hello there. i am looking for a way to do a clean install of xp pro. i am using vista premium now and its just terrible so going back to xp pro. the thing is i know i cant go back to xp from vista premium unless i slipstream the sata drivers onto a xp sp2 disc. but i know if you have vista ultimate or business you can downgrade to xp pro. so i was thinking if i upgraded to vista ultimate from vista premium would that let me downgrade to xp pro. a friend has a oem vista ultimate disc so i was wondering will that work. cheers

There is no downgrade path and the OS you have running now has no bearing whatsoever on what you can install in the future. What you must do before wiping your OS is to verify ALL the needed drivers are available. If they are, then download them and burn them to CDR. You may have trouble with HD sound drivers and wireless LAN drivers. I suggest you consider what you are doing before taking action. Also, if you DO wipe Vista I suggest you leave the recovery partition in place. Also, create the recovery disks if you don't currently have them. At some point you WILL need to restore Vista. If for no other reason to get a few bucks for the used computer. As far as slipstreaming files into WinXP. I suggest you not only slipstream the SATA drivers but also SP3. Use nLite, it is pretty easy to use.

cheers for the info. i upgraded to vista ultimate just now and it's running good. so after thinking alot about downgrading to xp i'm going to forget it. it's just not worth the time and effort. i'll just stick with this until windows 7 is in retail. thanks again

Good decision.