I need to get a new computer asap. They all have Vista on it now but I really do not want it. Does it really use 800 MB of RAM? I am perfectly happy with the XP. If I was told that if I took a HP computer home and put XP on it would it void the warranty. Is that true? Why do they even sell new pcs with 512 Ram if that cant even handle the Vista that is installed? I am very confused. Thanks very much to everyone in advance for any help. I am grateful that I can come here for help.
I'm sure you could but you'd have to reformat the HD out of the box to install XP and probably void the warranty.
They sell computers with 512 to get people who want to spend less. Even if you are running XP you should still have a gig. I would look into uping your RAM no matter what you choose to do. I don't think you should take Vista off. There are no huge problems. I don't understand what you would want to avoid. It makes sense that messing with the operating system would void your warranty. In the end, you should of done more research and known to get more RAM. FOR XP: If they give you all of the install cds (motherboard drivers, microsoft office, etc.) How many harddrives do you have? I'll assume 1. Backup whatever you need. Restart your computer and go to the setup. Change the boot order with "CDROM" being the first option. Put the XP CD in your drive and restart your computer. When prompted to "Press any key to boot from CD" go ahead and press any key. The XP boot setup will load. When it asks, you want to install a new copy of XP. You'll see your harddrive. GO ahead and delete the existing parition, and then set up another one and choose to install on that. Set up will format your harddrive and then it will install the setup files on that drive. It will restart your computer and DO NO boot from CD. XP setup will begin.
installing xp does not void the warranty but it does void your oem OS support since they didn't install the OS, but who cares. The question is to get a legal license of XP would cost more than upping the RAM to 2 gigs or so why not do that. Frys had 2 gigs of ddr2 pc5300 for $100 in this weekends ad.
Thank you. I can get a student copy of XP for something like $10 though. But I will probably just get the RAM.
