[melodrameric]

I installed Windows Vista from XP with a custom install. I've been very unimpressed and can't really find one thing I like about it. What I'd like to do is go back to XP, but the problem is many of the subfolders in my program files folder from the windows.old folder have been deleted. I have a copy of XP on cd I got from a friend (same version of XP) and I was thinking I could do a clean install, but I'm wondering if my old product key that was used for the XP originally installed when I bought the computer will still work. Does anyone happen to know if it will still activate? Would it be possible to revert back to XP using the methods listed on pages like this?
Thanks for you help.

EDIT:
Also, should I need to go back to Vista later on, will I be able to use the same product key?

Edited by melodrameric, 30 June 2007 - 07:18 PM.

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I dont know much about these sort of things but i was on a site and could you not make a new partition and then dual boot xp and vista that way you would only need need to install XP again although youll have to ask someone else for help because i dont have a clue what i am talking about lol

Edited by Somerville, 30 June 2007 - 07:34 PM.

[Somerville]

I dont know much about these sort of things but i was on a site and could you not make a new partition and then dual boot xp and vista that way you would only need need to install XP again although youll have to ask someone else for help because i dont have a clue what i am talking about lol

Edited by Somerville, 30 June 2007 - 07:34 PM.

[Zakilla]

I believe you have 3 options.

1. Unistalling Vista and use a previous version of windows BUT you need Windows.old which in your case might be corrupted iam not sure if it will work because of the files missing.

2. You can use Vista to partition your hard drive and install xp on the other partition and you then will have to change the bootloader to dual-boot and choose to boot to XP and also the benifits of this is that when you decide to go back too Vista when it becomes compatible with more things you just have to simply boot to Vista and move every thing back to the vista portion and unistall XP.

3. You can back up all the files on your hard drive to a extenal drive or another computer (however you would want to do it), then format your computer and do a clean install of Xp.

Those are the things I could come up with...

Edited by Zakilla, 02 July 2007 - 05:40 AM.

[melodrameric]

I really like your suggestion of dual booting, I think that's a great idea. How exactly would I go about setting up the bootloader?

Edited by melodrameric, 03 July 2007 - 04:13 PM.

[melodrameric]

I actually found a how-to guide here. I think I'll give that a try.

[Zakilla]

Let us know how that goes for you.

Edited by Zakilla, 04 July 2007 - 04:30 AM.