Vista to XP downgrade

I got this Dell laptop loaded with MS Vista. My company's softphone software doesn't work with Vista so I had to do a clean install of XP Pro. Everything worked fine except the drivers for everything will not work. I went to the Dell site and DL'ed the correct drivers I needed, installed them in the laptop and nothing. The drivers say they install correctly and all that but they still don't work. Does anyone know if Dell does something to the bios? Or if there is a problem to that extent? Anyone who knows anything about Vista and this problem please help me out. Thanks a lot.

Bob Fells Feb 21, 2007

I know that the drivers I got were correct. I first tried the drivers from dell, then I went to the hardware makers site and tired those drivers also. I then downloaded the system software that came with the laptop from the dell website because my disc didnt seem to work quite right. I have called dell and gone through their troubleshooting steps and nothing seems to work.
Bob Fells Feb 22, 2007

Thank you for the post. The employee just inst going to have a softphone. I restored the image and put everything back. I dont have time to mess with it anymore. Hopefully next time I have to do this your suggestion will work. Thanks again.

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As far as my knowledge concern all windows product have backward compitibility soo if vista is working fine that mean your laptop is compitible with xp pro. there must be some installation issue other wise everything is fine.

try this at command prompt ' DriverQuery /v ' . you may get some idea.

for more vista troubleshooting and guide visit this vista tips blog.

Posted on Apr 19, 2008

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If you did a clean install of Windows XP Vista has nothing to do with this problem. I infrequently have problems with Dell drivers not working but when I do its because I've installed the wrong ones. I have gone down the wrong troubleshooting path several times because the driver said it installed correctly..... I noticed that when you go to the Inspiron 6400/E1505 download page (http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?) you have the choice of selecting drivers from lots of OS versions including both 32 or 64 bit versions of XP. I would verify that you have the write driver versions and try again. Another alternative is using the drivers and tools CD that typically comes with a Dell. You can run that and it should have XP drivers. If you don't have the disk you can also try getting the network card running, connect to the Dell site and running their driver ID wizard to ID the drivers you need. Let us know if you have any other questions and please don?t forget to rate this post.

Drivers Downloads Dell US

dell.com

Posted on Feb 21, 2007

Anonymous Feb 22, 2007

If I were in your place I would go back, format the hard drive again and reinstall the OS from scratch. I would stick with the Dell supplied drivers from the CD they sent with the laptop and stay away from manufactures drivers. Take it slow, install one driver then verify its functionality then do the next. The latitude D600 I just finished refurbishing had some weird behavior initially, unexplained error messages at boot up, driver issues and general sluggishness after I installed the driver package. I reformatted and did everything from scratch and the problems went away.

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Anonymous

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SOURCE: missing hd audio codec

Hi, I was searching for this driver on the Internet and it seems to be your lucky day, here I found the IDT drivers for Audio, http://rapidshare.com/files/190141494/PIDT001.zip for Windows XP for the Studio XPS 1640, now because this computer was designed for Windows Vista, Dell will not be responsible for the use of this driver, nor any future damage that it might cause, not that I've seen the case, but Online forums state that this driver is 100% working with no issues, if you happen to have one, please let me know, the link is a rapidshare download server, just follow the instruction on the free user and go ahead. Regards. P.S. Here are the Dell Drivers for Vista, in case when Windows 7 comes out you want to just do the upgrade option with vista, and it should solve everyones issues. http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&ServiceTag=&SystemID=STUDIOXPS16&os=WLH&osl=en&catid=&impid=

Posted on May 03, 2009

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