Is it safe to go back to XP from Win 7?

[Clueless in Seattle]

Over a year ago my cousin gave me a home-built PC with Windows 7 installed on it (but with no license or installation CD).

Every day since then has been a struggle with Win 7 seemingly warring against me and making it an ordeal to just try to use my computer for the simplest of tasks.

Would I be putting my computer at risk of cyber attacks if I were to wipe the hard drive and start over with a clean install of Windows XP? I have a licensed, unopened and never used XP Pro CD.

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

 

[Elizabeth23]

you will need to go to the pc's manufacturers website and see if there are drivers available for xp.

or, install and then look at device manager and go to the device manufacturers website for the appropriate driver since it is a home built pc.

in order for xp to use automatic updates, you must have sp3 installed before updates will work.

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as long as you use a good antivirus, a malware scanner and safe surfing you are as safe as you would be on any other OS.

 

[Aunty Jack]

Hello Clueless my friend,

I fully endorse the post by Elizabeth23. First thing I would do is (using Win 7) is go to the PC manufacturer's site and by type, make, model, etc search for the video and sound drivers for your PC. Ignore all of the "driver search" sites and apps because they will default to Win 7 usually.I hope you are using an ethernet connection and have the CD install for your modem. Otherwise you will be stuck as XP does not have native support for modems (well, most of them). MajorGeeks site has XP SP3 available which is a cumulative "roll up" which, from my fractured memory, includes the older SP2. But, be prepared for about 150 or so XP updates which will take a loooong time. I run XP on our PC number 2 and at the end of the day/night run a full anti-virus scan (Panda Cloud Anti-virus) and Malwarebytes. Apart from the odd PUP (potentially unwanted program) every two weeks or so, XP can still be protected quite well.

But, get the drivers you need first and put them on a USB stick and keep them even after you have installed XP. If your PC is basically a DELL, no problems with drivers. Otherwise, good luck and happy hunting.

Cheers from Aunty Jack.