How do I downgrade from Windows XP to Windows ME?

Question

I have a very slow laptop and I downloaded Windows XP on it, and this makes it even slower. The original system was Windows ME, and I need to know how to downgrade Windows XP back to Windows ME.

Answer 1

you cannot downgrade. It will be disaster.
The best advice, back up your personal data to a usb drive, or burn it to cd. then locate your original factory recovery cd;s, and run the recovery options. You May have to contact the manufacturer and ask them about recovery cd's for your model. Chances are your system is out of warranty though.

if you have the winME cd, you can simply boot the laptop from that cd and let it run its course. It will ask you to format the drive, and that is when you may lose your data, so make sure you have it off of the drive first.

Also, don't forget to have your WinME product key available. It will not install without an activation key.

Answer 2

Downgrade To Windows Xp

Answer 3

Fortunately, for upgrading from Windows 98 and Windows ME, you get an "Uninstall Windows XP" option in 'Add remove programes' in your control panel. But you can downgrade, only if you have upgraded. That is during the installation, you must have selected the "Upgrade" option in the very first step, instead of selecting "Fresh installation [recommended]'. And you must NOT have converted your file system to NTFS.

So if you have selected upgrade and your file system is still is FAT32, you can go to "Control Panel -> Add Remove Programs" and uninstall Windows XP. But on doing this, the programs that you haved installed or uninstalled after installing Windows XP, will not function properly, or in the worst case, they may not function at all.

And if any of the two conditions that I have specified is violated, then my friend there is no other way than to format your drive and do a fresh installation.

Answer 4

You would have to reformat the harddrive and then reinstall ME on the fresh drive, though ME is probably the worst operating system WIndows has ever put out. I would recommend downgradin even farther to 98 or trying XP again on the fresh Hard Drive there is a good chance your comp has just become bogged down with viruses/spyware and the such.

after you reinstall a operating system it would be a good idea to download and install a anti-virus, firewall, and anti-spyware.

i woudl recommend AVG antivirus, Zonealarm firewall, and Spybot anti-spyware. All three are available for free download off the internet for personal computer use.

Answer 5

Well I hope when you upgraded you choose not to use the new NTFS file system, if not sorry pal all your files are not going to work on Windows Me now. Windows ME is compatible with FAT 32, not the new NTFS file system XP uses.

If you still use FAT 32 backup all your files you don't want deleted onto rewriteable CD/DVD's , zip disks, and flash drives. If you still have the old windows ME drivers for your devices back up those as well.

When you upgraded did you choose to save your old windows ME files? There usually is a prompt for this. If you did backup those too.

Next you will have to format your hard disk and reinstall windows ME. Copy all the files you have backed up onto ME after installation.

Answer 6

You cannot downgrade from XP to ME. And ME is a vastly weaker operating system, full of problems. Your ONLY choice is to reformat your HD, then do a complete reinstall using ME. The ME operating system is one of the worst Microsoft products ever unleashed on the unsuspecting public! Speed up your laptop by adding RAM memory, defragging your HD, and clearning out temp. files and others that run at startup. Newer models with XP already installed is a much more practical approach. Even if you were to succeed at reverting to ME, you will regret it.

Answer 7

if XP changed the file system to NTFS, you can't downgrade, as you lose everything when ME tries to format the drive
you best bet would be to back up the entire documents and setting folder to DVD

ideally from here you want to delete the NTFS partition
DOS will see the NTFS partion as a non dos partion and may or may not delete it when you run fdisk.. so you may have to use 3rd party utilities to remove the NTFS partion
keep in mind you might need to use a bootable floppy to reboot to to format the drive
or use a CD bootable image such as Darks Boot and Nuke which will positively remove NTFS partitions or use KILL NTFS on a bootable floppy

reboot to the ME disc
reinstall ( it will format on install as it will not see any valid drives )
then reinstall all of your programs and drivers
then copy any pertinent data from the DVD disc to the computer

as for OS choices go your also better off with 98se as it faster than ME and more stable than ME

if you laptop was running ME then is was a poor candidate for XP as XP is resource pig compared to ME, which has much simpler hardware requirements
XP require much more memory ( at least 1 Gb to run decent 2 GB is best ) where as ME can run on as little as 256Mb ( 512 Mb preferred )

Answer 8

it may be cheaper to install more ram into your laptop, but you need to get a copy of win ME, with the computer up and running, put the cd in and reboot from the cd. then start with cd support, at the A: prompt, type in fdisk and hit enter.answer yes to everything until you get to the menu page. you will need to delete the non dos partition. escape back to the A: prompt and reboot. follow above procedure back to the menu page, and this time create a primary dos partition using the full size of your hard drive. when it's done, escape back to the A: prompt and reboot. this time, if the cd doesn't start to run the loader for win ME, at the A: prompt, hit the space bar and type in format. let that run and escape back to the A: prompt(are we having fun yet?) reboot and this time, load windows.

Answer 9

XP may be a resource hog, but ME is a dog (IMHO) After a few months it is going to clog up and be as slow as XP.

I don't know what you want to do on your laptop, but if it is typical browsing/word processing/etc. I would take a good look at one of the forms of Linux, like Ubuntu.

Answer 10

You need to get more RAM instead of downgrading to Windows ME
because some websites don't support Windows ME's browser.