Cleaning up new Dell 9300?

[hwan]

Guys,

Sorry if this is a repost but I did a search for "bloat" but nothing came up My 9300 w/ XP Home arrived today and I'm wondering what would be the best way to get rid of all the Dell bloatware that comes with it? Can I re-install using the provided CDs or should I do a clean install of XP Pro? Is there any other better way to do this? Thanks everyone in advance :beer:

 

[overst33r]

clean install would be the best...

 

[kitkat22]

Just take your time and uninstall all the garbage. A clean install will be easier, but not wholly necessary. Just do the add/remove program stuff and you'll do just fine. The Myway Search thingy apparently is supposed to be there, but removing is somewhat of a pain. Uninstall the program and then run a search in your registry for myway and delete the entries. Good luck!

 

[jevans64]

I pretty much did that ( clean install ) with my XPS Gen 1. I first looked at the device manager and got as much information as I could about what components were in my system and gathered all the necessary drivers. I created a Ghost image of the system then used Partition Magic to create an OS partition ( 10 MB ) and a data partition ( ~48 MB ). I created ANOTHER Ghost image after I made sure the machine still worked after doing the partitions. I have an external USB/FireWire HD, so it was easy for me to get the backups off the XPS. If something goes wrong, you can just "ghost" it back to the way it was before you honked it up.

After doing all that, you are ready to do a proper repartition / reformat / fresh XP Pro SP1/2 install then install any drivers that were not on the XP CD. After all the basic stuff is installed, create a Ghost image. Install favorite apps, games, utilities and make ANOTHER Ghost image. Burn these both to a DVD and put in a safe place. Create additional images as necessary ( usually monthly ).

 

[Fenuxx]

I recommend a clean install. I got the same laptop (i9300), and even though I went through and uninstalled all of Dell's crapletts and whatnot, the system was still slower than what it was after I reinstalled with all of MY stuff, and the programs that I use.

The best solution is to simply wipe the HDD clean and reinstall Windoze .

 

[hwan]

Thanks for the great advice everyone! I ended up making an image of the FAT16/32 partitions then doing a clean install of XP and putting all the necessary Dell drivers on it.