Why need to reinstall Vista?

I've been reading that many of you have reinstalled vista after receiving the laptop, to get rid of the "bloatware". Question: is it imperative to do a clean install of Vista to throw away all the garbage? Why not going to add/delete programs instead? I'm not very confident going through a clean installation ... Or, is it "easy"?

GMora.
P.S. Already shipped!!! Inspiron 1520

 

Generally, removing programs with the add/remove programs function doesn't completely get rid of all of the garbage. Registry entries, among other things, seem to never die. The preinstalled stuff is usually meant for people not too familiar with computers anyway, and likely not expected by the manufacturer to be uninstalled.

Removing it instead of reinstalling windows kinda reminds me of liposuction. You know, remove all the fat, but there's still all the excess loose skin?

Trouble is, there's no real-world fat-reducing equivalent of reinstalling windows on your body.

 

andrew put it well but my other reason is that I own a couple copies of Vista Ultimate and would like to put the superior version on whatever Dell has given me.

 

I would go through the trouble of reinstalling an entire operating system just to remove the crappy Norton software that might be polluting the OS!

 

I selected "no anti-virus software", which had in brackets "mcafee trial". rofl

 

LOL! I plan on installing Active Virus Shield by AOL... mainly because it's free and powered by the Kaspersky engine

 

LOL, Norton is the biggest offender. Luckily Dell switched to McAfee... I opted for the 15 month trial, because it was free, and I have had good experiences with it on my mom's computer.

 

It's not that big of deal. Just read the guide for formatting XP - it should be close enough for Vista, but I would post in that thread to get help. I've reinstalled countless times, the first time I was scared I forgot to back something up but everything ended up just fine. Now I can backup/reinstall/get-back-to-where-I-was-before in a day.

Who needs antivirus?

 

its not really necessary either, theres probably 3-5 junk programs on a Dell takes less time to uninstall them than to format&reinstall.

 

I wouldn't reinstall vista to get rid of junk software. Just uninstall them and use a registry cleaner to completely remove thier traces from the pc. Few registry entries of the uninstalled progs won't slow down the computer.

 

The whole process was actually really simple, if you've done any type of reformatting before it should be really easy. All you have to do is boot from the CD first then follow the GUI to format the OS drive, and repartition everything then just install it.

I did it to mainly remove all the spyware was in there. From a quick glance on the first boot just to get a first impression there were quite a bit of offenders. The huge was of course Norton Anti-Virus, which needs a freaking removal tool to get rid of.

 

Yeah. My only experience with a Dell that had preinstalled crap was a long time ago and I seem to remember that I couldn't remove some stubborn piece of software, it would just keep coming back... maybe it was Norton.

 

Interesting comments, thanks everyone.

So, to sum up: Norton Anti-Virus is apparently the biggest concern, and can't totally go away after uninstall and cleaning registry entries?

 

Not only Norton Anti-Virus... ANY NORTON PRODUCT.

I'd stay away from them like the plague!

 

Well, technically if you know what you're doing you can get them off. But I kind of just avoided installing any messed up Anti-Virus... and what I think might have been Norton was a little *program* to get off. And I don't think I actually got it off...

 

Did anybody have bluetooth problems after reformatting?

 

What kind of problems?

 

If you want to go through this route though, there are USEFUL utilities that will help you get rid of the CRAP. It's called crap cleaner (no... i'm not joking). You can get it for free at www.ccleaner.com and its very useful/nice/Vista compliant. I love it!

 

Thanks for the info. Now, you're saying (I've check the program) that ccleaner will do a total clean up of Norton? I mean, the left-overs everyone here is complaining about?

 

I don't know about Norton... but it will clean the registries, directories, temp files to the best of it's ability. ... I recommend everyone having it!

 

They got a Trend Micro option there Anyone go for that yet? I think I would go with that over Mcafee. I had an issue with Mcafee always wanting me to sign-in to verify my subscription and to get updates. Just a pain really, though the service itself is fine.

I got a free version of Avast on here after getting sick of all the major, costly brands. Avast is pretty solid. It updates and protects well.

 

I had a few problems doing a clean install of Vista on my new 1720.
Got to the very end of the installation, but the computer would hang at "Completing Installation". To avoid this you may need to load harddrive drivers from a USB device during the installation process.

I'm also still having problems installing my bluetooth module! Vista doesn't seem to recognise it exists. Has anyone else experiences this?