just received your laptop... what is the first thing you do?

Just curious, what is the first thing you do once you turn on your laptop? What do you do after that?

 

1 Look at porn.

2 Buy paper towels.

 

check for dead pixels

 

I think you got those reversed, Devedander... otherwise that's just a 'sticky' situation having to run by Target afterwards...

Having been through 3 'new laptop' experiences in less then 60 days... (two mine, one I had to return, and the other my g/f's 1420 Inspiron) I'm not nearly as clinical about doing the 'clean install' upon receipt as most people say they do.

I think I do what most people do... fill out the new user info that all laptops make ya do, and just poke around the machine. Find out where the bloatware is, kill it... See how many partitions they've butchered the OS into... disable Vista/XP features you don't want to speed it up... and of course, configure your desktop background and cool new screen savers.

After that, setup the wireless connection to your router, and start fetching those updates.

 

It's always a sticky situation...

But seriously I always do a clean install right off the bat. Usually on first boot.

 

pretty much

 

Judging buy what I've read here, you look at the screen with a magnifying glass, turn off the lights so you can check for light bleed, and put your ear to the keyboard to listen for whines, and clicks. Oh, yeah, and shake it to see if anything wobbles.

The first thing I did was install an A/V program, get my network working, and starting install the apps I needed.

 

What do you do after that? Use it.

But before that - open a beer and celebrate!

I have just ordered mine!

 

nice laptop you have ordered antdod!

 

Wipe the HD and reinstall Vista

 

Agreed! I don't even want to see the bloatware installed. A waste of my time so I pull it out of the box usually and go right into the BIOS and check the configuration of various options and then format.

 

Lol, definitely for the first few posters.

 

Take some time to make sure all the hardware is working... then do a clean install for the win

 

I bought mine with the cheapest Vista I could afford since I already have Ultimate in my arsenal. So I reformat with Ultimate.

 

check the screen... then check the rest... if everything is ok wipe the drive.. reinstall what I WANT TO ... then enjoy (maybe)

 

Check if it has a restore image on the hard drive before replacing OS. It is still a good idea to make an image backup on DVD in case the restore does not work.
Then check all the software activation keys in the bundled software. If you have a complimentary service like Datasafe online, activate your account first. I upgraded the OS before doing all these and I found I lost the PC Tune up, Network assistant, and Datasafe functions or 1 year subscription that came with the laptop. I can only find trial version of these programs/services on their website and none are on a CD that came with the laptop. It took me over a week with multiple chats and finally a phone call to recover one of the service.

 

All but the shaking..it's like you know me! :laugh:

Actually I check for scratches and dings first.

 

Get it onto the network, throw in a Linux boot CD/DVD, and write an image of the entire hard drive to my fileserver.

Then I go to work like a surgeon, liposuctioning all the bloatware. Or more precisely, I leave the bloatware removal to a curious girlfriend while I sit back and watch .