 | 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 |
I just got a Dell Inspiron 531 computer and i am having problems. every time i turn it on and try to do anything with vista it freezes up. can anyone tell how i can fis this or how to put my old XP on it.
Discussion is locked
1st of all you need to be more specified in terms to give us your pc specs espcially how much ram you got & is your pc vista compatible at the first place.
well i know next to nothing about computers, i think it has 2GB of ram but i could be wrong. and it seems that its not only when i do something with vista but when i do anything like open internet it freezes.
you say that you just got it, if it came with Vista preinstalled and has been like this from new return it for one that works.
thats what im probably going to do but in the meantime i wanna know how i got screwed.
supplied to answer your questions.
But seeing it's under warranty I wouldn't recommend messing with it by installing XP, as that may void your warranty.
In addition, you would need to find all the drivers required before starting. If you have a SATA hdd, SATA drivers for your hard drive are required before XP instalation.
to Red Rover..or Red Lover..??..If You had been following the Vista info supplied by cnet, You would know to go into Your control panel and under the security settings, turn off the User Account Control. Will probably solve Your problems with vista.
I know exactly how you feel. I have been working with the Windows environment since its 1st version (Windows 3.11). Windows Vista is a major CRAP. It takes a lot of resources for doing something very little, which is more than likely one of the reason why it freezes up so frequently The best operating system by Microsoft was with its predecessor, Windows XP Professional. According to Microsoft, Vista was supposed to solve many of their vulnerability issues.
I have never had any vulnerability issues with XP, since I have never used Administrative privileges to surf the Internet. My browser?s settings , Active X and sometimes Java depending on the site (Hacker), have always been turned off, many of the Windows Services (i.e. DCOM, etc.) have also been manually disabled, and File access permission in User mode has been filtered including (i.e. Permission No Access) to certain systems files (i.e. Registry). I am running a commercial grade PC firewall to complement Windows native XP firewall in addition to the anti-virus software. I have never had any problem with damages to my Windows environment.
I have noticed Microsoft has taken the end-user flexibility out of Vista, which makes it much harder to use it as tool for us ?technical user?. With XP, I was able to modify the status of Drivers and make changes to the system dynamically because I was able to get key run-time system information. Well, not anymore.
I have just formatted my drive and re-install Windows XP Professional.
Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic