m1330 arrived - now what?

it arrived this morning. extremely pleased so far. no keyboard bulge, very slight gap in the hinge (between 1 and 2 mm), i honestly can't complain. the blue is a lot nicer than the pictures i have seen on the website, very pleased with the choice.

anyway, what should i be doing? vista reinstall? what does that involve? supposedly i will have to reinstall drivers etc..

also, is there any way to make the screen brighter when running on battery? i have pushed Fn+up but it seems to be capped, which is a little annoying.

oh, free accessories - got the case, some headphones and possibly some other stuff, haven't looked

 

In the BIOS, increase the brightness on battery vallue..

 

ah, thanks for the tip

 

What OS are you looking for? Vista x64 or Vista x32? Regardless, it isn't a big deal to reinstall. Admittedly it's easier on 32bit, but there shouldn't be a problem with 64bit drivers. Just stick in the Vista DVD you received in the box and begin the installation. When that's done, go to this link:
http://support.dell.com/support/dow...mID=XPS_M1330&hidos=WV64&hidlang=en&TabIndex=
and download all the necessary drivers/programs.

Alternatively, you don't have to reinstall Vista. All it does is remove the bloatware, making the registry a tad cleaner. If your not that computer savy, and you aren't going to be running the CPU and RAM at 100% then just uninstall everything you don't want and it should be fine.

If you're worried about bloatware, but you don't have the guts to reinstall Vista then you can download various uninstall programs (such as Your Uninstaller) that not only remove the program but attempt to remove the registry settings and files that are left behind.

Any other questions?

 

thanks for that info. i'll go about doing that now. i'm on 32 bit

 

A fresh install is the first thing I do after verifying that all the hardware I setup is correct. Congrats on the purchase!

 

Glad I could help. What did you decide to do in the end?

 

I did fresh install on both m1330 (as well as the one coming soon) for the reason to get rid of the Media Direct, recovery partition, diagnostic utility, etc.

I delete everything, partition the drive into two (a smaller one for the OS and programs and a bigger one for data) and proceed with a clean installation. Once all the drivers and the "essential" software components are installed, I make a Ghost and Acronis image. In case I need to "restore" at any point, I use these images and be up and running again in 10 minutes.

 

well i just followed this guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3314842&postcount=1291

in fact, i'm following it at the moment.

the odd thing is, it reinstalls media direct as well as vista. would i want to get rid of media direct? what does it actually do???

 

ah:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=160548

"Which is why most people leave Mediadirect in. You get a button of death "

 

That never happened for me. After I wiped and reinstalled the mediadirect button does nothing except turn on the computer. However, it's possible to remap the button for other uses as well.

 

Ohhh... I would love to know how to "remap" that button, since I have no use for it. Any information would be appreciated!

By the way, "the button of death" syndrome doesn't happen to me either

 

See this thread. I re-mapped my media-direct button to launch my default browser.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=218205

 

finally completed (hopefully) the reinstall. seems to be working okay. not sure if i missed any drivers - it's more likely i installed some that i didn't need, i got trigger happy.

 

Thanks for the thread (repped). Now the useless button has a purpose

 

hmmm, how can i get the webcam software back?? and also i kinda liked that mac-style bar at the top. how can i get that back?

 

Dont you have a CD for the Webcam software?

 

ah. knew i'd forgotten something

 

go for the x64 vista but i dont think there is a 64bit driver for creative sound card if you have one. there is driver for sigmatel HD audio (integrated audio) besides that everything should be ok. check if your printer supports 64bit

 

If you don't want Media Direct, then instead of inserting the Media Direct DVD, just insert the Vista DVD and wipe everything. There may be problems with the Media Direct button, but you should be able to remap that to avoid nastiness.

 

I don't know why people hate Media Direct so much...........it's a nifty little program if your on a plane or long boring car ride.

Plus yeah..if you take it out and press the button your SOL


BTW: Media Direct lets you watch movies that you pop into the DVD drive or have in your computer....plus all the pictures and word documents that you either have in the computer or pop in.........

all that without turning on windows...very fast little program

 

Oh and you know what else is great? Unless you go out of your way to set it up, it doesn't have password protection! I love the idea of everyone being able to go through my private documents that I would otherwise have password protected. Not an invasion of privacy at all. Please everyone, come look at my documents.

Edit: Also, it takes up valuable disk space. I'm happy using VLC for my movies.

 

well i think turbo makes a good point about the usefulness of the program. i'm not too worried about security. i don't leave my laptop in an environment where anyone can come along and play with it. if i were, password protection would be the least of my worries.

 

Yeh well maxwellJF I try not to leave it in an environment where someone can play with mine, but you never know. Besides, I'll be running TrueCrypt when I receive my M1330 (running it on my current lappy) and I'm fairly sure that Media Direct won't work with TrueCrypt at all.

 

hi! i've ordered an xps m1330 last sept. 30. my e.d.d. is on oct. 15. now, i live overseas and a friend is coming home here next month. she'll be bringing my new lappy with her. but i'm afraid it will cause her luggage to go over weight. can u tell me what the weight of the m1330 box when u got it? please. dimensions will be great too. thanks!

 

It's unlikely that the laptop will cause it to be overweight, as it's under 2 kgs (4 lbs)..
Dimesions are:
2.5 in x 9.4 in x 1.3.. if you take it out of the box.. after all the big outer box is not required, just ask her to bring the laptop and the several CDs..

 

thanks!