Have question about downgrade from Vista

I ordered a thinkpad SL500 with Vista Home Premium but I'm going to be using it for college, which like most colleges, run on XP. Is there anyway I can downgrade it from Vista Home Premium to XP?

On lenovo's website they only have Vista Business and Ultimate as being downgrade-able to XP. My order hasn't shipped yet so I can still change if I have to.

I do have copies of Windows XP with me if that helps.

What about partitioning the hardrive so one is Vista and one XP (I really don't want to go that way)

 

Your college will most likely have heavily-discounted XP discs available for purchase. At my college, it's only $10. You should call your IT department and ask if they sell. Of course, this won't be like the downgrade because it'll be a clean installation, meaning you'll need the drivers for SL500's XP. And since the SL Series is new and XP is fading out, I'm not sure if Lenovo will release the full set of drivers as they have for past generation of ThinkPads.

But as you have read, the XP downgrade option is only available for Vista Business and Ultimate. If you pick either of these options, they will send you discs so you can downgrade to XP. These discs will integrate all the necessary drivers and also the preinstalled programs that came with the default Vista OS, making it easier than a clean installation, but not as slim.

 

So basically pay the extra $30 for the downgrade from Lenovo so the drivers will transfer with the downgrade to XP, or pay an extra $10 (at your college) and hope i can find the drivers for XP if I downgrade?

Also, I heard that Vista business can download games that don't come pre-installed from Microsoft. If I wanted the media center feature and DVD burner software with Vista business can I download them afterwords?

 

That's basically it, but the majority of the drivers are already on Lenovo's website. I'm just informing you that there's a risk that your system won't be as complete as the default Vista installation.

Unfortunately, I'm not as Vista-familiar as many other forum members here. I'll move your thread to the Windows OS and Software section where other members can better assist you with this question.

Good luck!

 

Even if your college "runs on XP", you should be able to use Vista at school just fine.

But if you choose to go with XP, you should be able to download drivers from Lenovo... you can ask in the Lenovo forum for more details.

 

LOL. His thread was just moved from the Lenovo forum.

And yes, Lenovo/IBM are very good with maintaining XP compatibility online.

 

The only thing is that not all colleges offer that discount. The best mine does is Vista Ultimate for $100 - which really means XP Pro for $100 - which is not nearly as good as $30 in the first place. Definitely check with your college first.

Of course, if you've got extra copies of XP and want to use XP, you might as well just get the cheapest version of Vista Lenovo will let you buy and install XP on your own once you get it.

Drivers shouldn't be an issue. Lenovo still fully supports XP.

I'm pretty sure the "download games" thing you're thinking of is Windows Marketplace, which can be used on any Internet-capable version of Windows. However, Media Center only comes with XP Media Center Edition, Vista Home, and Vista Ultimate. You aren't going to be able to download it for free if you get Vista Business. Although I think there are plenty of equally good alternatives. DVD burning software is included in both XP and Vista (all editions).