Is Dell Media Direct Needed?

When I reformat my 1720, do I need to install Dell Media Direct? What does it exactly do? Does not installing it disable some of the features of the notebook such as the media buttons at the front? Maybe even the Dell Travel Remote (IR)? Any information is greatly appreciated.

Also does anyone have a link to a good guide to reformat a 1720 and reinstall Vista only, without the partitions and the bloatware obviously.

 

nope, everything should work fine except the media direct button (looks like a house). That will basically become a dummy button - not a big loss.

I kept media direct (200gb hd + 500 external, space isnt an issue), and the only time i ever use it is for playing physical dvd's on battery, because it is more power efficient than booting up the entire OS.

 

Yes, that's the main advantage. I suppose the same argument works for music as well, if you want to use the laptop as a huge iPod.

If you do Powerpoint, Media Direct is a good way to do presentations on battery power (or, say, review your presentations while flying).

I have run across the occasional avi video file that will lock up WMP but plays quite well in Media Direct (with 2x fast-forward, even, while WMP can't do FF at all for any avi files).

 

I don't know if anyone else had this problem, or if it's XP-specific, but
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2287437&postcount=4

 

I also ordered a 1500 with XP. if i understand correctly, you were only having problems because you deleted the media direct partition. I'm sure that if you either reinstall the media direct partition or, as a slightly more drastic approach, open the laptop and see if there is something you can disconnect, then your problem will be solved. personally, i would like the media direct button and functionallity because of the easiness of it all. i like the whole low power media center thing, it would play a useful roll in college.

EDIT: to go with the flow of the topic, no, it isnt needed. but if you really dispise it enough to take it off of your hard drive, you now have a killswitch for your laptop. if wmp is good for you and you really dont need it, you might as well take the button out alltogether and replace it with some random plastic plate or something. but honestly, unless you are really crunched for space, i'd leave it alone.

 

Now just to be sure... Dell Media Direct is on a completely different partition, right? Does it have anything to do with the c:? So long as you keep that partition, it will be fine, correct?

I'm asking because my Inspiron 1520 should be arriving Monday, if not tomorrow because I'm not sure if Purolator delivers on Saturdays, and I want to do a clean installation of Windows Vista. I want to be sure I know exactly how everything is configured before messing something up, which seems hard to do since you have all your resources on DVD's.

 

10 gigs is quite a bit for and 80 gig HD (if you got that one)

I got the 120 GB HD and im already down to like 30GB of space.

EDIT: And those 30 arnt gonna last long. I just found out that Veoh Downloads to AVI formats. 200megs per episode.... 26 episodes a season.... Oh my

 

i had media direct, i killed the partition. i killed myself...no i didnt, but i kick myself afterwards because i realized its worth. i spent 3 days and 5 reinstalls of windows before i knew what i was doing. in the end. i killed the MD partition again because it really wasnt any good..and i needed the extra 3 GB i used for it. its looks like a cheap version of WMC! for me, MD wasnt as big as it was hyped to be....

Cheers

 

Wow... I read that few times and I'm confused... ? Do you LIKE the Dell MD or you don't ? You took it off, then wished you hadn't, then took it off again because it wasn't as big as it was supposed to be ?

 

first thing i killed... then nortons..

 

first time i killed it, it was because i have no use for it what so ever and i needed more HDD room

second time i killed it was because i didnt like it; thus the "wasnt as big" as it was hyped to be

i hope that sorta makes more sense...sorry!

 

It should be possible to use the Media Direct button to load an alternative OS, such as Linux. Search this board for "Media Direct linux" you should come up with a thread discussing just this.

It's one of the thinngs I'll do when I reinstall everything on my Vostro.

 

I'm interested to know this as well. If I do a clean install of vista without touching the Media Direct partition will Media Direct continue to work?

 

I'm still interested as well...