My wife is looking at buying a second laptop for her business. Heres is the problem: Her current laptop (HP 9055, 9 months old, awesome FYI) has Windows XP Pro as its OS. Plus the programs she has on it (mainly Quickbooks Pro 2005, 2006) are not compatible with Windows Vista. All the new laptops come with Vista, which she cant use yet. (It would require her and ALL of her clients to upgrade to Quickbooks 2007, major money)

Can we buy a new laptop with Vista on it and then uninstall Vista and put XP Pro on it as the OS? or are the new PCs not backwards compatible? (different drivers, etc)

Its probably a dumb question but i have no clue when it comes to that kind of thing.....

 

im sure if you did a selected order you could get XP, but yes you can uninstall and reinstall any OS you want.

dont ask me how tho

 

Just get Quickbooks 07, it will work with Vista......

 

Like previously stated that isnt a viable option. Quickbooks programs are good for 3 years. There is no reason why her clients, or her for that matter, should have to buy Quickbooks 07 when her/they have Quickbook 05/06 that work perfectly fine for the next 1 or 2 years. that isnt cost effective for them or her. if she went that route all 12 clients would have to upgrade (they all use XP Pro too) to Vista and quickboks pro 07. so the most cost effective solution is for my wife to take the hit and buy XP Pro for her new laptop.......

 

Sorry, I guess I missed that It's 3am and im sleepy.....Goodnight.
BTW, im pretty sure you can get a new laptop from Dell's or HP's website with XP.

 

Assuming you cannot buy a laptop that you want with XP, then you can install XP on a Vista machine. However you must have a FULL INSTALL copy of XP, not an upgrade disk, and not a "restore" disk. They will not allow a downgrade. You have to format the Vista machine using a boot disk (Search for Win 98 boot disk on Google- burn it to CD) Boot to dos, fdisk and format, then install XP from the CD. It's that easy

 

if it came down to it, and she *has* to get vista, and hence * has* to get quickbooks 07, she should be able to save down any files, etc to the 03-04-05-06 platforms to keep her clients compatible...

 

Just stressing what akheloce said above (the part I bolded). Your current laptop probably does not have an XP install disc. You will not be able to use it to install XP on your new laptop.
I would suggest "building" a laptop on Dell's or HP's website and choosing XP as the OS.

 

went to hp.com and there is only 1 laptop with xp available. its a compaq, so i dunno if we will get it. heard bad things about them, but they are owned by hp now so we shall see. thanks for the help guys.

 

I've got a Compaq at work, NC6220 or something like that. It's a workhorse. That thing never slows down.
Plus, they've got these nice battery expansion packs for them that double as an ergonomic riser (attached to the bottom).
With a battery pack, I can be wireless, with multiple background applications running, connected online with several processes, and programming for about 5 hours.

When I'm not all out, the battery pack can last me all day...

 

You can get IBM T60's with XP Pro installed. Just got two more yesterday. Best. Laptops. Ever.

 

how much did it run you dzervit?

 

They can run $1500-$3500 depending how you configure it.

Your best bet? The CDW Outlet. You can get open box/return equipment for hundreds off. For example This T60 with XP is $1600 but sells new for $2000. Full 30 day refund, full warrenty. What's not to love?! I've got many things from the outlet and not a single problem. Good stuff, great deals.

A filtered view of the outlet for all T60 products

 

You should be able to install XP but it might not be simple. Read this.

 

Meh, who buys a Gateway anyway?