Install XP after Vista - more than you bargan for

In my desire to go back to XP I thought I'd simply dual boot them (well triple boot counting Ubuntu). After all, drive space is plentiful and then I can migrate my data back slowly and still boot into Vista occasionally for nostalgia.

Well, had I done the research I'm sure I'd have found that it's not as easy as multi booting other OSs. Seems Vista isn't compatible with XPs boot loader that gets written to the MBR during setup. So when it comes time to reboot after the inital portion of the install I get a black screen with some lovely hieroglyphs. Oh oh. Booting from the XP install CD gives me the same. I quickly throw in my Vasta DVD thinking I'll repair the boot loader, and instead of it booting from the DVD, it seems to try and boot from a combo of the DVD and hard drive - not too sure what is happening here. The DVD goes for a bit, then the drive, then the DVD and so on until I get a bluescreen IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.

So now I see no way to boot my system at all. (sweating a little). In the end I try booting Vista from DVD into safe mode and finally get to the repair screen and I'm back in business. I should also add that it too 4 boots into safe mode before I got the repair options. Each boot would have various levels of 'success'.

What started out as a routine procedure end in adventure. I guess that's the nature of adventures though.

I found this site to be a good resource during the problem:
http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

Upgrading from Vista to XP

I've had enough. I like the pretty and the candy as much as the next guy, but Vista has run its course for me. Since I assembled my new PC in the summer I've been limping along with Vista Ultimate waiting (and hoping) that SP1 would help improve the situation. I'm running an AMD64 X2 4000+ dual core with 4GB of RAM, and the machine seems slower than before I upgraded the hardware when I was running XP.

My wife's machine (3600+ 2GB) running Vista would crash frequently without cause or being able to find a solution. She begged me to put XP back on which I did and she's as happy as can be. I thought I'd wait it out just a little longer, so I was very happy to see the SP RC show up in my Windows Update. I grabbed it right away and waited for it to install.

I was rewarded with 4 system crashes the first night I put it on. I might add that system stability was not an issue prior to this. So I uninstalled the SP RC and am left now with the task of upgrading to XP - or spending more time in my other installed OS (Ubuntu 7.10) which is becoming more and more attractive all the time.

Maybe XP SP3 will finally give me the performance I was hoping for from Vista - http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20071126/tc_nf/56872

What happened to the great innovative company that changed the face of computing? I guess no one stays on top forever. R.I.P. Microsoft.