Hello,I was wondering if it is possible to still be able to by a laptop with XP Pro. I am in the market for one right now and I don't want to deal with Vista.

Yes it is possible, but talk directly with the company your buying it from it took me a little while. good luck!!

Some will do it but they usually charge extra. Nice thing now is if you buy a laptop with Vista you get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it is released. And remember, Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft.

Forget XP, Window 7 is better... you can get the RC for free :(

yup, you still can...but like others have said, most will charge.they actually charge you for both Vista and XP, as in my case...because their reason is "downgrading" - they already "bought" Vista, and need to "re-buy" and "re-install" XP for you....thus the charge...i didn't mind the fee, since i'll never use Vista... crazy Microsoft, making money off of me for Vista even though i don't use it! LOLi even had to pay extra to have a super clean system (no other software installed besides XP). I hate laptops which comes with 100+ trial softwares and icons all over the place....why can PCs learn from Apple....buy it and use it....instead, you need to spend 2-3 days just cleaning it....a word of warning. Make sure they completely remove VISTA and install XP from scratch (format the harddrive). If they don't, you can have weird driver issues left over from Vista....-feng

yah Fengz right I learnt that the hard way, got a brand new computer, had issues and eventually wiped everything off of there and reinstalled XP and that just plain kills your weekend.

Yes, that was what I was thinking. The laptop we currently have has way too many process running - I has able to disable a number of them but I was not familiar with others. I didn't want to disable some driver for some odd component. I'm really much more comfortable with my desktop.Is there a quick way for my to be able to tell if they completely wiped Vista?Also, any recommendations? I'm thinking we could get something decent for $1,500 and I would probably want to buy it from a bricks a mortar location. This will be our main household computer. We will use it for itunes, games (not fs, stuff me and my wife can play while we are on vacation), playing dvd's, ms office, email... I plan on either getting a massive hard drive or and external 1TB network drive - I'm thinking that would be best for music considering by wife has completely hosed up her aging desktop with music.Lastly, is there a very current list of processors out there with benchmarks. It has been a long time since I have looked at hardware and I have no idea where things stand right now. I may even be looking at a new desktop for FSX but that will be a custom build.

Even inexpensive laptops come with fast CPUs and large hard drives. My wife just got a Compaq with a 2.16 GHz dual core (so it's a Pentium), and a 250 GB HHD. Under $500. No need to disable anything on new computers. Sure, we got rid of some software we didn't want. Who cares. Not sure why people are so afraid of Vista. I run two desktops. I do video editing and FS on my Vista machine, and music composition and everything else on my XP machine. Absolutly no problems. Bob

Vista is porked, sorry. Or at least to me it is (and many thousands of others). Hence why XP is such a long running OS, and Vista so short. And now the advent of Windows 7... :( Dell offers all of their computers with XP options. You literally pay for Vista and XP, and the computer is shipped with XP installed and the Vista upgrade. It's a little more expensive, and down right goofy, but that's what I did when I ordered my lappy. I still have XP Pro on there.I'll also add: With pre-built computers, I suggest reformatting from scratch and by-passing the companies own software. HP's computers are notorious for the extra junky software they install on their own OEM versions of Windows. There are guides on the inter-web explaining how to by-passs that useless stuff. I suggest this with a new computer, especially if it's purpose in life is for the simVisit Tom's Hardware for great benchmarking results on just about every processor ever made.

if vista is still there it will be buggy and at one pointif like mine it will crash and delete all your programs after a week and a half so if its acting quirky dont put anything on there that youd care if u lost it for a week or so

Sorry you guys have had such a bad time of it with Vista. I'm not defending either one. As I said, I use both every day. But think about it. Just because more people use something does not automatically mean it's better. Beta was supposed to be better than VHS, Firefox is supposed to be better than IE, Macs are supposed to be better than PCs.Bob

Sorry you guys have had such a bad time of it with Vista. I'm not defending either one. As I said, I use both every day. But think about it. Just because more people use something does not automatically mean it's better. Beta was supposed to be better than VHS, Firefox is supposed to be better than IE, Macs are supposed to be better than PCs.Bob

Hi Bob. I was more speaking of the obvious points.-More expensive (out the window with prebuilt computers)-Unstable-Driver support-need for stronger hardware; it's a resource hogI didn't think Vista to be all that evil, just more a waste of money. I'm happy with XP and can do everything a Vista user can, minus the fancy desktop graphics.

Hey ZackI'm happy with XP, also. Do you own Vista, or are you repeating what others have told you?More expensive...My Vista box cost $350,new.Unstable...Do you mean crashes all the time? Alot was corrected after SP1. XP had problems at first, but it was so much better than ME(which I also own) that nobody cared.Driver support...Drivers are going to have to catch up because ,as I understand it, W7 is more like Vista than it is XP. There was stuff I couldn't get to work in XP that worked fine in ME. No real loss, thoughResource hog...Yes, but it does more. There is a lot of built in security. I think MS put it there because the vast majority of users don't know how to take care of things on their computers. A drag for the rest of us. Have you used the search function in Vista? It finds things before you finnish typing, quite often. Of course, that is a stupid reason to buy it. And I only got the Home 32 bit version, so I don't have fancy graphics. I'm not defending it (though I'm sure it sounds like it), but there is a bit of misinfomation out there.Bob

Hey ZackI'm happy with XP, also. Do you own Vista, or are you repeating what others have told you?More expensive...My Vista box cost $350,new.Unstable...Do you mean crashes all the time? Alot was corrected after SP1. XP had problems at first, but it was so much better than ME(which I also own) that nobody cared.Driver support...Drivers are going to have to catch up because ,as I understand it, W7 is more like Vista than it is XP. There was stuff I couldn't get to work in XP that worked fine in ME. No real loss, thoughResource hog...Yes, but it does more. There is a lot of built in security. I think MS put it there because the vast majority of users don't know how to take care of things on their computers. A drag for the rest of us. Have you used the search function in Vista? It finds things before you finnish typing, quite often. Of course, that is a stupid reason to buy it. And I only got the Home 32 bit version, so I don't have fancy graphics. I'm not defending it (though I'm sure it sounds like it), but there is a bit of misinfomation out there.Bob

I (have) own/owned Windows ME, XP Home, XP Pro, XP Media, and Vista Ultimate. So no, not mindlessly droning as to the short falls of Vista, it's actual experience. :( I've never been one to jump on the bandwagon, at least without personal experience. That being said, there's a reason behind the anti-Vista rantings of computer nerds across the world.Between not being able to get some software to run (especially that pertaining to Flight Sim) and having a hellacious time with frame rates, etc., I've decided to stick with XP. Not to mention the horrible spamming pop ups for "security" reasons I find to be over the top. These are annoyances, mostly, but I feel the OS is crap.Vista needs new hardware, not a problem for me but for many others wanting the latest and greatest upgrade, it doesn't cut it. Of course that's always a teething problem for new software.My biggest gripe with Vista is this: What can be done with it that I can't do on my XP system(s). There are plenty of exploits in Vista's security, and with XP SP3 being supported after 7 years running, XP's definitely not obsolete by a long shot.With all of this in mind, if you're happy with what you have, by all means! Perhaps I'm just too impatient to deal with some of the differences of a newer (incomplete in my opinion) OS. Sorry if my opinion gripes ya' Bob, I have a big mouth and can't help it. :(

No gripe perceived. I have no problem with intelligent conversation(I wish more of it came from my end). I am no Vista lover( I dislike all OSs equally), but I just haven't had the problems with it that others have had. I have no FPS problems with it , but then I don't run any addons. I do video editing and FS, both of which stress a computer pretty hard.Bob