It's no secret that many applications have trouble running on Windows Vista, and the fact is that most new computers are packaged with Vista already installed. This doesn't leave you with many options at first, however, if you wish you can install Windows XP on that computer and replace Vista.

While installing Windows XP on a computer that had Vista pre-installed, it is very time consuming so try and keep that in mind when considering this. Before we begin, I would only recommend this to people that know what they're doing, just to be safe. However, there are scores of online websites with guides on this subject, so lets get started.

Shrinking Vista

First of all, before you install Windows XP you need to run a program in Vista called Shrink Volume to make sure there is enough space for XP. Click on the Start Menu, then right click My Computer, click Manage, and then finally click Disk Management on the available list.

Once you've reached this menu, simply right click on the main hard drive and choose Shrink Volume. After you've done that, there will be a new window in which you need to enter the size (in MB) of how much you want to shrink the hard drive.

Most guides online will tell you not to use the default, this is pretty much up to you judging by big the hard drive on your computer is. For an example, lets use 15GB, or 15000 MB.

Changing the Drive

In this step, we need to change the letter of the CD-Rom drive currently taking up the default spot(D:). The reason for this is simply because we'll want to use it for installing Windows XP.

Keep in mind that you can skip this step and come out good, but things won't be as easy. Go back to the disk management and right click on the CD-Rom drive, then click "Change Drive Letter and Paths." In the next menu, from the drop down list, lets choose E: and press ok.

New Simple Volume

At this point, were able to create a partition of the hard drive, just for Windows XP. You can also skip this, however its just easier this way. Find your way back to the Disk Management menu, right click on the Unallocated free space area.

In the right click menu that shows up, select New Simple Volume from the list. Follow through the wizard program, be sure to select the options you would like, just make sure to use the D: drive (which is the one we used as an example).

Once the wizard is finished, you will need to close down the disk management and reboot the computer. Be sure to follow that step,

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