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Is there a way to move Microsoft Office 2007 to another hardisk for XP Downgrade

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patteo:
I wouldn't consider installing XP over Vista. It is possible the other way round because Vista 'knows' how to deal with upgrading XP but XP is not even aware of the existence of Vista. Chances are you will end up with a mishmash system that causes problems down the line.
-Carol Haynes (September 27, 2008, 12:32 PM)
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You are right Carol.

You may find it says "can't find a hard disc installed'. Lots of new SATA hard discs are not supported by the XP installer and are simply not recognised.
-Carol Haynes (September 27, 2008, 12:32 PM)
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I had this problem earlier this year when I had to help someone downgrade a T61 Thinkpad this year.

After a lot of fiddling around a lot, I discovered the problem is that you have to get into the Bios setting to set the compatibility mode. I forget the name of the particular field. Once that is done, the T61 recognized the Windows XP Pro disc and the installation went along fine except you have to go around hunting for the drivers.

So it's wise before you part with you cash when buying the laptop to have them state clearly on the invoice that the unit is downgradeable to XP if that is what you want.

Besides, I suspect many mother boards would have this compatibility mode; the problem is that the guys in the shop don't tell you.

patteo:
FWIW, I did the same thing (bought a new notebook with Vista pre-installed with the intention of installing XP Pro). That was a month and a half ago and I haven't bothered with the downgrade. Unless you're in dire need of software that won't run under Vista, why downgrade? I ask somewhat rhetorically as I was on the same path myself... The answer that I now would give is: "Why indeed?" I have my perfectly functional XP Pro notebook at my disposal for the software that falls into that category.

I really, really like Vista... the magic ingredient seems to be RAM and Graphics card. I've got 3GB RAM and 512MB dedicated video memory. It's very, very quick and stable.
-Darwin (September 27, 2008, 01:12 PM)
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For me, it's the logical thing to do after my earlier experience with Vista. Not that it is bad, it is just the incompatibility of certain utilities that I use daily.

The other is that I hate to along the find that I need another software that does not work with Vista.

The other reason is I believe that many of us have gotten used to Windows XP Pro for some years now and it works well enough and will last me quite a few more years till Windows 7 appears. So why go through the "trouble" of using Vista.

So in a nutshell, I'm willing to go through the trouble of downgrading to Windows XP Pro, even if I have to "pay" to do this to avoid what I think is the "higher price" to pay for incompatibilities, time etc.

Carol Haynes:
After a lot of fiddling around a lot, I discovered the problem is that you have to get into the Bios setting to set the compatibility mode. I forget the name of the particular field. Once that is done, the T61 recognized the Windows XP Pro disc and the installation went along fine except you have to go around hunting for the drivers.
-patteo (September 28, 2008, 02:25 AM)
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That's assuming the BIOS has any worthwhile settings. I am a bit frustrated that my notepad has a BIOS with virtually nothing user definable.

Darwin:
So in a nutshell, I'm willing to go through the trouble of downgrading to Windows XP Pro, even if I have to "pay" to do this to avoid what I think is the "higher price" to pay for incompatibilities, time etc.
-patteo (September 28, 2008, 05:40 AM)
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Fair enough, fair enough... I hear you about XP Pro, too. Considering that I upgraded to it kicking and screaming (loved and still love 2k), it's turned out to be a wonderful OS.

patteo:
After a lot of fiddling around a lot, I discovered the problem is that you have to get into the Bios setting to set the compatibility mode. I forget the name of the particular field. Once that is done, the T61 recognized the Windows XP Pro disc and the installation went along fine except you have to go around hunting for the drivers.
-patteo (September 28, 2008, 02:25 AM)
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That's assuming the BIOS has any worthwhile settings. I am a bit frustrated that my notepad has a BIOS with virtually nothing user definable.
-Carol Haynes (September 28, 2008, 05:55 AM)
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Carol, when you access the Bios, get into Config (in the T61 it was the first item). And somewhere in that Sub menu, I find Serial ATA (SATA)

When I selected it, it says SATA Controller Mode Option [AHCI]

Change AHCI to Compatibility.

After that change, you should find that the SATA Controller should be able to find the SATA harddisk when you boot from the Windows XP Pro setup disk.

In any case, this is quite logical since Windows XP Pro probably did not recognize SATA since SATA was not available then. Not sure if Windows XP Pro SP3 takes care of that.

But in any case, if my memory did not fail me, that was how I solved the problem of the Windows SP Pro SP2 setup disk not recognizing the SATA hard disk initially.

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