HP Envy 14 - Reformatting?

Hey,

I just got my HP Envy 14 in the mail and I love it! I'm installing some games now to see how the run (heat and fps), and the battery is great so far.

I wanted to know if anybody will be reformatting their hard drives when they come and putting a new copy of windows 7 without all of the crap ware on the 14.

I have a CD of Windows 7 Ultimate and I backed up the SwSetup folder full of drivers. However, can anyone tell me how easy it is to install of the drivers and restore the laptop to what it was like before (without all of their crap and the early startup OS). On the other hand, is it worth just going through and trying to uninstall all that i can?

I am fairly good with computers and could figure most of the stuff out. Thanks for your help!

 

As long as you have the SWsetup folder, you're good to go.

Also see first page of Owner's lounge for a few tips.

 

How long a process (approximately, of course) do you think it will take to manually install each driver one by one?

Thanks for the fast response 2.0

 

Clean Install Windows 7 - How to Perform a Clean Installation of Windows 7 - Part 1 of 3

Someone asked earlier about a step by step guide.

 

Hour, give or take. Mostly because some require a reboot after installation.

 

Those guides were great. One of my primary concerns is, however, which drivers to install which ones not to install. Obviously some of them are important like video drivers, but it gets fairly convoluded.

MyColors is some crap software that can change the laptop to HP's custom theme. Obviously I dont want that, but there is probably other stuff like it and im not quite sure how to tell whats necessary, what is useful and what is a waste of space and processing power.

Is there a list / could anyone formulate a quick list of drivers that need to be installed, drivers that can be useful and drivers that are worthless for the Envy 14? I think that would be a great help to all of us!

 

At least one person was having issue getting the computer to boot from a windows 7 disc or from a usb drive formatted to auto-boot win 7.


he had to go and start it up within the current windows 7 stuff on the computer.


The problem may have something to do with hp quick start or something.

 

See http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-drivers-software-forum/496027-drivers-hp-envy-14-intel.html

 

perfect! thanks again

 

Quick question...for this reformatting process, can i use a flash drive to hold SWsetup?

 

you can toss the SWSetup folder anywhere you want.

it's needed after you finish installing windows

 

Another quick question:

Is it better to use the drivers in SwSetup or should I hunt or them online (even though the laptop is new do you think the drivers are out of date)?

 

One note, I noticed that SwSetup is about 3 or 4 gigs. The drivers folder inside of there is ~500MB.

If all you really care about is the drivers then you can make due with just that folder. That's what I did and took way less time.

 

Is anyone having issues with the clean install+swsetup drives? If I am going to swap out the hdd for a ssd- is it better to use the recovery disc method or the clean install?

How about windows activation?

 

To get the envy to boot from disc you have to press esc to access bios settings, then it says press f9 for boot options and then boot from disc.