How can I downgrade from Windows 7 to Windows Vista?

Question

My system came with Windows Vista business install on D partition. My friends told me about windows 7 and I decided to check it out. Since I installed it on my laptop, the caliberation of my battery dropped and the battery life also dropped from about 2.5hrs to about 45mins.

I thought this was because of the graphics on Windows 7. Now I want to change back to windows vista.

NB: I installed windows 7 directly into C drive without touching D drive at all. How can I reinstall my Vista from D drive?

Answer 1

Well as long as you have vista actually installed on your D: drive I see no problem with you booting onto that drive. If they are physically separate drives it should be as easy as setting some options in your bios. However if it is just a partition on the drive (not a physical piece of hardware) You may have to find some windows recovery disk on-line and look for ways to make sure that it boots onto the the right partition.

Now, as far as switching back goes... I think that windows 7 itself is a much better os that vista, and Windows 7 actually is less of a strain on your computer than vista would be. I recommend that you re-calibrate you battery (drain it dead, and then re-charge it). And maybe set your visuals to "basic" (without all of the effects and transparency). If that doesn't work. I think it may be your battery's fault. It seems unreasonable that a change in OS could cause such a drastic change in battery life...

Answer 2

Actually this is fairly common "bug" with Windows 7. There's information about it left and right if you do a Google search. You will want to let Windows 7 update itself fully and this should fix the problem (along with doing the battery recalibration that Josh suggested). Also look into BIOS updates from your manufacturer because Windows 7 doesn't always interact correctly with the hardware with out the update (if its available). I would suggest doing that with the laptop plugged in!

Finally if you can get Windows 7 to work its your much better operating system. It actually manages the memory of the system significantly better and I don't see that the graphics are enough different between Vista and 7 that it would cause any problem at all.