Originally Posted by Kurts
Untrue, the hardware has nothing to do with backwards compatibility. You'd need to reformat the drive & then do a clean install of XP. The hardware won't care.
Trust me, I'm a Network Administrator & have been repairing computers for darn near 22 years, from IBM 3/X to AS400's to PC's plus a bunch of other stuff you guys have probably never heard of.
ooofff AS400, no good.
and in this case one step backwards equals two steps forward, not the other way around... I tried Vista for a bit then sent my XPS back to XP Pro land where it could be free and happy.
The only hardware issue would be if you are running a 64-bit processor which XP Pro is not designed for... In that case you would have to run Vista. If I remember correctly you did say you were running a 64-bit processor which would make a retro back to XP not good. I would just advise you to slimline Vista, remove any applications you don't need (i.e. that Vista sidebar)