Do you have the Windows Vista blues? Did you upgrade from Windows XP to Vista? If so, join the rest of the world who upgraded to what was supposed to be the next latest and greatest OS. By now if you are running Vista you are probably already prone to how much slower Windows Vista runs and how many times IE crashes on you (Green Ribbon of Death). Let alone the simple fact that XP runs on less RAM and Hard Drive space then its predecessor Vista.
By now you might be thinking, I wonder if I can downgrade from Vista to XP?
As with anything else in life, nothing is every just that easy!
One of the main problems is Windows Setup, you can not install an older version on top of a newer version. There are two “work around” scenarios if you are seriously considering downgrading.
1. Tricking the Setup into thinking there is no Windows at all on your PC.
or
2. Reformatting your hard drive and using the original XP disc shipped with your computer, or a genuine Windows XP installation CD.
Of the two I think personally your best bet might be to back up your work and reformat your hard drive to avoid if any conflicts you might run into down the road. In any case you will need to back up your work for either option.
If you recently purchased a PC with Vista pre-installed onto it, you may find it a bit harder to downgrade. You will need to contact your PC manufacture if you PC did not come with a XP CD. If one was not provided, reinstalling XP back onto your PC would be the least of your worries, but finding drivers for the hardware within your PC is the task at hand.
Option 1: Tricking the Setup
Insert your Windows XP disc and boot 
up to the CD ROM. You can usually do this by simply pressing the space bar once the system turns and displays the message, “Press any key to boot from CD ROM.” If this is not an option you may have to enter your computers BIOS or read up on how to boot up from your PC manual. (If you can’t boot from your CD, you can download free XP Setup boot disk files by searching for Q310994 at support.microsoft.com.)
When XP Setup starts, press R on the first page to open the Recovery Console. If you are asked to choose a Windows installation, type a number (usually 1) and press Enter.
You might be prompted for your Administrator password, if you don’t know it, you’ll have to boot back into Windows Vista, open the Start menu, type lusrmgr.msc, and press Enter. Open the C :\Users folder, double-click on the Administrator account, and turn off the Account is disabled option. Open the Start menu again, type Control userpasswords2 into the Search box, and press Enter. Next, click the Reset Password button, choose a new password, and start over.
at the Recovery Console command prompt, type the following commands to prep your hard disk for XP:
fixboot
fixmbr
cd \
ren windows winvista
exit
When your PC restarts, boot onto your XP CD once again, and then proceed with setup normally.
Once you have XP installed you will need to put move your backed up items and programs back onto your system.
Option 2: Reformatting your Hard Drive
Again remember to backup any files you want to keep. Unfortunately, you can’t use any of Vista’s built-in backup software for this, because XP doesn’t include any tools that can read Vista backups. Your best bet is to copy your data onto an external hard disk manually via USB. By copying the C :\Users folder, you can backup your Documents directory, anything on your desktop, and application data such as stored e-mail.
Insert your PC’s recover disc into your CD ROM drive, shut down your PC and boot up off the CD ROM drive.
Note: do NOT run the Windows installation from Windows itself.
The reason why booting from CD is important is because we’re going to delete the C : drive partition where Windows is installed and re-format it. You can’t do this if Windows booted from C :, because it can’t delete the partition from which it is running.
Once you have booted up to the Welcome to Setup page, press Enter. Press F8 to accept the Windows XP Licensing Agreement. You’ll be asked if you want to repair your existing Windows XP installation. Press ESC to bypass the repair and install a fresh copy.
You want to delete the current partition where Windows is installed. Use the arrow key to select it, and press D to delete it. Press L to confirm. Then, to create a new partition, select the unpartitioned space and press C . To create a new partition with the maximum amount of space allotted to it, press Enter.
Select the new partition you just created to install Windows and choose Format the drive NTFS, (you may choose the Quick option but I recommend using the thorough). This will take a long while if you choose to be thorough, but once this is done you will find the rest of the Windows XP installtion self explanatory.
If you did not have the Recovery CD’s that came with your PC and were forced to use your genuine XP setup disc, once you have sucessfully installed XP you might have some drivers to install. From Control Panel, go to System, then Hardware, and click on the Device Manager. You might find some Yellow Question/Exclamation Marks, this is Windows way of saying, “I found some hardware, but do not know what it is.” If you have your PC’s drivers CD you can use that to reinstall these drivers, if not you will have to go onto your PC manufactures website and download them from another internet capable PC.
