that were built at the same time, using the same exact hardware.
A few have win7 32bit a few have xp32. They all get the same fps during encodes. However the 64bit workstations with a 64bit x264 generally get a few more fps depending on the media.