I don’t care what you say, Vista blows fucking balls. You can argue it all you want, but no matter what you say or what data you present—you’re wrong.

With that said, I’ll get to the topic at hand:

I successfully made the “downgrade” from Windows Vista to XP on my HP Pavilion dv2000 series laptop; specifically, the dv2745se. And because I know that there are plenty of people out there who want to do the same thing on their new HP laptops, I’ll explain the steps I went through to get it done. (Keep in mind that I’m writing this with the assumption you have basic knowledge of drivers.)

1. I strongly recommend that you create a recovery disc set. If you’re on an HP, there should be pre-installed HP software to help you do this easily. Just pull up their help program and search it out. Having these discs on hand will save you if you somehow screw everything up.

For me, it took several DVDs to get a three disc set. For some reason I kept getting errors during the verification period of disc creation, but was able to successfully get through it after end-processing all running applications and leaving the laptop to be.

2. Here’s the fun part! Pull out a fairly large USB flash drive and get ready to start collecting all the necessary drivers for your laptop.

For dv2745se users, you’ll want to first get the nForce 630a chipset driver. (file labeled “14.10_nforce_630a_winxp_english_whql.exe”)

Next, get the NVIDIA Graphics driver here. (file labeled “15655.exe”)

Up after that is the Broadcom wireless LAN driver

Those Quick Launch buttons require at least .NET2.0 framework, so get that too.

Then of course, the Quick Launch buttons.

Then go to this page and download these items: Conexant High Definition Audio Driver The webcam drivers The mouse drivers The latest HP wireless assistant software Ricoh 5-in-1 Card Reader Driver LightScribe Host Software

The most difficult thing about downgrading with HP Pavilion laptops are the sound related drivers. You will need the Microsoft Universal Audio Architecture Bus Driver for High Definition Audio for Windows XP SP2, so search “kb888111xpsp2” in Google and download the executable. I found one that worked for me here. If you’re not installing SP2, search “kb888111” instead.

It’s also possible you’ll need an alternate Conexant driver, so download this as well.

There might be a chance that I’m missing something, but I’m 88 to 93% sure that this should do it for drivers and software.

3. Goodbye Vista—and please—let the door hit you on the way out, so as to fling you far from my sight.

Reformat time! I had a Windows XP SP2 CD on me, so I reformatted with that, but in order to do so, I had to set the boot order to read CDs first. You can do this on dv2745se machines by hitting f10 during the POST.

The rest should be self-explanatory, so read on after you’ve got an XP desktop on your screen.

4. Driver installation is such a pain in the ass on this machine that I’ve been forced to create a new word in order to describe the immense size of the pain-in-the-assness: BIGIANTANORMOUS.

Start with the important ones, so the chipset and graphics. If given the option, only install the drivers and avoid the software. Make sure to restart once after each install, and all installs from here on out.

Next, since I like tackling all the difficulties head-on first, we’ll take on the dreaded sound drivers. a) Run the kb888111xpsp2.exe to install the MS UAA hotfix, and restart when done. b) Install the conexant audio driver. IT SHOULD FAIL, so what we’ll want to do now is manually install the driver by going to the device manager, finding the missing audio device, and updating the driver. Say no to connecting to Windows Update and choose the “advanced” method of installation. Then opt to “choose the driver to install,” which will bring you to a list. Select “sound, video and game controllers,” and hit the “have disk” option at the bottom right. Browse for that driver that you failed to install by going to the place the executable extracted to, most likely c:/swsetup/xxxxxx. Find the .inf file and install away. c) Don’t forget to reset after all that.

Now install the .NET2.0 fix. Restart.

Quick Launch buttons. Restart.

Now test your sound buttons to see if they respond. If the mute button doesn’t turn orange when you hit it, which it probably won’t, you’ll need to manually install the alternate Conexant driver that we downloaded. Run the executable, REJECT TO OVERWRITE ANYTHING IF IT ASKS YOU, manually install it through the device manager, and then restart. Hopefully that’ll do it for you, but if not, you can find more help here.

After that mess, also manually install the modem driver. Restart.

Broadcom driver, which also must be installed manually. Restart.

From here on out it should be a rocky ride, but at least in a downhill direction. Install all the drivers we downloaded, being sure to restart when asked to, and by the end you should have no unknown devices plaguing your device list.

PAT YOURSELF ON T3h BACK. WE BE DONE.

Some end notes and observations: I spoke with an HP representative before downgrading my computer to XP. They highly recommended that I stick with Vista, as there could be compatibility problems with the computer’s hardware and an XP operating system. BULL SHIZZLE! There are other, older HP laptops out there running the same gear as my current laptop, and yet HP does not have the necessary drivers listed under the XP “software and drivers” section on the dv2745se page. Making it an absolutely painful transition from Vista to XP; however, this laptop defied their odds, and I am now running faster and lighter than I was before.

No thanks to HP.

And to Microsoft: fuck you guys for being so fail.

My next computer is going to be a Mac.