Dell and XP

[SimpleSi]

Went to order a laptop for a friends daughter from Dell with XP on it - only 1 laptop available in Home section - £700!

Gave them a ring on the phone and after enduring 15 minutes of why Vista was so much better than XP and how in 2 or 3 months I'd find out that new software didn't run on XP and I'd be crying in my soup - he caved in and sold me a laptop from the business range instead because you can still get XP for them

He was the one ending up crying when I didn't take his kind offer of Office 2007 Home and Student edition for £120 and was most upset to find its only £80 elsewhere so be felt obilged to discount his price to match it.

I thought the price would end up too high after VAT and shipping but the shipping ended up being free at the end (On Home they "subtract" it at the beginning )

Took about an hour on the phone so gawd knows how much the phone call was mind!

Anyway - you can still XP from Dell - its just got a bit harder thats all! (but I think we got a better machine for just £20 quid more )

regards

Simon

[FN-GM]

Although alot of company sells there machines with Vista they do have the XP drivers so you can downgrade pretty easy. I advise people to get vista business if they have the choice so you can downgrade to XP for free.

[Oops_my_bad]

So now that you bought a laptop from the business range, does this mean you can avoid the Indian technical support

[Geoff]

I recently downgraded a friends Packard Bell Laptop bought from PC world. Happily it seems nearly all the Packard Bells that come with Vista also have a complete set of XP drivers listed from download on their website. Making the whole process a doddle.

However, my basic advice to anyone who asks is to buy a mac and get bootcamp/parrellels if they need XP.

[john]

My advice is Business or Ultimate Edition and downgrade to XP Pro if your that desperate to avoid Vista.

[cookie_monster]

A Mac, buy a decent PC for a third less then install Ubuntu you end up with a good system and you don't look like a hairdresser ;-)

[Pete10141748]

Yeah I too noticed there a limited range of XP machines on Dell now.
I think MS are pushing really hard for manufacturer's to not supply XP anymore.

I guess Dell is well within their right to stop providing XP, but they do have a bit of a cheek to ask for £50 to 'downgrade' to XP Professional on most of their machines!

[Sirbendy]

This is why my missus had a chat to her boss, and he agreed to buy her a new Vostro X2 laptop with XP and the 4 year support package..heh. All paid back now, so it's hers.

She had a bad key on it when it arrived, and support talked her through removing and refitting the keyboard, then sent a new one out next day for her to fit herself.

Impressive. Especially when you consider to replace the KB on my ancient Inspiron 3800 they wanted me to RTB it, and said "no home fit option, and loads of money, ta"..