After spending almost 3 days reading forums, hunting down drivers, and translating pages from Chinese to English, I was able to successfully upgrade a Dell Studio 1535 from Vista to XP Professional*. Here is a quick Upgrade from Vista to XP tutorial so you too can rid this great laptop from Vista's claws.

Additonal languages are available by choosing your language from the language translator menu located just above the Main Menu.

Note: Please read the tutorial in its entirety (it's really not too long), so that you can familiarize youself with the steps and procedures and then refer back when you are completed.

**The following UPDATES have not been personally tested, but have been submitted by readers like you**

• UPDATE: We are currently working on a solution for the built-in microphone as it is the only device that seems not to be working. If you have any solution please let us know and it will be added this to the tutorial. 
• UPDATE: The only device that comes up with an 'unknown device' is a device on Intel(R) ICH8M LPC Interface Controller - 2815. With this disabled I have not seen any lost functionality in the performance or use of the laptop.
  *This 'unknown device' is a device on Intel(R) ICH8M LPC Interface Controller - 2815 has been fixed by downloading and installing the ITE CIR InfraRed receiver.
• UPDATE: For those with the ATI HDMI Audio, you will need to download the following driver here.
• UPDATE: For the users who configured their notebook Dell Studio with the ATI Radeon video card, they will have to download the software "ATI Catalyst graphics" that is available for Windows XP and then patch it using the appropriate Mobility Modder Patch.
  
• UPDATE: Speaker Crackle Fix - Control Panel > IDT Audio Control Center > Advanced (gear wheels) and disable "Power Management" option.
• UPDATE: Download the Fingerprint Reader Drivers from Lenovo.
  

Now onto the Steps...
First you will need to download, extract and copy my zipped driver package from here and the ITE CIR InfraRed receiver (this fixes the device on Intel(R) ICH8M LPC Interface Controller - 2815 problem) to a portable device such as a thumb drive for ease of transfer later on. The zip file is about 250MB, so be patient as it downloads. This contains all the drivers that you will need for after you install a fresh copy of Windows XP.
(If that driver package seems not to download, please try this mirror)

Then follow these steps:

1. You are going to get your Windows XP cd, insert it in and restart your computer.
2. You are going to hit "F2" when the computer restarts to access the bios of your Studio 1535.
3. You are going to  set the "Boot Sequence" to boot from the CD/DVD/CD-RW first and the Internal HD sometime after (I usually like to boot in this sequence: CD-Rom, Floppy, Hard Drive, USB, LAN).
4. Still in the bios, you are going to navigate to "Onboard Devices>SATA Operation" and change the SATA Operation from AHCI to ATA. (It will give you a warning about having to reinstall your operating system, just disregard this as that is what we are doing anyway).
5. Save/Exit out of the bios and "Hit any key to boot from the CD.."
6. Here is where you do your XP install. You will want to delete the partition that Vista is on (be careful not to delete the recovery partition) and select the deleted partition to install Windows on by doing a quick NTFS format.
   
7. The XP installer will guide you through the rest of the install process. Make sure to also do all of your Windows updates including XP SP3.
   Once you boot into Windows you will go ahead and copy all the files that you downloaded from my ZIP file download to your hard drive.
8. You will next use the CD labeled "For Reinstalling Dell Webcam Central" to get the webcam interface setup (do not worry if a prompt shows up in your system tray letting you know that you do not have a driver installed for the webcam).
   You can also go ahead and installed the CD labeled "For Reinstalling Dell Studio 1535 Computer Software".
9. Now back to the "studio1535" folder.. inside this folder, you will find sub-folders labeled in numerical order. Open the .EXE file inside each folder in numerical order and extract and install all the components. NOTE: When installing these devices, the prompts will walk you through the installs, so click next, accept, agree, etc. to get the drivers installed. 
10. You will also have to let Windows search for the best driver throughout some of the prompts. Here you will be prompted to connect to Windows Update to search for software, just click the radio button for "Yes, this time only", and following this, click the radio button next to "Install the software automatically (Recommended)", and then "Finish".
11. One last note on the folder "09 Dell Studio 1535 Sound XP" setup. As you will notice there are two option buttons with some characters that would throw off the English speaking users, so when you choose to install this, select the left option and you will be on your way.
12. Also, don't forget to download the ITE CIR InfraRed receiver to fix the device on Intel(R) ICH8M LPC Interface Controller - 2815.

You should now have a completly converted Dell Studio 1535 with a fresh working copy of Windows XP. Here is the screen shot of the device manager.

Did this tutorial help you out?
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