In May 2001, Microsoft started work on the next version of its Windows operating system. Vista was initially set for release in 2003, but it had a troubled birth and eventually struggled into the world in November 2006.

After five years and over $10bn of work, those watching the software business expected results: in fact, they expected Vista to be more popular than Windows XP.

They were, of course, wrong. When it launched, Vista surprised many by requiring lots of memory to run properly, making it unsuitable for many computers.

There was also a huge problem with drivers: a lot of manufacturers hadn’t created the necessary software for their products, so many peripherals didn’t work.

Today, the situation for Vista is better: there are drivers for most products and a service pack has put paid to some of its more annoying habits. In fact, Computeractive’s advice to new computer buyers is that Vista is now the best choice for everyday use.

For those with an older computer, though, Windows XP is still a great operating system, so if you’re happy then why change? In this issue we’ll explain how to prepare your XP computer for whatever the future holds.

Be prepared
Owners of classic cars know that, as the years go by, parts become harder to find. Sadly, the same is true for Windows XP: although most companies still provide suitable drivers, it’s hard to say how long they’ll continue to do so.

With that in mind, it’s vital to keep a stash of all the files you will need should disaster strike.

Rather than finding and downloading all the files separately, head to www.driverpacks.net/DriverPacks. This website aims to collect all the drivers that Windows XP could ever need and store them in a handful of files.

These files are listed at the top of the page, starting with Driverpack Chipset. Click on each one and follow the instructions to download them to a folder on your hard disk. There are 336MB of files, so the process will take some time.

Once you’ve downloaded the files the next step is to extract them. To do this you will need a free tool
called 7-Zip, which you can download from www.computeractive.co.uk/2128748.

Once downloaded, double-click the file and then click the Install button. With 7-Zip installed you can extract the driverpack files – right-click each one, hover the mouse over 7-Zip and then pick the fourth option down ('Extract to…'). This will extract the contents into a new folder.