Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

[HELP!] Downgrading Windows from Vista to XP

Aug 6, 2007 8:21PM PDT

Hello everyone,

I have ordered a Dell XPS M1330 laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium as the operating system.

I am a student and will be predominantly using the notebook for campus related activities. My university does not fully support Windows Vista, so I will have to downgrade my operating system to Windows XP Professional with SP2.

A genuine, academically licensed version of Windows XP Professional will be provided by the university. However, with all the news I'm hearing about Windows Vista, I want to know about the potential problems that I will be faced with in doing the same (hardware/driver issues and the like...).

Is there an easy way to make the transition?

Thanks in advance for the help. If there's more information needed from me, I will be glad to provide the same.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
done
Aug 31, 2007 8:58AM PDT

hey thunderhead1,
I got my XPS M1330 3 days ago, pre-installed with Vista Ultimate and i set up dual boot by installing XP onto separate partition. works fine. had to disable SATA support in BIOS but no issues so far and Vista works well to date.
You CAN install XP after Vista without too many issues (other than the obvious hunting down XP drivers). still have to sort camera driver yet. Sad Got help from APC site. http://www.apcstart.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp
cheers

- Collapse -
M1330 sound
Sep 15, 2007 1:04PM PDT

So did anyone ever figure out how to get sound working in windows XP on a M1330 ? I just installed XP and that is the only driver that I still need.

- Collapse -
Read this...
Sep 16, 2007 10:08PM PDT

closely and carefully, and you'll get everything you need.

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&thread.id=253132

Now, I need help with this issue:

Hi all,

I have a brand new XPS M1330. No matter how I seem to adjust the settings of the microphone array, it never reaches an acceptable level of sensitivity. I am not able to hold video calls over the internet because the folks at the other end can't hear me unless I get really close and talk loudly.

Can someone tell me what exactly I must do/what settings I must modify to increase its sensitivity? I have already tried a lot of combinations of settings from the control panel for rectifying this.

Thanks.

- Collapse -
got the working for Windows XP!
Sep 17, 2007 7:55PM PDT