Direct2Dell

I see a HUGE market for downgrades.

This is something not commercialized (until now), but people are Always looking for the prior version of many apps, and OS's.

I would LOVE to have access to XP versions of the restore discs for 2 machines that I have, that were previously sold with XP and then Vistaed with no configuration changes. Seems to me my VistaHomePremium license should allow me, after a small fee for materials, handling & shipping, to install XPMCE instead-of, or parallel-to the original OS install.

This is probably going way-off subject - but:-

I recently bought a Dell Dimension 9150 (used) but as I live in Spain the whole thing is in Spanish and I need to get hold of an English OS disc - anybody got any advice please!!

PS And don´t say go learn Spanish cause I´m having enough trouble with the lingo as it is

I've been working with computers for over 40 years, frrom card sorters to mainframes to PCs in 1978. I have seen a lot and have been told a lot more. Now I only believe what I experience.

Many, many thanks, for all of you that have made comments and pled for help. You have my sympathy and empathy. Lucky me, I bought through QVC, and when I complained about my DELL Inspiron 1720, with Vista Home Premium pre-installed, QVC promptly mailed me an RMA.

Tonight my daughter will help me pack it up and give it to UPS. I had thought no small machine's problems could defeat me. I was wrong.

Dell & Microsoft should be embarassed to have co-operated to ship this turkey.

Dear ...

I have bought Inspiron 1525 Laptop. with pre loaded wiindows vista .I have to install windows xp professional . but due to not being deviced driver I can not install . I want windows xp professional supported deviced driver .

For example 1. video graphic driver . 2 chipset driver3. sound driver .4 WiFi driver .5 blue tooth 6 ether net driver .7 Flash card reader drver etc.

Please give suggestion how it can be .My total work and calculation depend upon windows xp professional .

Please give me deviced  driver downloading link or driver cd or dvd.

                                                          Thankyou

                                                         Habeeb Azmi

 2nd post - since no doubt I hurt 'your feelings' - will be real polite and real short  and 2 the point - Vista Junk - me UPSET .... want to keep me buying PC? Guaranteee you will do right by us (my guess is U took my money and waiting to charge me even more money will be your idea of 'fixing' it)

 Just some of problems with this 'wonderful' product 1. slowwww 2. freezes 3. wont download games so can use them properly4. blames everything else (Games,realplayer,rhapsedy etc etc) when it does not work 5. 'contant 'explorer stopped working' 6 BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

hi How are you?

a order me is driver sound card for o.s XP it ispron 1520 

Hi All,

 I have recently purchased dell INSPIRON 1525.

I've been having major problems with the clock which doesn't keep time well.

Can someone point me in the direction of a fix.

Thanks, 

Hi

Please do not trust on Dell.I have recently purchased dell INSPIRON 1525

notebook.Vista was already installed on the system. I have tried to Change the OS but it was creating problem.Some how i have instaled the Windows XP but There is no drivers Avilable on the net for INSPIRON 1525.And custmor supports also not guides properly.So think before purchasing the DELL laptop

I am so glad to hear this! Windows XP is way better than Windows Vista will ever be in my opinion! Windows XP has the performance and has some looks. But Windows Vista is all about the looks. So Windows XP all the way, plus if you upgrade to SP3, you won't have to worry about it. ;)

 Thank you for this excellent thing you have done for all of us, United States people!
 

Microsoft once again showed it's comtempt for it's customers by imposing an OS that is only 75%+/-  operable and waiting for user complaints to help them figure out how to finish designing their new product. Their contempt for us borders on criminal because it costs us money/time to operate their new OS while they are trying to make it whole. No wonder Apple is making a big comeback after nearly being run out of the business.

Purchased Dell Tune Up when the free time ran out, it was on my Del 1521 Inspiron when I purchased it and it downloaded I don't know what for almost an hour.  Now I have Vista Bilocker on an XP laptop and it has it locked up. Tells me it cannot access the hard drive.  Dell is no help whatsoever, wants to sell me a $249.00 program to correct it.  How could a Vista program get on an Xp laptop?  Any help would be greatly appreciated....

 Jackie Prassel

This may have been covered somewhere else, but we're trying to install Adobe Illustrator on our Inspiron 1501, which was sold as having 512MB of RAM. Now, I realise installing software the requires all of your RAM isn't a great idea, but when I checked my system, it says 448MB. 

That seems like a significant difference to me...?

Stop buying Inspiron 1501 w/ Vista!!!!!  Please... Do your research! Vista is problemattic and the 1501 has some known issues.

i am in need of win xp with sp2 for dell inspiration 1525 laptop

I bought a DELL INSPIRON 1501 and it came with VISTA.

I am NOT pleased with VISTA.  The programs I need to suport my work as Church Clerk are NOT compatible with VISTA.

Can I get XP loaded onto it and VISTA removed? 

Vista needs to be sent back till its problems are worked out. I will not order another computer with Vista as long as there is an option, or it has been established to work properly without problems microsoft wont fix.

I am so disappointed with Microsofts attitude that Apple computers are starting to look good

thank you 

I wanna purchase Inspiron Notebook (1525) but the only problem is it comes with Windows VISTA OS which I don't want. I want Windows XP as OS but there is no option available on your online purchase form for that.

 Please let me know whether I can get the same model with Windows XP OS instead of Vista & also let me know whether XP will support/not support all the inbuilt hardware fully. Thanks! 

Hi I don't know if this is the right place to comment. But I need help. I accidently uninstalled the Multimedia audio controller. and I can't install it again. Does anyone know if I can find it anywhere online. Thanks

The company I work for has an employee that just (9 days) ago purchased two systems and both came with VISTA.  Now he is having problems with older versions of software he wants to run on those new systems. When he called Dell to ask about reverting to XP he was told there was nothing he could do.  Also, Dell told him that if he did put XP on his system they would void the warranty.  Is this what Dell considers customer service? 

I work in IT and get a lot of people asking me to recommend brands of computers to purchase, guess which brand won't be on my recommended list.

I am curious to know if Dell intends to own up to design flaws that are causing countless of strange blue screen NMI parity check/parity memory errors. This problem has been worked, reworked and worked some more. With no solution nor any information on what is actually causing it. I have mostly seen this issue with many Inspiron E1705 machines including my own.

 Now that Dell has taken no time to answer these issues not just for me but many many others...My warranty has come up and I get no help at all. Maybe they can still replace my battery and ac adapter as they never did send an email to me with the recall statement.

I recently bought a Vostro 1500 with XP.  I chose Bluetooth, and the BT355 module works great.

So why, when I go to buy an Inspiron 1520 with XP, am I shown Bluetooth as an option - but when I select it, I get a compatibility-error box that tells me the BT355 module requires Vista, and I must fix this "error?"

This seems particularly silly given that I could order the BT355 module for $19.99 from DELL accessories, plug it into the 1520 myself and fire up the driver.  But that's needlessly inconvenient.

C'mon, Dell - please don't force Vista on me if I want a pre-installed Bluetooth module that is designed to work fine with XP!

By the way - I'd be purchasing for a brace 'o brothers, so if I could get the 1520 with XP and Bluetooth, you'd sell two of these tonight.
 

We would like to understand why Dell chose to limit non-business accounts to Vista for new machines earlier this year.

 When we invested in new computers we looked elsewhere because Dell sales folks would not allow us to purchase XP laptops.

It appears to be collusion with Microsoft against the customer's wishes & best interests. Is there more to it than that? We are very suspicious of Dell now and have removed them from our list of approved suppliers.

Why do you only offer XP on some of your notebooks? Why not give the customer the choice for all of them?

In the end it means I buy a notebook with Vista, because I can't choose any other system for the notebook I want (Inspiron 1520).

Just to exchange it against another system as soon as I get it. Which doesn't really make me a happy customer, because I paid for a system I never planned to use in the first place.
 

Hi,  I recently purchased a Dell Dimension 9200 with Vista, but have found that it does not operate well with my network applications and some hardware, so I have decided to roll back to XP.  However, in trying to load XP onto the 9200, I always get to the WEindows Setup area, but get a Stop blue screen before I can get to the F8 to accept the license.   I rang Dell and they said that since I bought he system with Vista, it will not load XP.

I certainly cannot get it to load XP, even the copy that came with my Dell Dimension 9150!   Same error.   No other version of windows will load either, from Windows 95 onwards, all with the same error.   It leads me to suspect that there is some BIOS or hardware setting I am not aware of.   Has anyone got any ideas please?  Ian

I have a Dell GX620 desktop with a German language Windows XP Home edition installed. I want to install Windows XP Pro in English as a second operating system. I have the Dell OEM CD for XP Pro.

I would be very pleased if any one could help me with the steps involved in achieving this. 

So what about the UK? We seem a little under-represented here. 

I do want to replace my 4 year old Inspiron and I do want XP Pro again. I've heard some good & alot of bad about Vista and since my machine is largely a workhorse I, like many others,  can't take the chance of the likely downtime that Vista will probably bring. Additionally I want my OS to fly quickly and it would (in theory) stand to reason that XP on a new computer would run better/faster that Vista on a new system...

It's likely that I will shop elsewhere for this new laptop as it'll no doubt take ages for this request to get anywhere (if at all). Having read trough this blog it would also be useful if you could investigate XP compatibility on these newer machines & advise people accordingly. I'd like to be proven wrong so, Dell, if your're listening please respond...

Please bring back XP Pro for the UK market!

To answer some of the questions here about re-installing XP for those with SATA drives I would recommend using nLite with your original XP CD to create a new "slipstreamed" XP CD that has the SATA drivers integrated. Google for 'nLite SATA slipstream' (without the quotes) and you'll find a ton of resources & instructions. Doing it this way eliminates the need for a floppy drive and you can also integrate any other drivers youu have, SP2 and you can make it install without all the prompts (unattended). This makes life alot easier for the future if, like me, you like to wipe the OS from time to time.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/How-To--Slipstream-your-XP-installation?page=0%2C1

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

It's not as daunting as it may seem and there are some good walkthrough's to be found.

Hope that helps and BRING BACK XP FOR THE UK!

Christoff.

Hi,

I was purchased the Dell Inspiron 640 m three months back with Windows Vista operating system.  The system is too slow so I want to replace Windows XP instead of Vista.  Can you pls help me how can I get the XP for my Laptop or do I need to purchase the XP? 

Bought 2 1501's and was told could only get VIsta.

These are slower than Win 98 machines. Now I noticed that the clock doesn't keep time properly. It seems to be Vista.

Anyway to get my money back for these? I will trade for something that works... I would like to get XP. It seems stable.. I've been working on PC's since their invention... Back in 1976.... Always seems to be same type of issues.. Buggie software....

Count me as another user that would rather have XP than Vista. (In fact Linux would be best but...)

 I'm in Canada but would be interested in hearing what reasonable offers Dell has for customers who got Vista but prefer XP. (Buying a new OS isn't really reasonable)
 

I am also a dissatisfied Vista user.  I purchased an E1405 with Vista pre-installed back in February.  I think I've given it a good run, but I've really come to hate the OS.  I spoke with Dell tech support yesterday who said I needed to contact customer support, who told me to contact sales.  I got ahold of sales, who told me I could order an XP Pro CD for Dell for $144.  The link that the sales rep sent me, however, was for a full retail version ($299).  I've searched the Dell website trying to figure out how to order a Dell OEM Windows XP Pro CD so I can get this horrible OS off my computer.  I also have a full retail version at home, but it won't install due to the computer having PCI Express and a SATA drive.

HELP!

I also purchased a Dimension E520 and need to install XP Pro (I have an authorized copy) but can't get it to read the disk drives when I boot using the install disk.  Is there any procedure or way I can accomplish this?

Vista is not able to interface with my work network/programs.

Add me to the list of dissatisfied Vista users. Our recently purchased E520 came with Vista and about half my son's (fairly recent) games won't install or run. I'd LOVE a chance to get rid of Vista and install XP on this, but my XP Pro CD won't run the install (can't see any hard drives, so I assume it doesn't have the correct SATA drivers).

Is there anything Dell can do to help ? I've opened a support request, but all I got was "call Dell spare parts and order an XP CD" (for full price, I would assume). Not very customer friendly, if you ask me. 

Recently purchased two Inspiron 1501's. Origionally the systems had Vista installed. The software i need to run had conflicts installing. I replaced Vista with XP and am having the following problems:

When one of the laptops goes to standby it Restarts and i get an error code from microsoft. Looked it up and said it was a driver issue. Is there a known problem/fix for this? (this occurs when its plugged in)

When the notebook is unplugged, in Minimal power management, and goes to standby the laptop just shuts off. This is corrected by setting it to Always On.

Thanks 

Joe, you have to remember one thing. They do not give you the hassles. Those are what cost extra. I think if you call their Tech Support they speak english. Much cheaper because problems get fixed the first time.

Why is Dell's computer more expensive then Gateway?  I have been ordering Gatway machines.

 Gateway GT5428

 17in Monitor, Pentium® D Processor 820, 1G of Ram, 250G Hard Drive, Vista Home Premium, All-in-One Printer, DVD burner, and 2year  warrenty.   679.97

A similar system from Dell, 848 + Shipping

  Gateway GT5438

 17in Monitor, Pentium® Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E4300, 1G of Ram, 320G Hard Drive, Vista Home Premium, All-in-One Printer, DVD burner, and 2year  warrenty.   899.97

DOH!

I just bought a Inspiron 1501 on April 5th (and have already had to have it replaced, for no apparent reason... but that's another story).

When I ordered over the phone, I specifically asked the rep if I could put XP on the system and was told that would work perfectly, that I would just need to take Vista off and would need a full version of XP (which I have). When I did this, I didn't think to try and find the drivers and save them to removable storage first... and consequently, couldn't find all of them anyway.

So, per the above reply to Ron Kushnier, I was hoping that you could send me this information too... and hopefully asap as I may be sending the system back for good if I can't get things right.

Thank you for continuing to offer systems with XP. I'm currently looking into a new system, and have two primary questions kicking around in my head:

1. I noticed the E520 still lists a free upgrade to Vista; also saw a post somewhere about a march 31st deadline on upgrades - can you verify that a new system purchased with this option would still include an upgrade? (Is the upgrade a MS disc or dell-modifed disc?)

2. Any idea how long dell will continue to sell systems with XP? I've seen January '08 as MS's deadline and "this summer" as a previous dell deadline...I'm not sure exactly when I'll be purchasing, and want to make sure I don't miss the boat.

 Thanks for any info you can provide.

  Glad to see the choice is back.... 

I've been watching the tech news about MS, Vista, and hardware makers... From what I've been reading, over %90 of the driver issues are being caused by MS and their darn DRM crud.  Certain features are not being allowed to be implemented if said hardware maker wants the driver certified.

  Tho what DRM has to do with me being able to get all the features of my sound or video cards working as designed, I'll never know.

I f you ask me, MS's "rights" management should end once they have determined that yes The customer has a legal copy of the OS. After that, the legalities of what I do with the system is my problem.

MS seems to have picked up the attitude that just because their OS is installed on a system, they own it and can dictate what and how we do things with it.  Vista just clarified that thought for me. 

Sure Vista looks pretty, but I can install software on XP that adds the Aero type eye candy without slowing overall performance. I run some CPU intensive tasks that suffer under Vista. As do frame rates in most of the games I play. For an OS that is advertised as faster,better, and more secure than XP,,,,,,,,   We'll I haven't seen it yet. 

**     I'm another Dell customer that would like to hear what sort of deal I can get on a copy of XP for my E-521 that came preloaded with Vista.  Vista runs well on it, but is not up to speed for the tasks I assign my system. 

Being faily computer illiterate is difficult enough,however,have purchased a new DEll 640m laptop with Microsoft Vista,is a complete DISASTER, Vista is not compatible to nearly ANYTHING in Australia.

Cannot connect to my printer or other devices,VERY disappointing.

Can someone please tell me how I can get back to a simple program ???? 

This whole mandatory Vista rollout on gear that previously ran XP Pro boggles my mind. Look at the XPS models, high margin machines that power users and gamers look to first. As a company of power users, software we run costs more than the hardware by many times and will not be certified on Vista for the better part of a year. You are about to lose my sales just on this issue.

The bottom line is that a little footwork shows this is a business/licensing, not a technical decision. If anything, the technical incompatibilities that are emerging show that with the Vista transition a mandatory change over is contra-indicated by technical requirements. Having worked with Dell's custom system imaging solutions, you guys have (to your credit) had the issue of deploying custom OS builds -- let alone a DIFFERENT OS -- licked for years on the assembly line. That's why this is confusing. Your customers have too much faith in your technical acumen to believe Vista release day was a magic event, and what worked the day before is now technically impossible.

To put it country-simple: how does it feel to lose sales over a contrived upgrade time-line?

There is no reason this option shouldn't be available on any system that just months earlier was shipped with MANDATORY XP! It would be refreshing to have someone -- anyone -- at Dell recognize this is a licensing decision influenced by your partners at Microsoft. That's your call, it just seems like a foolish one.

I look forward to a laptop with either no included Windows, or with an officially installed Linux distribution.

 My Latitude C800 (SuSE 7 progressively to 10.2 now)  is getting a bit long in the tooth, I don't want Windows, and I don't want to pay for Windows. 

The hardware was fine ... 

Speaking of "returns"...

 Will you be refunding or accepting returns of Vista from people who you shipped Vista to but wanted XP instead?    It seems only fair that people who wanted XP during that time could get it from you.   And I do note that Dell has refunded unused OS's before. (http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/66143).   

I'm sure many of your users would appreciate a return policy/program for people who got Vista and didn't use it - whether they upgrade to XP or to Linux.

Dell deserves some credit for reintroducing XP into the home and small business markets, and for leveling the playing field by making these products available in Canada, as in the US. Thanks for listening.

Hopefully, this will help to defuse what was emerging as a black market for XP products. Also, lets hope that this sends a message to MS that compatibility of legacy software and hardware IS an issue for businesses, and perhaps acutely so for small businesses, who generally do not have IT resources in-house. One can only guess at the economic costs born by individuals who are pressed into testing the applications that they use everyday.

Let's hope that MS will also reverse silly decisions, such as the arbitrary removal of support for first generation Help files (.hlp) from Vista (which requires a download to reverse). We look forward to a comprehensive SP1 that balances eye candy with function.

Hi,

Two questions:

a) Can you provide similar links for non-US customers?  I'd prefer Linux, but at least XP I'm not going to use should be a bit cheaper than Vista I'm not going to use.

b) Linux when? Maybe this is O/T but  I believe it's a fairly important feature of a "countdown" that it has specific number of specified units.  A start-number is chosen which gives an indication of time-to-T.  Anything else is just so much hollow rhetoric. "the coming weeks"...?

 Cheers.

I'm happy to hear this.  For me, Windows Vista's compatibility and performance difficulties have presented a challenge - I could understand some games not working so well if Windows Vista simply got out of the way of newer games and increased performance over XP significantly, but losing backwards compatibility *and* reducing performance - well, with DX9 working worse across the board on Vista, there's not yet any reason to switch. 

Personally, I also have major issues regarding the trustworthiness of the digital rights management implemented in that operating system.  I'm glad to see Dell offering more choice in this area - it's something that appears to be really setting the company apart from other PC manufacturers. 
 

Lionel: "Key thing to remember here is that we had already offered XP and XP Pro on these same systems before Vista shipped. No new testing or qualification is necessary—we're just bringing XP back."

Didn't Dell sell "Vista" systems with Vista preorders (or Vista upgrade preorders) before you were able to ship Vista disks too.

Couldn't you do the same with Linux -- sell us the system now - either with a pre-release version of your Linux install, or no install at all --- and then send us the official disk when you're done qualifying them?    My guess is that no matter how much certifying and qualifying you do, the Linux community will come out with their own Linux builds well suited to your machines anyway.  Internally in companies we're intending to do that anyway - building our own pre-configured corporate disk image --- and we could start doing that just as easily with a pre-release version as we could with a fully qualified version.

Lionel: "we said on March 28 ... The countdown begins today."

And I wish you guys would stop saying that "countdown begins today" thing because it rings so hollow compared to what Dell said in the past.  

The countdown began when Dell's CEO gave major speeches announcing their Linux support long ago.   Regarding certification and testing: Michael Dell in 2000 said [1] "configurations of all Dell products are now designed, tested and certified for Linux. Our factories can now customize each system -- from PCs to servers -- with Linux."

The media says Microsoft stopped Dell Linux on desktops in 2001.   Depending on what they offered, that might have been a valid reason to stop shipping them - but other vendors  (IBM, HP) have been friendlier in no-OS versions and helping users track down Linux drivers, though.

 The countdown for some of us waiting for better Dell Linux support came in 2000.  We're still counting.
 

[1]  http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/corporate/speeches/msd/2000_08_15_msd_linux.pdf

Nice!   Great to hear you are listening.

I don't use Windows myself, but it makes me hopeful  that if you're implementing ideas like this one you might get to some of the other popular ideas soon.

I recently bought an E520 with Vista. I expected all sorts of problems and annoyances from the operating system but have had the opposite reaction... it's great! I ran into one bug (importing mail into Windows Mail, but eventually it worked). Other than that Vista has worked fine. The allow/deny dialogs are no problem at all - they're certainly no worse than the security dialogs in XP. I had to get used to a few annoying name changes (eg Add/Remove Programs has a new name) and as always, I set everything I could to the "classic" look so I can see file details, etc. Plus I dismembered all the partially installed stuff (Office, Mcaffey). But as I have it now set up, it's the best OS I've used, including Mac.

As for the E520... I got two defective units before I got one that worked. But it seems to be fine now too.