Need Vista install advice

**Beirut** · 10-24-2007, 23:07

Howdy,

The guy I work with went to buy a laptop today, and since he knows far less than nothing about computers, I went with him as backup. (The blind leading the blind, et al.)

The end result was a nice Toshiba, similar to the one I bought my woman last year. Pretty good deal cash wise, but it only came with Vista Home Premium, as did every other computer at Future Shop. So now I've got his new-in-the-box Vista Laptop and he wants me to set it up for him.

The computer comes with Vista installed but not set up. There is no Vista disk with the computer. The tech guy said I have to complete the setup, then authorize online, get all the updates, then burn a restore disk, which he said would take two DVDs. If anyone has any important info I should have before setting up his machine it would be appreciated.

Also, we pondered dumping Vista out of the machine and installing XP, except my friend who owns a small computer store said installing XP on a laptop that came with Vista is problematic, as different drivers for the hardware can be hard to find or not available at all. Is this correct? Also, if we do install XP on his laptop, can I take his Vista and use it for a dual boot on my machine? (I want the DX10 graphics for my flightsims.) Since there is no actual Vista disk, I'm not sure how I could transfer it into my machine and then do the authorization. (I hate to see a $200 OS, even Vista, go into the trash unused.)

Thanks.

**Whacker** · 10-25-2007, 00:47

Ahhh, the blind leading the blind. I shall cheerfully add to this already dire situation.

Disclaimer up front, I have only fiddled with Vista for a few hours at best, and have not done any install or configuration routines with it.

First, in regards to the laptop setup. My best guess, key word being guess, is that they've done something that's pretty common in the industry these days. The laptop probably has a partition or two on the HDD that isn't recognized by Windows (to prevent the user from deleting), and contains the Vista source install files. Thus you have the equivalant of a restore cd always on the hard drive and available. Also it's pretty common that when you buy a new PC, the OS is pre-loaded but not "installed". When you boot it up for the first time at home, it'll prompt you to accept the EULA, enter some info, nag you to register, etc, then finally set itself up and you're ready to go. Depending on how the OEM has set up the HDD, it can be possible to back up those source files, the procedure varies between the vendors. With the Dells I've run into, most of them were easily handled as the source files were buried somewhere in the main partition. The best thing I can suggest is before you do anything, follow the OEM's procedure for manually creating restore discs before you futz with it.

Second, in regards to XP. Forecast calls for a 99% chance of bullhonkey, you should be able to install XP on the lappie fine with zero problems, it'll just take a bit of work to find all the drivers. If you can post make, model, and some system stats, we can probably help you find most all of the drivers. One thing to be careful of though, is that you'll want to locate all of the XP related drivers for the machine before you haul off and blow it away.

**Beirut** · 10-25-2007, 01:13

Ahh, thanks for that.

Any thoughts on preserving Vista so I can use it myself?

**Whacker** · 10-25-2007, 01:27

As for preserving Vista, that's where burning the restore discs comes into play. I had a second thought after my earlier post. Sometimes you can call up the manufacturer and request that the ship you some restore cds. It really depends on luck more than anything, I've had/heard of situations where people have done this and they've cheerfully shipped restore cds with no questions, where they've had to butter up the call center person a bit, where they've had to be a bit firm but polite, and where they've been told to go jump in a lake. Also, I seem to recall there being one or two instances where the manufactuer provided information on how one could download burnable .iso images of restore discs. The short is, it never hurts to try and call and see if they'll just mail you some. If not, then you're stuck with manually burning restore discs yourself. The manufacturer site should have some support documentation on how to do this, if not, call their help line and ask for detailed instructions or a direct link to a page with detailed instructions. After you've got the restore discs, find the Vista key that your buddy has. It's probably going to be in with the manuals he got, and/or plastered to the bottom of the laptop.

Be warned about the above. Restore discs are quite often set up very specifically to the device that they came from, so trying to do a fresh install of Vista on your box might not work at all. In this case, what you're essentially stuck with is locating a copy of a "vanilla" OEM install CD for Vista. Remember, Vista/XP/2000/etc come in two general flavors, OEM and retail, and the product keys are special to each. Thus, if you have an OEM product key for Vista, you (probably, it's worth testing, I know you can't do this with XP for a fact) can't go and grab someone's retail Vista cd and use your OEM product key with it.

**Beirut** · 10-25-2007, 01:41

The guy at the store said the restore disk would be about 50% (five or six GBs) the size of Vista. Which makes it sound like just the restore disks won't work for a full install. I'll look into asking the company for new disks.

I'm not looking to pirate anything. I just don't see the logic in throwing out a copy of Vista that was paid for and never used.

**Lemur** · 10-25-2007, 02:08

Word of caution, I have heard examples of people being very unsuccessful installing XP on Vista pre-installed laptops. Proceed with caution, especially since you don't have a Vista disc to fall back on.

**Whacker** · 10-25-2007, 02:26

Originally Posted by Lemur

Word of caution, I have heard examples of people being very unsuccessful installing XP on Vista pre-installed laptops. Proceed with caution, especially since you don't have a Vista disc to fall back on.

What were the specific issues they ran into, if you know?

**Lemur** · 10-25-2007, 02:52

Here's an example.

Here's another.

Seems the problem is that laptop manufacturers are abandoning XP support as fast as they can, and for whatever reason, the Vista drivers aren't compatible. All I'm saying is that before Beirut helps his fiend wipe the HD, make absolutely sure you've got a CD full of drivers grabbed off the manufacturer's web site, and make darn sure they're XP compatible.

**Beirut** · 10-25-2007, 04:08

Originally Posted by Lemur

...make absolutely sure you've got a CD full of drivers grabbed off the manufacturer's web site, and make darn sure they're XP compatible.

Understood. Gracias.

**Husar** · 10-25-2007, 10:56

I don't know why anyone would want to replace Vista with XP.

But erm, best of luck, listen to Lemur and Whacker, it's not like I knew more.

But what I do know is that Vista comes on a single DVD, my Business came as one iso and my dad's OEM Home Premium also came on just one DVD(which contains all versions even, though you can only activate the version you have a key for) so I wouldn't worry about it being 2 DVDs. I just wonder why they call it recovery disk and not Vista disk if it is just like any other Vista DVD? Despite that, AFAIK, OEM versions are locked to the first mainboard they're activated on, so I'd be careful about activating it for the first time, it's likely that you cannot swap the mainboard anymore or activate it on a nother machine, that limitation doesn't seem to exist with non-OEM versions.