Hi Jesse,

Thanks for your reply.  Can you please clarify your statement:

"You would be on your own to find drivers for the hardware."

I'm not quite sure what you meant by that.

Are you saying as an official Dell representative that the manufacturers of the components used by Dell in my particular pc have categorically NOT produced any XP drivers for their components, only drivers for Vista/W7?

Or are you saying that the XP drivers may possibly exist, but that it's down to me to (a) find them, and (b) find a way of installing them onto an XP install?

Thanks again in advance for your kind help.

sandbars,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

Dell does not have any Win XP drivers for this system. Thats not to say that xp would not work on this computer. You would be on your own to find drivers for the hardware. Dell also will not support XP on this system.

Hi sdicomp,

Thanks for your reply.  I do indeed understand that Dell won't support an XP installation on my pc.

Given your positive response as to an XP install, what I therefore propose to do is as follows:

1) Establish the exact hardware manufacturer and model details (motherboard, hard drive, chipset);

2) See if XP drivers are obtainable from the hardware manufacturers;

3) If the critical XP drivers are available, download them onto a USB flash drive;

4) Format the pc hard drive and install XP 64 bit (the latest version I can find).  During the install there may be a request to provide the drivers, eg SATA controller, and I will then plug in the USB flash drive and attempt to upload them from there.

If steps 1 to 4 go ok, then I should have what I want.  If steps 1 to 4 don't go ok, then I will have either bricked the pc or have to reinstall Vista followed by W7.

So I have a couple of new questions:

1) What constitutes critical drivers, aside from the SATA controller driver?
2) Will the USB drive upload work at that juncture (as opposed to the normal 'insert floppy disk with driver on it')?

Thanks in advance for all useful/helpful advice.

I think he is saying since the computer did not come with xp, that Dell will not support an xp installation. This is common, not only with Dell, but other computer manufacturers as well. They will not support an 'downgrade' to an earlier OS than the one that was installed from the factory.

On the bright side, xp should install without a hitch on this machine. You might have to go to some manufacturers website to get xp drivers, but shouldnt have to do that much.

Hi,

Please note: The following is my personal experience and is not endorsed by Dell or anyone else.  If you decide to attempt to install XP 64 bit, it is entirely your responsibility.  Also, sorry but no correspondence will be entered into. :)

OK, apologies and disclaimer done, I can tell you that XP Pro 64 bit (x64) does indeed work on my Dell Studio XPS 435MT (UK PC World October 2009 smallish piano-black plasticky version).  I have checked and all 8 cores are indeed employed.  The RAM used is around 600MB instead of 1.25GB for W7 and 1.5GB for Vista.  I have also checked the devices/drivers in Device Manager, no nasty yellow question marks next to them.

How did I do it?  Through Google plus a series of serendipitous accidents.

I used a Dell Reinstallation XP Pro x64 SP1 disk (2006) - I bought it with some Dell hardware (as required but not actually installed) at a computer fair.  The disk seems to have the necessary SATA controller drivers to enable the installation to go through successfully without the usual BSOD.

I was also able to delete the recovery partition during the install.

I checked afterwards, XP had indeed been correctly activated (I think it must be a Volume License Edition).

Tips if going for it:

1) Make sure you back everything up first.
2) Make sure you note all the hardware details.
3) Make sure you have your Vista and/or W7 disks just in case it all goes pear-shaped.

As far as I recall I googled the hardware and looked at the Dell/Intel etc websites to get the necessary drivers for the hardware/XP 64 bit combination.  I was also obliged to obtain/install:

Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5
ATI Catalyst Control Centre
Realtek Audio (AC97 I think)

When installing drivers, there is an option (I think via Device Manager?) to search the internet automatically for an appropriate driver, which I did a couple of times in desperation - to my surprise they worked.  Sorry I can't remember which drivers offhand.

I also installed XP Pro x64 SP2 - this is highly recommended.

Also installed was CCleaner freeware, which works on 64 bit and gets rid of a lot of garbage.

I switched off the XP Update messages and am using AVG Free anti-virus with the Windows firewall (Zone Alarm Free is better though).

Downsides so far:

1) Internet Explorer 6 64 bit and Firefox 3.5 can't install/run Adobe Flash Player (so no YouTube etc).  IE 6 32 bit can and does though.

2) Apple doesn't have an XP Pro x64 installer for iTunes, but there are some customised versions around, just google/download/install.  I did, it seems to work but is not yet fully tested with my iPod.

I think there are a couple of other minor niggles but nothing I can't live with.  There may be other bigger show-stopper issues lurking but I haven't as yet encountered them.

All in all I think W7 would probably use the Dell's resources better (RAM notwithstanding), but I like having control over the pc.  I know where to find everything and what to look for and tweak.  Plus I get a chunk of my HDD and RAM back.

My apologies if this isn't as explicit or as detailed as you might like, but I'm still undertaking tests to confirm if my decision to install XP Pro x64 was correct.  So far I think it is.

Good luck if going for it!

sandbars,

The XP drivers may exist on the internet but it is up to the customer to locate and install them into the system.

@Jesse,

Thanks for your reply, although I am a little puzzled as to why you've simply reiterated your response from 20 November 2009.

@Everyone else who has a 435MT considering doing the same,

Update: Firefox can install/play Flash Player.