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Replace Vista with XP or Return computer?
My wife just purchased an Inspiron 1520 with Windows Vista Basic preinstalled. She is a teacher and planned on using the computer for all of her teacher prep/grading/email at home. Unfortunately Vista is not compatible with her school's web-based email, with remote access for Blackbaud (the attendance/grading/scheduling), or with textbook related software (electronic teacher's edition textbook and computer test generator). Unfortunately we did not imagine this amount of non-compatibility. We did originally look at a Dell XP machine, but there just weren't many XP laptops still offered by Dell (Inspiron 1501 and XPS).
Our decision now is whether to try and get a copy of XP to install in place of Vista on this machine (and hope we can sort out all of the drivers) or try to return this machine (I believe we are still in the return period) and replace it with a Dell laptop with XP pre-installed. Either way is going to cost some money (our fault for not fully researching Vista compatibility issues with her school's resources). Any recommendations either way?
Thanks in advance for the inputs and help.
- Schugg,Instead of going the XP OEM route and searching high and low for all the compatible drivers, you might want to consider calling Dell and asking if XP is an option for your laptop. Chances are they can supply you with a version of XP and all the necessary XP drivers and save you a whold lot of time in the process. Although I cannot say if this would be a more expensive route to take it would insure you that everything is on the up and up with Dell and nothing will cause problems for your warranty in the future if software/hardware support becomes neccesary. An added benifit to this is if/when the infrastruture in her school changes allowing the apps to be Vista comaptibile, you will have a "Dell approved" version of both OS's to migrate from.Cheers,Grant
- Bill B,It looks like I am going to be able to get XP from Dell due to the incompatibility issues. They are sending me a voucher to purchase the XP OS.Once I have a copy of the XP OS, do I need to wipe the hard drive to take off Vista, or does the XP installation reformat the hard drive?
- I considered returning my DELL because of similar issues with VISTA. I'm still kicking myself for not doing that. My recommendation is to return and start over. DELL's agreement with Microsoft prohibits them from getting you XP for your system and I was told by a senior support person at DELL that installing any other OS will void your warranty.
- "I was told by a senior support person at DELL that installing any other OS will void your warranty"As far as I am aware, that's simply NOT true. If you change your OS, your SOFTWARE support will be very limited (if any). BUT your hardware warranty is still in effect. It would be really beneficial for Dell if some of these "senior support" people didn't dish out doubletalk like this.
- I'm fairly frustrated with getting XP to work on my 1520. XP installed with no problems. I could not get the Notebook System Software to work. I tried multiple sound drivers suggested by users and none will work. There seems to be very limited driver support on the 1520 for XP. Thankfully this is not my primary computer, but it still is frustrating. I'd rather stay with XP for now. I'm pretty experienced at solving computer issues and consider myself an advanced user. I've tried the sound drivers for both Vostro 1500 and the 1520 in both XP and Vista flavors. I attempted to install the NSS software first after the initial OS install. The NSS failed to install. Any suggestions would be a help. I'm using the XP disk from my 9300 to test and make sure that I can get the system running and stable with drivers. If it were to work, then I'd purchase an OEM copy of XP and perform a clean install again. So far it's failing.
Rebel9
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Posted September 6th, 2007 14:00