Vostro: Fresh Win 7 vs Factory Image Questions

I'm debating if I should do a fresh Windows 7 install on a Vostro V131 and I have a few questions. Hopefully somebody can help answer these.

1. With exception of the Trend Micro AV trial, the laptop seems to be totally bloatware free. Is there any hidden bloatware or some bloatware that I've missed?

2. Will a fresh install increase power consumption? The factory image battery life is phenomenal and the power consumption during idle and minimal CPU load (<20%) is very low. Has Dell done something to the factory Win 7 image to achieve this?

3. I've almost reached the conclusion that a fresh install is going to be a waste of my time. Will I see any performance (or other) gains with a fresh install or should I just stick to the factory image?

 

1) Depends on the model, but usually not.

2) I doubt it. They have their own power scheme, but I doubt it makes much of a difference if you are a advanced/power user.

3) Usually with a factory image, it won't have the latest drivers and when upgrading the drivers it may leave residue of the older drivers. A good example of this is video drivers. However with programs around that would do a cleaning of the older drivers, its kind of a thing of the past.

Also, but doing a clean install, you are guaranteeing things are installed right - with what you want to install as opposed to have everything installed which could cause issues.

 

I'd first at least create recovery media before you nuke it for a clean install in case something gets messed up. In all the Dell business laptops I've bought, none really had bloatware to justify a clean install, business laptops just don't come preloaded with junk software. I would try to optimize the factory image to your taste.

 

Thanks for the info. I think I'm just going to stick with the factory install. The drivers (for the most part) are up to date. Dell's video driver is out of date compared to the one directly from Intel's site, but that's a minor issue since I don't do much GPU intensive work.

I might have tried a fresh install if Dell had some sort of a automatic driver installer, but I have zero interest in those driver headaches right now.