Dell Inspiron 1721 Notebook – Rollback from Vista to XP

After Schrock Innovations‘ much appreciated success in rolling a Gateway notebook back to Windows XP despite the fact that Gateway only provided Windows Vista drivers for the unit.

Word of that success made its way from Nebraska all the way to Pennsylvania where a Vista-strapped Dell Inspiron 1721 longed to run Windows XP instead. The owner of that notebook decided to ship it all the way to our Lincoln, Nebraska computer repair service center to have our technicians take a crack at migrating it back to Windows XP, even though Dell would not provide XP drivers for the unit.

The operation was a resounding success, and the patient is back at home with its owner now. I asked Schrock’s Senior Technician to take detailed notes on what drivers he used and where they were located, just in case you have found yourself in the same situation but cant stand the thought of shipping your Dell to Nebraska.

The first thing we did was install Windows XP on the hard drive and see what Windows could do for itself. We allowed all of the Windows hardware updates to finish, and here is what we were left with:

Video – http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp

Audio – http://www.dell-drivers.com/dell-drivers-downloads/SIGMATEL-STAC-92XX-C-Major-HD-Audio_821.shtml

Webcam manager – http://www.notebook-drivers.com/ViewDownloadUrl.asp?ID=93222&brNum=3&show=0

Motherboard Driver Suite – http://www.notebook-drivers.com/notebook-drivers/Dell-Inspiron-1721-notebook-Ricoh-R5C832-R5C833-R5C843-Driver-v.1.0.1-for-Windows-Vista-32-bit-XP-2000_77545.shtml

Modem – http://www.dell-drivers.com/dell-drivers-downloads/Conexant-D330_868.shtml

Network card – http://www.dell-drivers.com/dell-drivers-downloads/Broadcom-440x-10-100-Integrated-Controller_759.shtml

Wireless Bluetooth – http://www.dell-drivers.com/dell-drivers-downloads/Dell-Wireless-355-Bluetooth-Module_1053.shtml

Once you have installed these drivers, do a second Windows Update. Some of them have updated versions that Windows can take care of on its own once you have shown it the light. Good luck! Let me know how it goes for you with a comment below!