I hate Vista - "Upgrade" to XP

You can install XP.  Just get the drivers, an XP cd and do it.

 

As far as the warranty, I think your hardware is covered, but you might lose all warranty support on all your software installed.  I can't see why it matters to Dell what OS you have if the video card dies.  But if Dell Media Direct, or Adobe fails they won't give you support cause it was designed for VISTA not XP, something like that.

 

Good luck.

 

If you need help installing XP just do a search on these forums and there are many threads explaining what to do and how to do it.  Also many links to proper drivers, etc.

 

 

Fortunately Dell does provide drivers for XP for the 1420, here:

 

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?os=WW1&osl=EN&catid=-1&impid=-1&servicetag=&SystemID=INS_PNT_PM_1420&hidos=WLH&hidlang=en

 

Driver installation described here:

 

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&cs=19&docid=1A0C0937D62A8739E0401E0A55174744&journalid= 4F1F82483DC811DBAE564F9328EE04A4&l=en&s=gen

I just go a new Precision 3600 with Vista. And I absolutely love the Precision as well as Vista. As much of my software doesn't run on Vista, I attempted to have a dual boot system. I knew that in advance and stated that at the time of the order. I'm not yet through with the process. What happened :

 

The XP setup offered me the choice of adding a driver Floppy for SCSI, which i denied, due to not having a floppy, nor SCSI. The setup rather quickly terminated because there was no harddisk found. A bit of research uncovered that the SATA drive requires a driver. Meaning I had to make my own XP Setup CD. The tools : Either XPIsoBuilder or nLite , both downloadable : http://www.winfuture.de/xpisobuilder , http://www.nliteos.com/

 

The first didn't work as it should have done, but the second did. Since the DELL ResourceCD didn't fit the machine at all, neither for Vista, nor XP, I was lucky to have a suitable SATA driver on it. So I got XP booting. As expected in the low screen resolution, without any other hardware than the SATA drive. Lacking a network driver, I wanted to go back to Vista to proceed. There was no dual boot, just XP. Bringing up the device tools (run mmc) showed me that the boot partition was on the XP partition. That meant inserting the Vista CD and reconstructing the bootblock. Vista has extensive reconstruction features, with detailed diagnosis. It diagnosed a corrupt boot sector. A click fixed that. Now I'm back at Vista until I find a boot manager and until I'm able to download the drivers. As to the boot manager, I'm considering a linux installation without a linux, the disk is full for now.

Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot with buggy problem ridden Vista. They're now trying to dig their way out of the hole they dug for themselves by dropping ther prices of Vista. I sorry Microsoft that's not going to work, speed up Windows 7 please.

There is no good reason to use Vista unless it's a new PC because in time XP will no longer be supported. I see no problem in installing XP on your machine. You may have to update the bios and may have to install various XP drivers.

 

No problem with any Dell Vista drivers as they are all available from Dell or where ever. The ones your PC were shipped with are probably out dated ant way. Do a clean install of the OS.

 

I agree Vista is the pits and reminds me of Windows ME which is probably the worst OS Microsoft ever released.

All the drivers for the Inspiron 1420 for XP and Vista can be found here.

Make sure you install them in the following order:

Chipset

Video

Audio

Everything Else....... 

I sent an email to Dell tech support to see if I could buy an XP package so that I could maintain my 3 year warranty. They say they never made the Inspiron 1420 with an XP package, only Vista, so cannot help me. I have to go out, buy a retail pack and then load all the drivers etc from their web page. I am not that tech savvy, so question my ability in getting all the hardware, card readers, nvidia video display, sound cards, media centre and remote, bluetooth, Wifi, DVD, touchpad, firewire/USB, webcam, modems etc. operating correctly.

 

Can anyone confirm that the 1420 was never sold with an XP option. Also how real is my reluctance to do it on my own bearing in mind I lose the software tech support from Dell.

 

I've got the 1420 myself and after doing a lot of homework I was not able to find one with XP instead of Vista.

I am going to do the Vista to XP "Upgrade" myself.

 

Operation should not be too difficult - just have all instructions printed and in order when you make the switch.

i've just bought 1420 last week and i want to downgrade from vista to xp myself...

appreciate if anyone could provide all the instructions on how to do it..

 

can we actually use all the drivers in the cds that come with the laptop?are they xp compatibled or do i have to find another drivers?

 

cheers

I would download them off Dell's website, you could use the link I provided above.

I take it by "upgrade" you mean the OEM version. The OEM version will be sufficient for you - you can only legally install it on one system. I'm not sure whether or not you can buy the Media Centre Edition. The Media edition is no different anyway.

Here's what I did to set up a dual boot:

After I installed XP, XP and only XP would boot. This is because XP overwrote the Vista bootloader.

Then I used EasyBCD to re-install the Vista bootloader. Only Vista would boot then.

I booted back into Vista and once again used EasyBCD to add XP to the operating systems entries.

 

 

 

I am also considering an upgrade to xp but I also considering returning the system as it has many hardware problems . Regardless if I decide to try and upgrade to XP will I need to buy the full version or just the upgrade. is it still possible to get a media center by the way? Is it possible to partition so I can have XP and vista running on the same system?

 

XPS M 1330 

Intel core 2 T 7250 2.0 GHz

Windows vista home premium 

mfinnan101

 

thank you very much for your advice as I may eventually try and put it to use. Do you have to use EasyBCD every time you want to go from one operating system to another?or are you able to switch between them easily while the computer is on without having to reboot?pardon me for asking questions and using a language that is so simple but I never had any problems with XP. All this computerese is like calculus to me as I never had to perform searches before with good old XP. Have you been able to download all the necessary drivers?I have been told all kinds of strange things such as it wouldn't matter because it would still be usingthis to drivers and XP would not work and even XP would not work on my system at all as the hardware is made only for vista.very confusing and difficult. Either way thank you for your advice as I may eventually given a whirl.

And you're right Microsoft has shot themselves in the foot. They just don't seem to care about their customers.

 

xps m1330 T7250 2.0 Ghz

2GB 667MHz RAM,

160 gb 5400 rpms

vista home premium

 

I have a feeling that there is more to the upgrade than we think. Firstly the Vista OS now has a distinctly "Mac" look. Pity it is nowhere as impressive as Mac and demands a new PC to run in most cases as the older laptops that were designed to support XP, just cannot provide the processor speed and memory required to run Vista. I have yet to find anything in Vista that I think is any better than XP except maybe the finding of drivers for hardware, which if I still had XP and hadn't loaded Vista, would be no problem anyway.

 

On the flip side my Palm T3 which has been a business tool for years no longer works under the Vista OS - HUGE negative to me.  I now have to keep my HP XP machine on the side to run two systems XP and Vista - make any sense??? Might as well toss the Dell and keep the HP as if I load XP on the Dell, I lose my 3 year warranty and support I bought.

 

So having now used Vista and previously said that I would never consider a Mac because the utility software and freeware applications out there were generally around MS, make me now more likey to go the mac route where I can get by with a far less powerful machine which means smaller power supply (not the brick that came with my Dell) and better battery life.

 

Just a pity I have spent my hard earned money on a dud that now makes my feelings toward Dell negative as well mostly due to the OS. I am now looking at Mac very favourably.

 

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@netorius77 wrote:

I have a feeling that there is more to the upgrade than we think. Firstly the Vista OS now has a distinctly "Mac" look. Pity it is nowhere as impressive as Mac and demands a new PC to run in most cases as the older laptops that were designed to support XP, just cannot provide the processor speed and memory required to run Vista. I have yet to find anything in Vista that I think is any better than XP except maybe the finding of drivers for hardware, which if I still had XP and hadn't loaded Vista, would be no problem anyway.

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Vista is a pure rip off of Mac when it comes to the shiny interface. Even the gadgets on the desktop are a copy of Apple's widgets. It's no wonder Microsoft are losing ground. Well done Micorsoft you make a useless OS lacking an alarming amount of compatibility and bloat it like an elephant. :smileymad:

I don't see any reason to switch to it and quite frankly I prorbably won't ever. The only reason I actually kept Vista on my laptop was that I paid for it when it came from Dell. 

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@netorius77 wrote:

On the flip side my Palm T3 which has been a business tool for years no longer works under the Vista OS - HUGE negative to me.  I now have to keep my HP XP machine on the side to run two systems XP and Vista - make any sense??? Might as well toss the Dell and keep the HP as if I load XP on the Dell, I lose my 3 year warranty and support I bought.

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If you load XP on your laptop you'll lose your Operating system support but NOT you hardware support. I had no problems replacing the motherboard in my old Inspiron 1501 under warranty which had two operating systems installed on it. Vista is a disaster when it comes to application support - 1 year and 1 Service pack later and my engineering and music production applications STILL don't work with Vista. 

A friend of mine stripped Vista down completely - Disabled nearly all the system proesses, services and edited core system files to make it somewhat faster. And guess what?

It still idles on over 1GB of RAM!! And 1GB of RAM is the recommended spec for Vista!? That's a joke!!

My advice for you would be to install XP on your Dell. Since I put XP on my XPS M1530, I've been very happy with it and intend to hold on to it for a long time. Shame Dell don't provide XP drivers for it though. :smileymad:

If anything will be the death of Microsoft, Vista will.