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Moof1904

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 20, 2004
1,061
103
Yes, I know it's not a Mac question, but I don't have Windoze questions often enough (nor do I care to) to join a Windoze forum...

I friend has asked me to downgrade her Windoze Vista laptop back to XP (gee, I can't imagine why! :rolleyes:). I've ordered the rollback disks from Lenovo (what does it say that manufacturers are now supplying 'roll back to XP' disks upon request?) and I'm waiting for them to arrive.

If I back up her files using the "Backup and Restore Center" in Vista, will I be able to restore them under XP after I downgrade the computer to XP? In other words, is there an equivalent Backup and Restore Center in XP that will be able to read these disks and restore the data?
 
I've never tried it, but I can imagine that it would be compatible. Perhaps Vista has an option for you to select which OS you would be migrating to. If not, it might be interchangeable. Then again....it may not.

My suggestion is to back it up manually on an external hard drive (or other partition)(don't forget the email).

You could contact Lenovo about your procedure since they probably have more experience with this sort of thing by now.

Later, Parsec
 
To avoid possible loss of data I would dump the files to CD/DVD/Memory stick/External HD. And I think the name of that OS is Windows XP. Or do I climb up the ranks if I start calling it Windoze as well :p :p :p
 
I have seen this with my daughters and husbands vista comps. check and see if her programs or files are compatible with XP. Some may not be.
 
Backup your documents and such onto a Flash Drive and Install XP and reinstal your apps and then bring back the documents... Going backwards is always dangerious. Espectially with Visa because a lot of it was designed for a New File System that never got put in. A Vista Backup program may have extra iformation saved that XP will not understand.
 
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