So I was getting tired of Windows Vista and asked if I could format the family computer. After they said yes, I ditched the Vista OS and freshly installed XP Pro.
The new XP computer runs avast! 8 and is very fast compared to when it was running Windows Vista. It can actually have multiple background processes running at fast speeds, despite its minimal ram.
See attached for what I did to the computer.
~!Donovan
That’s exactly why some of us still use it. 
Hi !Donovan,
Understandable as that was exactlt what Windows did when going from Vista to Win8,
D
G’day !Donovan,
Keep in mind MS is going to end the Windows XP support on 8th of April 2014, if I were you I would switch from Vista to W8 and if you wait a bit longer MS is going to release W8.1 soon to to bring back the Start button a boot to desktop option as we always have from Windows 3.1 to W7 if anybody remember that far back Is not a great idea to turn back the old software clock when it’s going to run out soon, better grab W8 and install Classic Shell or wait until W8.1 when it’s release that way you have the latest software and drivers for the long term.
I don’t understand going backwards to XP when you could have gained the same speed going forward to Windows 8 ???
We already had the XP disc. A free downgrade, I’d say.
Furthermore, I’m familiar with XP. It was my first OS.
~!Donovan
And I love using avast! again. It has improved so much over the past few years! 
~!Donovan
Personally, I would rather have switched to Win 7 but I completely understand the free aspect of what you did. I’m really not too worried about continuing to use XP after the end of service, I’m keeping it on my older laptop but I may just use it to play legacy games and not for any on line activity.
This computer cannot run Windows 7, which is why we got Vista in the first place.
~!Donovan
Congrats on switching back to XP, !Donovan. I wouldn’t worry too much about MS stopping support next year, either. I still have a Win 98 system online thanks to unofficial service packs and upgrades available through websites like msfn.org (check out the forums). And it hasn’t been infected in the last 11 of it’s 16 year life.
Are you sure? I have never known of a machine that could run Vista not being able to run 7. They’re not that drastically different. Windows 7 is much closer and similar to Vista than it is to XP. It also will run faster than Vista on the same hardware. Having said that, a machine built to run Vista would run XP much faster.
There are some who will get infected no matter what OS they are using, a great deal of the protection of any system comes from the person between the computer and the chair.
A healthy dose of common sense and scepticism also come in very handy and if all else fails a robust backup and recovery strategy (hard drive imaging software).
Actually, this computer was “Designed for XP”.
~!Donovan
Yes, but if it can run Vista, it should be able to run 7 which is faster and lighter than Vista.
I don’t know why, but it can’t.
~!Donovan
OT: Donovan I like your style… f(x)=2x+1…
Reminds me a lot of intergration chapter for 12th grade maths ;D