So I’m finally back to good old Windows XP. I know you might be thinking that Windows XP is outdated with Windows 7 coming in and Vista being sold in stores everywhere, but I plan to stick with XP for a few more years. I couldn’t believe that I went from 800 MB of free RAM from boot up on Vista, to 1.5~1.6 GB of free RAM everytime I started up on Windows XP. Pretty neat.
I noticed the big difference in speed and I am quite happy with the results. I ran into one little snag earlier which is explained below.
So I first tried to install XP next to Vista, but I couldn’t because the drive was protected with SATA ACPI I think it was? (Not sure since my memory isn’t serving me well right now so, sorry if I’m wrong) So of course, my first source of reference was the internet. I read a few articles and found one where I have to switch the SATA/RAID setting (I forgot which one it was so I list both) to ATA. Then I was able to visibly see my drive, but by that time I forgot about the putting XP with Vista and just moving stuff from Vista and decided to wipe about 110 GB of my 140 GB hard drive. Took awhile for it to go through the NTFS file system setup process, but after that it was pretty simple.
Watched the Windows XP install screens, let it run through for about half an hour, then we go into the Windows XP screen with surprise surprise no drivers (as usual). So I pull out my Dell drivers disk I got and put it in. Used Inspiron 1525 model drivers with Windows XP drivers (Kind of glad they had those) and got my wireless card, graphics enhancement, webcam, touchpad, and a few other drivers placed on. It wouldn’t install my Sigmatel sound card driver for some reason which is where I got kind of frustrated. Everytime I ran the installer, it’d start up, scan my audio hardware configuration, then just mysteriously disappear.
So I reboot my computer, then when I start up, Sigmatel installation window pops up. I’m like, interesting…When it finishes I’m happy because it successfully installs my sound card in and I am done. I immediately get the SP3 update from XP (By now they have fixed all the bugs compared to my last test if you read about 4 or 5 months back with me testing SP3 in its early stages. I get avast! antivirus again, and start reinstalling items. SCWebcam3, Pidgin, WinSCP, Spore, Drift City, Diablo 2, Microsoft Office 2007, Firefox, and a few other programs that I often used. So I’m happy now, my computer’s officially Windows XP. I save RAM, I still have all my programs, and I get to do stuff super fast now.
That’s about it for today, we’ll see what happens later.
