Just got my new Inspiron700m...

[mchammer]

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: mchammer

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: MoPHo

Originally posted by: mchammer

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: mchammer
Why bother with reformatting it if its new? Then you need to go find the chipset drivers, graphics drivers, etc.

because depending on which division you ordered it from, it may be loaded with a bunch of crap. and what do YOU do with real crap? you wipe it clean!

What kind of crap do they put on it? Do you really need the disk space that bad?

not so much disk space as it is "FREE 8 YEARS OF AOL!!!" and useless crap you dont need.

Yup, not necessarily the disc space at all. it's cleaning out all the things that dell has set up to startup on their own (and not necessarily right away; some program pop-ups/notices won't appear until a few days later). dell reminders, "try this program!" pop-ups, several neutered demos with ads to buy, and i can't say for sure about others but i detected 1 known spyware (yeah, i ran an av and spyware scan just after i started up out of curiosity). wipe it clean and you're in control with efficiency of a fresh install and no nags.
<------Dell 8400

How about MSCONFIG? You could disable the stuff from starting. Your notebook may have custom functionality that would be a pain to track down drivers for.

If it were that easy, spyware/adware would never be a problem. I'm not saying what dell puts on is as insidious as that, but you're just more sure that it's absolutely, positively clean.
For dell drivers, they're all consolidated onto one place, you just have to put in the service tag number (or even just the model number) and it'll take you to a page of drivers/software specific to that model.

Where would you get a clean copy of the OS from? Surely the restore partition disk/would have the same stuff?

What about power mangement drivers etc. they have those too? Just seems like a pita to me vs. deleting whats on there.

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: mchammer

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: mchammer

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: MoPHo

Originally posted by: mchammer

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: mchammer
Why bother with reformatting it if its new? Then you need to go find the chipset drivers, graphics drivers, etc.

because depending on which division you ordered it from, it may be loaded with a bunch of crap. and what do YOU do with real crap? you wipe it clean!

What kind of crap do they put on it? Do you really need the disk space that bad?

not so much disk space as it is "FREE 8 YEARS OF AOL!!!" and useless crap you dont need.

Yup, not necessarily the disc space at all. it's cleaning out all the things that dell has set up to startup on their own (and not necessarily right away; some program pop-ups/notices won't appear until a few days later). dell reminders, "try this program!" pop-ups, several neutered demos with ads to buy, and i can't say for sure about others but i detected 1 known spyware (yeah, i ran an av and spyware scan just after i started up out of curiosity). wipe it clean and you're in control with efficiency of a fresh install and no nags.
<------Dell 8400

How about MSCONFIG? You could disable the stuff from starting. Your notebook may have custom functionality that would be a pain to track down drivers for.

If it were that easy, spyware/adware would never be a problem. I'm not saying what dell puts on is as insidious as that, but you're just more sure that it's absolutely, positively clean.
For dell drivers, they're all consolidated onto one place, you just have to put in the service tag number (or even just the model number) and it'll take you to a page of drivers/software specific to that model.

Where would you get a clean copy of the OS from? Surely the restore partition disk/would have the same stuff?

What about power mangement drivers etc. they have those too? Just seems like a pita to me vs. deleting whats on there.

For the restore partition, you are right, it would be exactly what was originally installed. There is an option, however, to create an OS cd, which is just the OS (which actually hasn't worked for me but others said to call dell and they'll send me the OS disc). they used to ship the OS disc but i guess not anymore.

 

[jpeyton]

Reformat
Install WinXP
Install Latest Drivers
Install Apps
Install Updates
Tweak OS
Save HD Image To DVDR

 

[mchammer]

For the restore partition, you are right, it would be exactly what was originally installed. There is an option, however, to create an OS cd, which is just the OS (which actually hasn't worked for me but others said to call and they'll send me the OS disc). they used to ship the OS disc but i guess not anymore.

So from now on there will be no way to do it anyway, then what?

 

[bharok]

Originally posted by: tami
btw, winrar is better than winzip.

agree

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: mchammer

Originally posted by: MoPHo

Originally posted by: mchammer

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: mchammer
Why bother with reformatting it if its new? Then you need to go find the chipset drivers, graphics drivers, etc.

because depending on which division you ordered it from, it may be loaded with a bunch of crap. and what do YOU do with real crap? you wipe it clean!

What kind of crap do they put on it? Do you really need the disk space that bad?

not so much disk space as it is "FREE 8 YEARS OF AOL!!!" and useless crap you dont need.

So why not delete the shortcuts and forget about it?

You sir, are clueless about new computers. Just reformatting alone will cut down the boot-up time by 20 seconds because the system won't be loading about 15 apps at startup.

Seriously, your computer should only load 2-3 apps max, and antivirus software is one of them.

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: RecklaZ
My new I700m just arrived and as i'm updating drivers and downloading programs like winzip and aim I was wondering what is the first things you guys do or download as soon as you get a new desktop or labtop(after reformating).

Aside from the usual of what's been mentioned, I also like to run things that didn't run so well on the older machine just to see the difference (and justify the purchase )

 

[mchammer]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: mchammer

Originally posted by: MoPHo

Originally posted by: mchammer

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: mchammer
Why bother with reformatting it if its new? Then you need to go find the chipset drivers, graphics drivers, etc.

because depending on which division you ordered it from, it may be loaded with a bunch of crap. and what do YOU do with real crap? you wipe it clean!

What kind of crap do they put on it? Do you really need the disk space that bad?

not so much disk space as it is "FREE 8 YEARS OF AOL!!!" and useless crap you dont need.

So why not delete the shortcuts and forget about it?

You sir, are clueless about new computers. Just reformatting alone will cut down the boot-up time by 20 seconds because the system won't be loading about 15 apps at startup.

Seriously, your computer should only load 2-3 apps max, and antivirus software is one of them.

This is an area of opinion I think, for example I do not run real time virus scanning. Also preventing programs from launching can be accompliched with msconfig unless Dell really hoses their boxes.

 

[CrackaLackaZe]

I only use msconfig for troubleshooting, otherwise I open regedit.

 

[mchammer]

Do you guys check over the BIOS options as well? Or just assume that Dell got them right?

 

[dartworth]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Reformat
Install WinXP
Install Latest Drivers
Install Apps
Install Updates
Tweak OS
Save HD Image To DVDR

/thread

 

[Chrono]

Format, Run unattended windows xp, Post on ATOT.

 

[vegetation]

Reformat. Ugh, Dell's junkware that's installed is just awful.

 

[RecklaZ]

My OS CD didnt come with my laptop :-(