Fresh Install of Windows 7?

Hi everyone,

My new DV7t Quad should be coming on Friday. Right now it is stuck in China, but I was wondering. Would it be better to keep the Windows 7 that they have install on the computer, or should I do a clean install? Right now, I have Windows 7 Ultimate running my old laptop, however, I only the disk for the 32 bit. While my Quad will be a 64 bit. So if it would be a benefit to do a clean install, could someone explain how to do it without having a new windows 7 disk. I did order the system restore disks from HP when I bought the computer. Thanks!

 

well best way to do it is to goto hp site and get all the relevant drivers that you will need to install. Save them to a usb flash drive and keep it in a safe place. Once the laptop gets there install windows 7 which is pretty straight forward. Google for a guide and print it out just incase the need to reference something. Once installed plug in your flash drive and let windows install all the drivers it can automatically then go thru and install the once you dont have drivers for. The exception the that is video drivers as the hp or ati nvidia drivers are usually better then the once that are included in windows 7 or download thru the updates. Hope this helps.

 

Nice choice, the new quad is a powerhouse!
I would stick with the 64 bit to take full advantage of that CPU and RAM. The disk and COA you have has already been installed on another machine and registered to that MB/CPU with Microsoft anyway. There is a trick to do a fresh install w/o HP bloatware just do a search for some of the threads here. Or you can just simply uninstall programs in the control panel. One good example is HP Wireless Assistant, it uses a lot of resources searching for wireless signals at the same time that Windows is already doing it for you. Anything you won't use or is redundant just uninstall it.

Read this post from v3los1ty 2.0

 

I would use Revo Uninstaller and uninstall unwanted programs. Sometimes it's a headache doing a clean install and will miss some important program or files that was originally installed. Then you have to deal with updates which will take forever to download and install. I do recommend downloading all the drivers if you do fresh install.

 

I just did this with my envy with the indicated download method and it went flawlessly.

 

That is also one good example what must be installed after clean install in some cases. In my previous dv9014ea it was only possible to turn off wlan with hardware button. Wireless Assistant was necessary to have installed to turn it back on.

With my business laptops like the tc4400, Wireless Assistant is mandatory to be able to turn on Bluetooth after clean install. Bluetooth hardware isn't even visible in device manager before that. It appears to use 1.7MB ram and 0% CPU at the moment.

I have never seen Wireless Assistant to do anything else than control wireless button functionality (wlan, bluetooth and wwan on/off control). I installed the latest version meant for 8540p and it does not have wlan search functionality.

All the software should be taken case by case basis.

 

The first thing I do is always do a fresh install of windows, however that isn't for everyone, but if you know how to do it and are capable, I would recommend it, its worth it.