[SOLVED] How to upgrade from windows 8.1 to xp?

[RealSmoke]

First: Pc spec; Msi Gt 710 lp, 3gb ram, intel pentium 4 630(Soon to be pentium d 945)
Now my main question. How do i downgrade from windows 8.1 to windows xp 64 bit pro? i created a bootable usb drive with rufus (coudn't use win7usb download thing because it said that its not a iso file despite it being a normal iso image) and when i boot from usb i get a black screen for 1 second and then the pc boots to windows 8.1, why does this happen? the pc came with win xp when i bought it then upgraded to vista and from vista to windows 7 and to windows 8.1, why am i suddenly not able to do a clean win xp 64 bit install? i tried multiple iso's but all of them have the same thing. The pc cleary can run xp because its what it originaly ran. Also i'm trying to downgrade because win 8.1 is becoming suddenly sluggish and gives me WAY less fps than xp gave me in games but i rather use 64 bit instead of 32 bit xp(i need 64 bit for a certain reason) also does it have the same performance as 32 bit xp? or is it worse or the same?

 

[ImWolf]

I have installed XP Pro 64 in the past, and you will likely find as I did that there are many issues. Overall, the 32 bit version is much less of a headache.

With only 3g of ram, you really won't see an advantage to the x64 version?

If you insist on proceeding, the first thing you need do is confirm you can get all the drivers for your hardware. Snappy Driver Installer utility is very handy for this. (after the install is complete).

Your machine is likely still booting to Win 8 because either your flash drive is not really a boot drive, or your BIOS settings don't allow for booting from USB.

Lastly, to answer your MAIN question, you don't "downgrade". During the XP install (if you get there), at the point where you choose an install location you delete all partitions on the hard drive, create a new partition with the then unused space, and install the OS to that new partition.

 

[RealSmoke]

I have installed XP Pro 64 in the past, and you will likely find as I did that there are many issues. Overall, the 32 bit version is much less of a headache.

With only 3g of ram, you really won't see an advantage to the x64 version?

If you insist on proceeding, the first thing you need do is confirm you can get all the drivers for your hardware. Snappy Driver Installer utility is very handy for this. (after the install is complete).

Your machine is likely still booting to Win 8 because either your flash drive is not really a boot drive, or your BIOS settings don't allow for booting from USB.

Lastly, to answer your MAIN question, you don't "downgrade". During the XP install (if you get there), at the point where you choose an install location you delete all partitions on the hard drive, create a new partition with the then unused space, and install the OS to that new partition.

I checked the manufactures site and it has all the drivers so thats not a problem. Flash drive worked perfectly with a win vista and win 7 iso and i had no errors. I messed around a bit with imgburn and the iso works well now but the windows 7 usb/dvd tool fails/stops at 95% gives me an error, i don't really know why since making a bootable windows 7 install worked perfectly also a win 8.1 bootable usb install worked well. And yes i know i don't downgrade i just used the wrong words (english is not my first language).

 

[RealSmoke]

I also set the usb priority to boot before hard drive or press F9 and pick the usb but it seems to completly ignore all the install files, and just boots into win 8.1.

 

[onespeedbiker]

I have never successfully installed XP from a USB . One reason appears to be XP was designed around much smaller USBs; I have read the max size USB used to install XP should 2gb or smaller. The easiest way to do this is to stop trying to install XP from a flash drive and install from a CD instead.

 

[ImWolf]

I checked the manufactures site and it has all the drivers so thats not a problem. Flash drive worked perfectly with a win vista and win 7 iso and i had no errors. I messed around a bit with imgburn and the iso works well now but the windows 7 usb/dvd tool fails/stops at 95% gives me an error, i don't really know why since making a bootable windows 7 install worked perfectly also a win 8.1 bootable usb install worked well. And yes i know i don't downgrade i just used the wrong words (english is not my first language).

Ok.... So you have in the past used WinXP to create a bootable flash drive to install Vista. Then you used Vista to create a bootable flash drive to install Win7. Then you used Win7 and created a bootable flash drive to install Win8.1.... But now with Win8.1 you cannot create a bootable flash drive?

Do you still have any of the previous USB thumb drives? Do they boot?

 

[ImWolf]

I have never successfully installed XP from a USB . One reason appears to be XP was designed around much smaller USBs; I have read the max size USB used to install XP should 2gb or smaller. The easiest way to do this is to stop trying to install XP from a flash drive and install from a CD instead.

I installed WinXP Pro x64 from a 16G USB flash drive last week..... the same flash drive also had two other boot menu items on it. What you read was not entirely correct.

 

[onespeedbiker]

Interesting. Did you prepare the USB in any special way; ie partition it? Did you use CD emulation software?

 

[ImWolf]

Interesting. Did you prepare the USB in any special way; ie partition it? Did you use CD emulation software?

No..... I just happened to have a 16G thumb drive I had used in the past.... it still had 2 items on it which were put there in bootable format using Yumi. Those two programs included a "Boot Repair Utility", and Linux Mint Setup.

When I wanted to install XP Pro 64 I used Yumi again and it added the new ISO as a 3rd option to the existing boot menu.

I have never used Rufus, so I can't tell anyone if it has the same capability.

 

[BFG-9000]

It's probably Yumi, or one of the two files is sitting on the DOS boot sector. To boot to DOS, IO.SYS must actually be at the boot sector--the BIOS isn't going to go searching the disk for it. It's the same thing with the later WINBOOT.SYS and Windows PE.

I know at least XP-32 allows you to run setup from DOS, so you'd only need IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM on the disk in addition to the copied i386 folder from the XP install media. It's worth a try on XP-64 if you don't have an optical drive.

 

[ImWolf]

It's probably Yumi, or one of the two files is sitting on the DOS boot sector. To boot to DOS, IO.SYS must actually be at the boot sector--the BIOS isn't going to go searching the disk for it. It's the same thing with the later WINBOOT.SYS and Windows PE.

I know at least XP-32 allows you to run setup from DOS, so you'd only need IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM on the disk in addition to the copied i386 folder from the XP install media. It's worth a try on XP-64 if you don't have an optical drive.

I don't mean to hijack the thread on this, but I had forgotten to mention that I first used nLite to create the XP ISO so I could incorporate the required Sata drivers. Then I discovered my burner was on the fritz and ended up using Yumi to put that bootable ISO on the flash drive. Yumi deleted the previous boot menu with just the two items, and then created a new boot menu with the 2 existing ISO's on the drive already and added XP setup to the menu.

Also, I had first run a Linux based "Boot Repair Utility" that was on the flash drive to delete all the partitions on the HDD..... so I don't think any DOS files on the system were used. Only setup files included with the XP install ISO.

 

[RealSmoke]

So i got the setup to work but now after formating the drive the setup fails and gives me an error saying "The following value in the .SIF file used by Setup is corrupted or missing: Value 0 on the line in section [SourceDisksFiles] with key "SSA.exe"." Any idea how to fix this?

 

[ImWolf]

There is only one .Sif file in my XP Pro x64 ISO, and that is TXTSETUP.SIF.

When I open it with Notepad there is no SSA,EXE anywhere in the file.

 

[RealSmoke]

There is only one .Sif file in my XP Pro x64 ISO, and that is TXTSETUP.SIF.

When I open it with Notepad there is no SSA,EXE anywhere in the file.

So what can i do? Any ideas?

 

[ImWolf]

Don't know why you are seeing the error..... My Setup ISO is SP1, and I installed SP2 after the initial setup. I just looked again at both the Setup ISO and the extracted SP2, and there is no SSA.* file to be found.

 

[RealSmoke]

Don't know why you are seeing the error..... My Setup ISO is SP1, and I installed SP2 after the initial setup. I just looked again at both the Setup ISO and the extracted SP2, and there is no SSA.* file to be found.

I fixed it. I had to open that file with notepad and find SSA.exe after that i just deleted the text there and the problem is fixed. But now im stuck at the product key verification all the product keys i tried dont work just a error saying "The cd key you entered is not valid". I tried multiple win xp x64 pro product keys but all dont work neither do x32 win xp product keys work.

 

[ImWolf]

The CD Key you need to input is the one written on the CD case of the OS you legally obtained.

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