How-To Switch back to XP

[WaVeS]

I decided to upgrade to Vista so could play DirectX10 games. BUT after loosing the battle against lower FPS, the 3gigs of RAM cap, and now cracks coming out for DX10 games (not sure if they help); I want to switch back. I have a crap ton of Music, Videos, games... I don't want to loose, by reformatting and reinstalling. Is there a good way to switch back without having to save and reinstall my files? I'm assuming I'll just have to bite the bullet and make a whole day of copying files over to an external and reinstalling....

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Could do that. Why don't you like Vista again? It's a great OS. I used to use XP but like Vista now. Plus service pack 1 was just released, download that and install, see if it helps you out any. Also, the 3 gb ram cap, all that is because you probably have a 32 bit version of Vista. Call up Microsoft, I think they may let you upgrade for cheap, like the price of a new disc or something, though I'm not 100% sure. But if your XP is 32 bit, you'll probably have the same problem going on. Because a 32 bit OS can't address more than the amount of ram it's showing you. 64 bit can.

Also, what's the big deal about the cracks, how does that affect you? You mean as in running DX 10 on XP? And you'd count on those to work effectively? Besides, the new video cards out, even midrange, are supposed to be very good. I think it's the right time to go to vista. But anyway, if you really want back on xp, your best idea might be if you have a second hard drive, or just copy and more copying. Also, your games you'll prob have to reinstall anyway.

 

[Scotteq]

Two ways - The first is back up all your stuff, reformat your HDD and install XP from scratch. The second is to buy another HDD, unplug your Vista one (remember where it was!!!), and install XP on the new HDD in the next SATA connector. If you don't know or care to learn how to repair the boot loader you can use Partition Magic to set your system for dual booting, and you've now lost nothing.


Regarding the 3GB cap - That is a limitation on *all* consumer 32 bit Windows editions. This means the exact same issue existed in XP before the first line of code for Vista was even written. Whoever is telling you it's a Vista specific issue is full of crap.