1. Make sure you keep the original recovery drive data (normally, it’s F Drive on your laptop) and do not delete or remove this drive in case you need to go back your Vista;
2. Mark down your laptop’s service tag in case you need to go to your vendor’s website to download drive files see here: http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=GuidedPathHomePage
3. Have your XP media disk ready with a valid Key ID
4. You may need to change the bios settings for the hard disk for XP from the original Vista
5. Set the load with CD rather than hard drive
6. Insert your XP CD into CD Rom then restart your laptop
7. Follow the installation instructions
8. After XP is installed, do point 2 above, make sure choose for XP, not Vista
9. Change point 5 above back to load with hard drive
10. Restart your laptop, if it works properly, then install software you need – i.e. office suit and test before others, one application install, test then another one with the same process
11. Here there is a lot more info: http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSList.php?SubID=computer
