Good Afternoon. I'm sure this is an old question so I apologize in advance. I am currently serving in Iraq and bought a new Dell Inspiron 530 for my wife back in the U.S. off the Dell Web Site. It came with Vista preloaded. My wife absolutely hates Vista! She has had frequent problems with software compatability issues among others and is more comfortable with XP. I told her I would replace Vista with XP upon my redeployment soon. I have done as much research as possible and contacted dell support in preperation for this. Dell was not very helpful. I found some asnswers on the web. I know that I need to feformat the HD and do a clean install of XP. I have a copy of the original system configuration based on the service tag, however I am having trouble deciphering all the components. I am attempting to find out if all the drivers are available for the installed components in XP. I read somewhere that the Dell driver download site won't always list the correct drivers for XP if the system was shipped with Vista. I am trying to avoid problems when I start the process. Is there a way to decipher the part numbers or part description so I can attempt to find the drivers on the component manufacturer's web sites? Also ant tips you can offer on the whole conversion from Vista to XP would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

For staters I personally want to thank you for services in Iraq. You can downgrade to Vista pretty easily to XP. If you have a full XP CD then it's pretty straight foward, just pop in the disc at bootup and erase both the Vista and the Dell recovery partitions (since you won't be needing the 2 partition anymore) when the setup installation gets to that part about formatting your hard drive. Then after you deleted both partiton, create one whole partition in the xp installation setup and go fowards from there. As for XP drivers for your pc I don't know exactly what your 530 model number is so I can't give you the drivers. until you are able to find the model number. The best way to do that is to go here and let dell do a scan on your service tag which will determine exactly what kind of series your 530 model is. http://support.dell.com/support/dow... If it's broke, then blow that sucka up!

Thanks for the response Cobra R. I have the service tag number if that will help. I won't have access to the actual computer until I get home. I printed out the system configuration according to the service tag, however, I can't figure out the components as listed in the part description. Someone like yourself who is more tech oriented than I am could probably figure it out. I tried to find a site on the web to put in the Dell part # in hopes it would give me a more detailed description of the component, but didn't have any luck. I tried going to the link you provided for the Dell drivers, however it only gives me about 8 when I put in the service tag number vs. putting in just the model and os, then I get around 32. Again, I cannot determine exactly what the components are to figure out what drivers I need. By the way, I will be using a full version of XP when I do the install, so thanks for that tip.

ok here is the next best thing. Download CPU-Z from here. http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php It will tell you everything you need to know from the name of your processor, motherboard, ram etc.... If you can give me the motherboard name and model i could figure out what it is and what type of hardware it uses. If it's broke, then blow that sucka up!

Here is the system confiuration based on the service tag. I don't know how to decipher this and I since I am still deployed I don't have ready access to the computer. Maybe you can understand this and determine what the mother board is and what drivers I will need. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 1 C041C BASE,MNTW,Q6600,CDKE,530,PFC 1 01323 INFO,NO ITEM 1 CR457 PRC,Q6600,2.4,8MB,CDKE,G0 1 4J571 MOD,HD,500GB,S2,#1,ULD,WD-ZEUS 1 54981 MOD,INFO,NOSPEAKER 1 55956 MOD,INFO,NO MODEM INCLUDED 1 C913C MOD,LBL,INTEL,DT,CQKE 1 CJ340 MOD,MSE,2BTN,OPTCL,BLK,PMX,DIM 1 D254D MOD,SW,VHP32SP1,CDT,ENG,D/B 1 F6405 MOD,INFO,NO RAID,DIM 1 FC193 MOD,DIMM,3G,2X1G/2X512,667,NEC 1 FK244 MOD,SW,DT-ICLNR,DAO 1 GM493 MOD,LBL,MS,VSTA,PREM,DIM 1 GM638 MOD,SW,8-CHAN,DOLBY,PDVD,7,BD 1 H076D MOD,SW,QFE,VHP32SP1,CDT 1 HX854 MOD,FD,1.44MB,HH,MNTW,NEC 1 J206C MOD,SW,DCON,2.1,DAO,EMEA,BCC 1 JP927 MOD,SW,DELL-WELCOME, TLOB 1 K838F MOD,SW,VHP32SP1,DVD,MUL5,D/B 1 KP820 SHIP,MNTW,530,US,NO,ENG,DAO 1 KW181 MOD,SW,DSPRT-CTR,2.0 1 KW194 MOD,DVDRW/BD-ROM,BARE,HLDS,INS 1 MX864 MOD,CRD,GRPHC,MRMGA11,CAP,INSP 1 P166F MOD,SW,VHP32/64,COA 1 PT329 MOD,KYBD,104,US,SLVR 1 TT262 MOD,MEDIA,DVD,DRVR,RDVD,SPNG 1 WK528 MOD,SW,GOOGLE,SRCH,CSMR 1 XM544 MOD,SW,PC-RESTORE,TLOB 1 Y575C MOD,SW,RXO,10.2,PREM,BD-P 1 YK238 MOD,SW,PDVD,BD-P,7.0,DIM 1 23503 LBL,BRCD,TRACK,SYS,GNRC 1 4564U INFO,SW,DEFAULT,FAT32 1 48480 SCR,6-32X1/4",HX,TF,ZPS,TRI-PT 1 57154 SRV,SW,FIST 1 58548 INFO,SW,UTILITY-PARTITION,10MB 1 8564U INFO,SW,DEFAULT,NTFS 1 CP825 ASSY,HTSNK,FAN,MNTW 1 H7736 SRV,SW,UTIL,DRVRESET1.0 1 JC052 SRV,OS,WXP,MCE,Q835221 1 KP317 SRV,SW,HDF-AUD,RLTX,530/530S 1 KP318 SRV,SW,INTEL,INF,530/530S 1 KP319 SRV,HTML,INTEL,LOM,530/530S 1 KP320 SRV,DIAG,INTEL,LOM,530/530S 1 KP321 SRV,DRVR,INTEL,LOM,530/530S 1 KP322 SRV,SW,IMSM,DRVR,530/530S 1 KP323 SRV,SW,IMSM,APPS,530/530S 1 KP325 SRV,SW,INTEL,VID,530/530S 1 KP329 SRV,SW,PWR-MGMT,UTIL,INSP DT 1 MY297 LBL,FASC,INTEL,CARTON 1 NH517 SRV,SW,UP-DIAG,DIM 1 NK915 SRV,OS,WXP,ATAPI.SYS 1 NW946 SRV,SW,VISTA,INSP DT,W/PAPER 1 UU480 SRV,SW,OWNR-MNL,DIM,E530 1 XX784 ASSY,CHAS,QUAD,530,PFC,L6 1 3E476 INFO,EQUIPMENT 1 3E476 INFO,EQUIPMENT

That list doesn't very help much. You need to identify the hardware. At the very least you'll need to know the make/model of the motherboard chipset, video, sound, network adapters. Once you know that, you can find the drivers here: http://support.euro.dell.com/suppor... "If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions" - Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction

Yeah as Jam stated, that isn't going to help much if that is all they are listing without any hardware specs. You will need to downlaod cpu-z as i stated in post 3. If it's broke, then blow that sucka up!