Dell Vostro 260 Windows XP Drivers

I still remember, not long ago, when I needed to hunt down Windows 7 drivers for older machines. Now that almost all new Windows machines come with Windows 7, a lot of companies have stopped supporting Windows XP on new machines. We had just received some Dell Vostro 260 desktops, and the user had requested Windows XP on these computers. If you visit Dell’s support web site, however, there are no drivers for Windows XP.

I spent some time to find all the drivers for Windows XP. Here are the links:

Network
Realtek PCIe GBE Network Adapter

Audio
Conexant Audio (CX20641/CX20651)

Chipset
Intel 6 Series H61 Chipset
Intel® ME: Management Engine Driver for Intel 6 Series Chipset-Based Desktop Boards

Video Card
Intel HD Graphics

These drivers are the latest ones as of 10/20/2011. There could be newer versions out by the time you read this. You might have to look for the updated version if these drivers do not work for you.

[Update 2/23/2012]

One reader has reported the link for video card driver is broken. That’s because there is an updated version. Just visit this link and select Windows XP to get the driver.


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32 Comments

    • Even though Dell package it as such, it is a generic driver for all *current* versions of Windows and, as such, includes XP x86 & x64 drivers. No manufacturers are stupid enough to remove support for XP whilst Microsoft haven’t EOL’d it, even though OEMs cannot sell it anymore.

      The only thing to remember is if Dell need to service the machines (either RtB or on-site), the engineers won’t touch it unless it’s running Windows 7.

      One solution is to clone a factory -fresh version of the computer using something like CloneZilla so that if it develops a hardware issue, you can restore it and keep Dell happy.

  1. You beauty! Just what I was searching for!
    Dell really should understand that people will be putting XP images on for a good few years yet and should support them.

  2. Audio drivers not working on XP – hardware not found.
    I’m looking for working drivers – any advice?
    Thanx in advance.

  3. Thanks for the post. All others work well, But can someone tell me how to install network drivers? They are just a bunch of DLL files, no setup file. Thanks a lot.

    • A little late on the reply but for someone else reading this post here is the answer.
      Just go to start and right click on my computer and select manage. Then go to device manager and in there you will see the lan or ethernet driver with a question mark on it. Right click on that and hit update driver then make sure you point it to where ever you downloaded the network driver in the first place. Once you point it to that folder it will extract what it needs to update the driver.

  4. Just figire it out, use device manager. It works, thanks.
    Now, I have one more, Dell wireless 1502 wlan mini-card, is not working. Can anyone help? Thanks.

  5. This is an awesome resource, thanks!

    Tried the Ethernet drivers, but they seem to be crashing my machine. I only have the onboard Ethernet port. Any other suggestions for where to find Ethernet drivers that won’t crash my system? I’ve managed to get everything else working…at least, I hope so. Let’s see if it crashes some more today! Whee!

  6. This is exactly what I was looking for to make a new XP Pro image for our Win7 Pro Vostro 260’s, this needs to be #1 on the Google results list.

    Huge thanks!

  7. I’m having a hard time getting XP to recognize the integrated ethernet port. I’ve downloaded and installed the driver from the Realtek website as provided by the link above but after the installation I get an error(yellow exclamation mark) listed next to it in Device Manager. And when I go into Network Connections, there is nothing listed in there either. If anyone has had any previous experience with this or if someone can please offer some guidance I would greatly appreciate it. TIA!

  8. Hi, the link to the Conexant Audio drivers is broken. Do you have any other link for them, or could you please post them for download? Thank you!

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