Getting rid of Vista

My old (homebrew clone) computer just crashed after 9 years of faithful
service
and I bought a rather cheap Compaq which came populated with Vista.
The new one is a Pentium 4 running at 3.2 gigahertz with Windows Vista Home
(32),
and is much slower than my old AMD K2 running at 550 megahertz with Windows
2000 Pro.

Now most of my peripherals dont work because they 3-4 years old, and updated
drivers apparently dont exist.

Can I solve this by just installing Windows 2000 Pro on this machine, or
will
that present another set of problems? Do I have to format the hard drive to
do this?

Any help appreciated.

"hls" <> wrote in message
news:z%Hpi.4461$ t...
> My old (homebrew clone) computer just crashed after 9 years of faithful
> service
> and I bought a rather cheap Compaq which came populated with Vista.
> The new one is a Pentium 4 running at 3.2 gigahertz with Windows Vista
> Home (32),
> and is much slower than my old AMD K2 running at 550 megahertz with
> Windows
> 2000 Pro.
>
> Now most of my peripherals dont work because they 3-4 years old, and
> updated
> drivers apparently dont exist.
>
> Can I solve this by just installing Windows 2000 Pro on this machine, or
> will
> that present another set of problems? Do I have to format the hard drive
> to
> do this?
>
> Any help appreciated.

Check the End User License Agreement on your Vista machine to ensure you
have downgrade rights (otherwise you would have to buy another license for
2000 Pro)
Once you check that you have downgrade rights you can just use your 2000 Pro
CD to boot the PC and install 2000 Pro.
As part of the 2000 Pro setup remove the partition on the hard drive and
create a new one and reformat etc.

Of course the problems you are creating by doing this is if this is a new PC
the are there actually 2000 Pro drivers for it?
Also you are running a now very old OS that is out of mainstream support.

--

Mike Brannigan

"hls" <> wrote in message
news:z%Hpi.4461$ t...
> My old (homebrew clone) computer just crashed after 9 years of faithful
> service
> and I bought a rather cheap Compaq which came populated with Vista.
> The new one is a Pentium 4 running at 3.2 gigahertz with Windows Vista
> Home (32),
> and is much slower than my old AMD K2 running at 550 megahertz with
> Windows
> 2000 Pro.
>
> Now most of my peripherals dont work because they 3-4 years old, and
> updated
> drivers apparently dont exist.
>
> Can I solve this by just installing Windows 2000 Pro on this machine, or
> will
> that present another set of problems? Do I have to format the hard drive
> to
> do this?
>
> Any help appreciated.

The biggest issue you face is finding Win 2000 drivers for the motherboard
chipset and all the other new hardware in your new Compaq.
I don't recall any more if the Win 2000 install media offers you the option
to format the target partition for the install, but you should, IMO, format
the target partition after saving all data you wish to preserve.

Another possible cause of the perceived sloth is all the "junkware" put on
your PC by Compaq. Have you gone through all the installed programs,
especially those that autostart when you boot, and removed the ones you
don't need?

"hls" <> wrote in
news:z%Hpi.4461$ t:

> My old (homebrew clone) computer just crashed after 9 years of
> faithful service
> and I bought a rather cheap Compaq which came populated with
> Vista. The new one is a Pentium 4 running at 3.2 gigahertz with
> Windows Vista Home (32),
> and is much slower than my old AMD K2 running at 550 megahertz
> with Windows 2000 Pro.
>
> Now most of my peripherals dont work because they 3-4 years old,
> and updated drivers apparently dont exist.
>
> Can I solve this by just installing Windows 2000 Pro on this
> machine, or will
> that present another set of problems? Do I have to format the
> hard drive to do this?
>
> Any help appreciated.
>

You neglected to tell us how much RAM/TYPE the "rather cheap compaq"
came with.



Dave

"hls" <> wrote in message
news:z%Hpi.4461$ t...
> My old (homebrew clone) computer just crashed after 9 years of faithful
> service
> and I bought a rather cheap Compaq which came populated with Vista.
> The new one is a Pentium 4 running at 3.2 gigahertz with Windows Vista
> Home (32),
> and is much slower than my old AMD K2 running at 550 megahertz with
> Windows
> 2000 Pro.
>
> Now most of my peripherals dont work because they 3-4 years old, and
> updated
> drivers apparently dont exist.
>
> Can I solve this by just installing Windows 2000 Pro on this machine, or
> will
> that present another set of problems? Do I have to format the hard drive
> to
> do this?


I assume that your homebrew PC had a Win2000 Retail licence which you are
planning to use, so that should be fine.

As others have said, you have to check if you have Win2000 motherboard
drivers for your new computer, particularly chipset and SATA controller
drivers.

You will most probably *have* to slipstream SP4 onto your Win2000 CD, if it
is not an SP4 disc. Otherwise Win2000 will be even more unlikely to
recognise whatever chipset you have, will not understand what SATA is, and
will not recognise large hard drives.

You are best off buying an XP Pro SP2 licence and using that instead, with
Windows Classic theme if you prefer that.

ss.

"Dave Cox" <> wrote in message
> You neglected to tell us how much RAM/TYPE the "rather cheap compaq"
> came with.

RAM is minimal at 512 MB. I plan to expand this.

I do not use this unit for gaming, etc. Just word processing,
spreadsheets, and
email/internet.

There are a lot of junk bundled programs on the machine, and I also plan to
thin
them out.

I am hesitant to make a lot of changes until I feel my way through this
system
as it is.

I appreciate the another suggestion that I use XP instead of 2000. That
might
be a good way to straddle the driver issues and move up in operating
systems.
I was thinking of using 2000 because I have it, but it is probably better to
ditch it.

"hls" <> wrote in message
news7Kpi.20610$. net...
>
> I appreciate the another suggestion that I use XP instead of 2000. That
> might
> be a good way to straddle the driver issues and move up in operating
> systems.
> I was thinking of using 2000 because I have it, but it is probably better
> to
> ditch it.


If you have you have a Win2000 Retail licence, you can always get a XP Pro
Upgrade CD, which will probably be the cheapest way to do it.

ss.

"Synapse Syndrome" <> wrote in message
news:...
> "hls" <> wrote in message
> news7Kpi.20610$. net...
>>
>> I appreciate the another suggestion that I use XP instead of 2000. That
>> might
>> be a good way to straddle the driver issues and move up in operating
>> systems.
>> I was thinking of using 2000 because I have it, but it is probably better
>> to
>> ditch it.
>
>
> If you have you have a Win2000 Retail licence, you can always get a XP Pro
> Upgrade CD, which will probably be the cheapest way to do it.
>


I forgot to remind you that you do not have to install Win2000 before using
the XP upgrade CD.

ss.

hls wrote:
>
> "Ghostrider" <-00-@fitron.142> wrote in message news:u% Just what are
> the peripherals that don't
>> work? Can they be replaced with stock Compaq items for which there
>> might be Vista drivers?
>
> My printer is a Photosmart 1215 by HP. The digital camera is an HP 318.
>
> Havent tried my Canon Scanner yet.
>

Since you mention homebrew you probably have no fear messing about
inside and so why not consider a drive tray for either SATA or IDE
drives, then with one spare drive you can try lots of things and never
be at real risk of losing the whole thing.

Move to Linux www.ubuntu.com

--

http://www.goldwatches.com/Watches.asp?Brand=55
"hls" <> wrote in message
news7Kpi.20610$. net...
>
> "Dave Cox" <> wrote in message
>> You neglected to tell us how much RAM/TYPE the "rather cheap compaq"
>> came with.
>
> RAM is minimal at 512 MB. I plan to expand this.
>
> I do not use this unit for gaming, etc. Just word processing,
> spreadsheets, and
> email/internet.
>
> There are a lot of junk bundled programs on the machine, and I also plan
> to thin
> them out.
>
> I am hesitant to make a lot of changes until I feel my way through this
> system
> as it is.
>
> I appreciate the another suggestion that I use XP instead of 2000. That
> might
> be a good way to straddle the driver issues and move up in operating
> systems.
> I was thinking of using 2000 because I have it, but it is probably better
> to
> ditch it.