New Dell Studio - Windows 7 & Clean install

Hi everyone -

This is the new notebook I am looking at - The Dell Studio S1555-018B - it looks pretty nice, and I am strongly considering purchasing it.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...oduct&id=1218090329155#tabbed-customerreviews

I have a few questions regarding a clean install. My last new laptop purchase, I found a nice set of directions that an awesome forum member sent my way. Will this post ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3314842&postcount=1291) satisfy the clean install procedure for the new notebook. Do I need to get a separate Vista disk, or does the one that comes with the notebook (in the box) work?

Also, will I need to once again do an entirely new install job when I get the Windows 7 disk, or is it only for upgrading?

Thanks,
Randy

 

Your not making too much sense, but if you buy that notebook now and then get Windows 7 when it comes out you can just install it as an upgrade because the laptop would still be new by then and won't need a clean install until a later time when your laptop starts to get slower.

 

For my purposes, the clean install would be to remove all the crapware and begin to use the computer totally clean vs. having all the preinstalled junk on there.

Am I making sense? If not, let me know.

Thanks

 

Yep, that is one of the reasons I put the RC on my laptop. Got rid of all the bloatware.

 

Sonarav -

Was there anyway to do a clean install w/ Vista, or am I just better off waiting for Windows 7 to do the clean install?

Thanks

 

Every Dell I have owned in last two years (XPS m1330, inspiron 1525, XPS 435 MT) has shipped with the Vista reinstall disc. This disc has Vista ONLY, and none of the bloatware that's on the hard drive when you receive new. So a clean install of Vista from the Dell reinstall disc is easy (you will likely need a few drivers post-install from support.dell.com). In fact, I do this as soon as I receive a new computer -- I hate crapware.

My understanding of the Win 7 upgrade process is that clean installs will be possible. However, do not wipe your Vista install first, as the Win 7 Upgrade process will check to see if there is an "upgradeable" installation currently on the drive (in your case will be your Vista partition). You may THEN delete or overwrite the Vista partition with your Win 7 install.

Of course you may also choose to perform an in-place upgrade from Vista to Win 7 (preserving your files, settings, documents etc.

 

You should of stated all of that when you first started the thread, no need to get your panties in a bunch.

 

Sorry Jason - I wasn't trying to be sarcastic, English isn't my first language, and that happends from time to time.

 

I hate vista, the fact that it will keep growing in size is very bad. I see my windows folder in my old laptop keep growing , thanks to windows (winsxs) folder, which is side by side dll , a marvelous idea from microsoft, which at the end keep accumulating all versions of dll and there are lot of dll's that are duplicates, but there is no way to remove, even if you uninstall, its like a one way road, just putting files, no way to delete safely.
Windows 7 too uses the same junk idea, but alas what else can you do if you have PC you have to use it. I think once linux gets more traction, it would be more adopted, for now each machine has so much different hardware, and hardware manufacturers dont care about linux, thats the saddest part. Also i wish OSX was open legally to be installed on PC's - of course the problem there too is getting drivers, but then naturally hardware vendors would sit and think.
Regarding bloatware and crapware, i guess dell studio 1555 has a little less of that. It has lot of good dell applications, which i dont consider bloatware. I would consider free trials etc all as crapware. Lucky me i always uninstall any anti-virus sofware given and i say thank you to student & home edition of microsoft office.. i think it should rather be called, microsoft student .. crap 60 day trial. So that was the only two crap i uninstalled, everything else in studio 1555 made sense to me.

Also running to Windows 7 now also is not the solution, since you are buying a laptop that can legally be converted to windows 7, so wait till oct end, you will get windows 7, then you can upgrade. Now if you go to RTM leaks or MSDN sourced RTM, you will not be able to upgrade to your legal windows 7, you will have to do a clean reinstall again. So i would say sticking to windows vista that comes with your PC makes most sense now.

 

You should learn more about the winsxs folder..The files arent actually located in there but scattered in other places so its not such a junky idea.I would wait for 2010 or 2011 before getting new hardware made for win7.

 

I don't see any reason to wait 2 years to upgrade to W7. I run it just fine on my Studio 1555. Its not all that far removed from Vista, and today's hardware runs it great.

 

said that since new gpus with directx 11 should be released by then,im using win7 now and its alot better than vista.

 

I didn't get any "crapware" or "bloatware" on my Studio 17. The only thing loaded in from the factory on the basic Vista Home premium install was the Dell Dock, software to run the webcam and Dell Quikset.

Not at all like my old Compaq desktop which had 500 million pieces of outdated garbage shovelware (XP Media Center).

 

Yup Dell tends to be quite good about the amount of rubbish installed on your machine when bought direct from Dell. Never bought it from a retail outlet so can't comment on those, although you might expect them to be the same.

 

true, but somehow i see my winsxs folder growing every day in my old laptop. I just had 30GB as my primary partition (thats lenovo y410) and it came like that when i bought from tigerdirect. There is no way to increase the partition, i can only shrink it.. i had 110GB free in secondary partition. So i was getting very paraniod about the partition filling up so i moved my program files, temp files etc everything to another drive. But still i see my primary reaching 23GB, i was too scared that it will go up to 30GB, then I realized that my winsxs folder is 10GB !!!!!! , and in another month i saw that it was 11GB, i had uninstalled a lot of softwares, still it doesnt shrink. So to me it is certainly a junky idea, why does windows want to occupy every GB of hard drive ... If win 7 is also like that then i dont know if thats a nice idea or a junky idea. Yes there are benefits since now you have dll versioning, so of course there was some thought behind that, but it was not well thought on how to clean it out, and how that folder will shrink, i am fine with an offline tool doing it, I dont care if it is not part of OS. So if you have some clues on how this is cleaned, let me know, i am sure i didnt find a solution, and my wife still uses that laptop, and we make sure we keep checking the size and moving anything in C drive to D drive. And thats a pain ....