Vista - Need input....XP Pro with Vista Home

I am considering purchasing a Dell Inspiron 1525 with Vista Home on it. I work at an office 2 days per week and will need to connect to their server. It is my understanding that Vista Home will not be able to connect to their server. SO....I would need to install my XP Pro onto the new computer.

How hard is it to do this and is it not recommended? (I'd like to keep Vista on the laptop as well, possibly as a dual boot? Unless that would just cause more issues.)

Thanks for your help!

Who told you that you wouldn't be able to connect to their server?

If you want to install XP on a computer that comes with Vista first of all you would have to see if it would be possible to get all the necessary drivers for it, if you can I think it would be possible to dual boot but you would have to wait for the experts to give you the instructions to allow you to do it, afraid I'm no expert

Hi jenair, welcome to the Vista Forums

As Joan said dual booting with xp on your machine should be no problem have a look at the link Here.

Installing XP After Vista - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

as for the office situation in order to join a domain network which I assume you have at the office, Vista will connect to a workgroup with no problems, you will need either a Vista Ultimate or XP Pro licence, you may wish to compare the costs of obtaining these the anytime upgrade route that vista offers may be a similar price to a New copy of XP Pro, depends in the market you are in.

Note.
You may join a domain from Vista Business but that upgrade path is not a straightforward one and would involve a re-install of the OS, of course one option here is to specify business or ultimate for the laptop and see what cost implications you have.

If you need the Home options, Media centre etc, and to connect to a domain ultimate is the only route open to you

Hope this helps.

if you need any further help please post back

Hi there! Thanks for the welcome and the info!

I would prefer to do Vista Ultimate or Pro - BUT with the price I found on the Inspiron I liked that and was thinking that I could simply "downgrade" back to XP Pro until our office were to upgrade their equipment, which at that time I'd upgrade mine to Vista Pro as well (if they're upgrading, they can simply just include my computer in the count for licenses to acquire!)

I just wonder if it would be as straight forward as I am thinking/hoping. When I went from XP Home to XP Pro it was as simple as putting the CD in and following the steps.

Would this be something that would be a better option for me if I did get the Vista Home laptop?

Thanks for your help!

Hi,

the major stumbling block with either a dual boot or straightforward downgrade to XP pro would be the supply of drivers for the laptop, if these are available then there should be no problem at all following either route.

Best way to check is the Dell website, they should have a driver section for XP pro on their site related to the laptop model concerned.

As for the actual install that would be a case of simply inserting the disk into the laptop, booting from the disk and following the prompts to perform a fresh install formatting the disk at the same time, as your with your previous install.

How this would affect your warranty with dell is a matter for them to decide but even so they should cover hardware.

Another thing to consider is Dell's recovery system which of course would be set-up to restore Vista

Dual boot would of course be more involved but would allow you to get experience with the Vista OS before your company move over.

I assume you would use an enterprise company licence for XP pro, so the cost comparison would definitely be swing in XP's favour

hope this helps