New T61 with Vista64 wanting to switch to XP after 2 hours of ownership

[britchie911]

I just got my T61 with Vista64 and found a core program I need that wont run (I suspect others will soon follow).  It seems like a lot of work to set-up a dual boot with XP so I was wondering if it would be easier to have a seperate HDD either in the Caddy or just swapping the drives from the Laptop it self ( 1 screw over cover to remove).

Any suggestions or advice?  Will XP have all the drivers I need?  I have the Intel Turbo Memory option.

Thanks,

Brad

[erik Community SuperMod]

intel turbo memory is not compatible with XP so you'll have to download the disabling tool.

dual booting via the ultrabay is easy.   just set up each respective drive while it's installed in the main bay, move one of them to the ultrabay using an ultrabay drive adapter, then hit F11 on startup to choose boot devices.

out of curiosity, what application won't install or run under vista x64?

[billbolton Community Moderator]

---

britchie911 wrote:
Will XP have all the drivers I need?

---

It won't have Turbo Memory support, but otherwise a Lenovo XP install image will support the same ThinkPad driver set that your existing Vista installtion supports.

Cheers,

Bill

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

Have you considered installing a virtual machine program like Microsoft's Virtual PC, VMware's VMware Workstation, Innotek's VirtualBox and so forth, installing Microsoft Windows XP inside of that, and then running your core application inside of that? It will probably not be as fast as if you were to replace the hard disk drive with one containing a different operating system, but it might be more convenient to use, especially if you need to frequently swap between Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[mbhockey13]

Dual-booting is going to be a lot easier than installing TWO hard drives. I have both XP Pro and Vista Business 64 on my T61. The key is just installing XP before installing Vista.

[britchie911]

Thanks for the good advice.  Can anyone tell me where I can get (buy) Lenovo's XP and how can I get vista off of my HDD to CD's since you say I need to install XP first, and Vista64 came preinstalled.  I did not see an option for making recovery media, only the retore from hidden partition option that thinkpad all have.

[mbhockey13]

I think the create restore media option is under Start>All Programs>ThinkVantage.

I don't think that will help you, though. From my understanding, Lenovo will send you the XP CD if you request it, and maybe the Vista too, but I'm not sure about that. I have legal corporate licenses for my software at my job, and this is my business notebook, so that is how I got around it.

Good luck!

[billbolton Community Moderator]

mbhockey13 wrote:

From my understanding, Lenovo will send you the XP CD if you request it, and maybe the Vista too, but I'm not sure about that.

Basically no...... but you can purchase then.

Cheers,

Bill

[britchie911]

I ordered the XP "Downgrade" CDs for $53 (with s/h).  Its a shame because I am really starting tolike vista64.  But there are two many work arounds to deal with ( Adobe Flash-32bit browser only, Act 2007 won't run because of the embeded "MS"-SQL 2005 DB it uses, at least thats what tech support from Sage said, the app installed fine)

I ordered a second HDD so I can run XP and test 64.  Anyone know if the T61 supports SATA2 3GBs?  I order an inexpensive 80GB 7200 that is Sata1 1.5GB's but only costs $60 (newegg.com).  I'll have to swap drives but it still seems easier than setting up a dual boot on a PC that has Vista Preinstalled since I read XP has to be installed first, meaning I'd have to back up Vista (No-DVD Burner) and format the drive then go through two installs.

If anyone has any easy way to add Vista via Dual Boot after my XP downgrade is complete I'd appreciate it.

Brad

[wjli2]

if you install xp and then Vista.... i think that would allow you to dual boot......