Downgrading from Windows 8 to XP

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jimmyboy

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Sep 25, 2008
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I have a relative who is in his late 70's who received a new acer laptop for Christmas. He has been using Xp for years and upon lighting up the new Acer loaded with Windows 8 his heart sank and he want's XP installed instead of 8. I have been asked to do this and considering that my HP notebook with is several years old and came with Vista could not be down graded due to a lack of XP drivers for it I'm wondering what kind of problems I'm going to run into. Does anyone have any experience with this yet?

thanks,

jimmyboy
 
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Many of ur laptops features won't be supported in Windows XP
i once installed XP on an MSI Ge70 Gaming Laptop , and the result was Worst than i thought !
everything was VERY VERY much slower , Even Copy Pasting simple files ...
i don't think that XP is able to fully utilize any LGA1366+ CPU or Core i Architecture but i might be wrong :) ....

SkyWalker1726

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Oct 5, 2007
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Many of ur laptops features won't be supported in Windows XP
i once installed XP on an MSI Ge70 Gaming Laptop , and the result was Worst than i thought !
everything was VERY VERY much slower , Even Copy Pasting simple files ...
i don't think that XP is able to fully utilize any LGA1366+ CPU or Core i Architecture but i might be wrong :) ....
 
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abbadon_34

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You're best bet is a clean install, but as you noted drivers may be an issue. Chances are it will fine for his uses as long as you get the internet working. You may have to look for the drivers by the actually component website, not just ACER.

P.S. Did the same thing for my grandmother last year. As long as she can play solitair, check her email, and use her 1990's geneology program she's happy.
 
G

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Get your relative a Windows 8 for senior book, Install start8 and spend some quality time with him helping him come to grips with windows 8, after a few hours of help (Far less time than what you will spend trying to get XP to run properly, if you can) he will thank you for it, I promise.

I help many people overcome the fear of moving to something new, it just takes a bit of patience and a heap of positivity!
 

ikaz

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While you may not be able to go back to XP, however sicne its windows 8 I think you should be able to install windows 7 on his laptop as the drivers are pretty close from what I understand. If you have a copy of windows 7 you can install that version and test it to make sure everything is working correct as I think you have 3 or 4 days to active it. After you may need to purchase a license for windows 7 ( I think window 8 pro license covers 7 and 8 not sure).
 

ikaz

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While you may not be able to go back to XP, however sicne its windows 8 I think you should be able to install windows 7 on his laptop as the drivers are pretty close from what I understand. If you have a copy of windows 7 you can install that version and test it to make sure everything is working correct as I think you have 3 or 4 days to active it. After you may need to purchase a license for windows 7 ( I think window 8 pro license covers 7 and 8 not sure).
 

MidnightDistort

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You'd be better off getting Windows 7. Windows XP won't support any of the newer hardware. If you can't get Win 7 i would probably find a used Win XP machine that someone is selling. Anyway here is a tutorial on how you can get Win 7 if you got the software: http://www.howtogeek.com/133168/how-to-downgrade-windows-8-pro-to-windows-7/
 
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