XP just won't die gracefully

[#1]

I installed a fresh copy of XP Pro just a few week's back on a spare drive for my laptop, I have some diagnostic software that wont even install on Windows 7 & using it inside a virtual machine environment can cause issues.
My old laptop run's faster on Windows 7 Pro even though the hardware is actually designed for XP, hard drive on it is easily swappable without any tools.
When I rebuilt my desktop a couple of years back, I went over to Windows 7 Pro at the same time.
We still have XP at work, they downgraded a new Windows 7 laptop to XP 

[#2]

CX Post #13
Sorry about that, I had my mind elsewhere at the time. Delete remarks about the Promise stuff, I meant to say that I had tried to install a genuine graphics card nVIDIA GeForce FX 500 F which is apparently suitable for XP Pro. It's CD has drivers etc., but appears to want something else, probably a driver from M$ but does not specify what.  Any clues?

[#3]

You should be able to download the appropriate generic driver from the nVidia website.:
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/winxp_175.16_whql_uk.html

[#4]

I had XP Home on my last pc and have XP Pro on my current one.I love XP...it's solid as a rock and Micro$haft should extend it's support for it instead of cutting us off.
I use XP Smoker Pro to tweak her and she purrs like a kitten.

[#5]

I just remembered when XP first appeared the IT department at work (at the time) said we'd never use that because it was designed for home users not business so they stuck with Windows 2000 for an extra year or so before deciding that XP was OK after all.

[#6]

@CX#17
Sorry that this a bit stale, been doing other things. Your ref covers GeeForces more recent than mine which is a 5500. Presently I have the latest driver (6.13.1.3015) which does not seem to do much. The problem that I have is trying to run the video card, it works up to some way into the sequence of firing up Windows Professional ie. having the little dots running across the progress bar, which stop with two remaining at the right hand side and everything freezes. Clearly there is a glitch or something causing it. I am trying to use the board to run the system as normal via the video card but, although I was able to use the 2nd monitor function to reset the resolution and data rate briefly, I now cannot raise the display which shows the two monitors with the selection of primary display and data rate drop downs. The books do not help much partly indicating that all is automatic when Widows detects the video card. I get an early display at the beginning of the setting up palaver that the controller is installed which I think ought to be enough. Any clues in this direction?

[#7]

If you click "Supported Products" on that nvidia page, you'd see that the 175.16 drivers do support the GeForce FX 5500 and the rest of the 5 FX series.

[#8]

ejs,
Crikey you are right, I only looked at the main page, thanks for pointing that out. I will try to download the 175 one and see what happens.

[#9]

Further to my last post, I have installed the latest driver satisfactorily but still cannot access the 2nd monitor pages in display/settings . I have checked the hardware listings and see that the two monitors & video cards and their drivers are listed correctly. All very odd.