Just Arrived: XPS13 (9350) Some Questions

New laptop arrived and as I always do, first order of business is a clean install of the OS. With a 256GB drive, and with the bloatware that the manufacturers include, it's a must in my opinion.
Looking at all the drivers for this model on Dell's site is somewhat confusing. For example, there are 4 files under Application. 8 files under Chipset. Etc. How can I know which drivers are for my specific configuration?
After the install of Windows 10 I'm looking at a learning curve. Been using 7 all these years and am quite pleased with it. Recommendations on ways to increase speed, performance, security. Any "must haves" or "must deletes"? I recall a website, www.BlackViper.com that offers tutorials on services that can be safely shut down.
Thank you in advance!

 

Skip all of the Applications that start with the name "Dell". That stuff is the bloatware that you're looking to avoid (i.e. remote assistance, automatic driver upgrades, etc).

Download and run everything else. (including everything under Chipset).

If you download a driver that isn't meant for your hardware configuration, then the driver installer will just error out saying that hardware wasn't detected. No harm, no foul. You really won't see this outside of something like a WiFi adapter on most Dell laptops, since Dell sometimes offers different configurations of WiFi / Bluetooth cards. But on the XPS 13, I think only one WiFi card configuration was offered, so this shouldn't be a problem.

 

Kent, thanks for the input regarding the drivers. Appreciate it.

 

Hehe. Looking at their drivers list, I see Dell has something called Dell Foundation Services, and it's listed as Urgent.
By the way, I want to download the necessary drivers in advance, to a flash drive, but most of them are saying they install automatically upon downloading. Is it possible to download now for later installation?

 

Yes, you can download driver files in advance.

And spend the $4 to get a program called Start10 from Stardock. It changes start menu to Windows 7 style. Completely eliminated learning curve of Windows 10.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

Never heard of Start10. I'll have to check it out. Thanks.

 

There's a 30-day trial of it.

I'm usually not a big fan of these little $5 applications, since there's usually free alternatives that get the same job done. But this one is worth it.