Firstly, have a second computer with an older 32 bit operating system on it such as XP or Vista, or you could try the 32 bit version of Windows 7 as well. There seems to be two methods that will solve the problem for sure. Hello Oppie2, I am faced with a very similar problem to yours at the present time. Any other advice on this matter is most appreciated. I know they're both 64 bit with activation keys but I'm no pro at this. If someone would be so kind, would you please tell me if either of these two products are the software I would need to install. I've emailed HP and asked if they have any other recovery software or installation software to do this but I think I know the answer. I've used the unit's recovery discs before but I've never installed a different operating system - there is a video on YouTube with a step by step tutorial on how to do this. Since I have windows 7 on one laptop & windows 10 on another, I want to switch the desktop to XP. I want to do this because I have a lot of older but expensive software and some excellent printers and scanners which won't work at all on windows 10 and which were very 'glitchy' on Windows 7 but it all worked perfectly on XP. I have a 64 bit HP Pavilion Elite HPE-210 which has a windows 7 operating system which I want to replace with Windows XP.