What DIFFERENCE Did It Make (Re-Installing Vista)

Alright,

I've seen a number of threads regarding the removal of the bloatware pre-installed on HP's notebooks. My question is: was the startup time really so different after doing the fresh install? My notebook should be in, in about a week, and if so I'd be willing to go through the 30-40min process. However, even if there are some registry entries left behind from simply using "Add/Remove Programs" did you notice that the bootup still took longer. if you didnt do a fresh install?

Thanks a lot

Camaren

 

I just did this last night.. the computer seems to run a lot better.. especially boots up faster. I still can't find what driver I need to install the "unknown" hardware in my device manager..

Otherwise, I highly recommend installing a clean copy of Vista on over any factory bloat-ware.

 

Mmm if you search the forums you will find many other postings similar to this one. Check this one.. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=139354
and this one
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=132279

And there are plenty more if you just look around.

-Eric

 

Yeah, I actually posted on those, and my question is now to the whole forum, regarding everyone who did the re-install how much of a difference did it make for YOU. Anyways, like I said, I was a part of those discussions. Thanks for the responses so far

 

Ok sounds good to me. I'm still waiting for my dv9500t to be shipped. It has a expected completion date of July 17th but I'm hoping that it comes way before that. I too would like to know if it is worth it but I probably will just give it a shot and if it something goes wrong I can always use my back up disks.

Also I know that the dv9500t stopped having the option for the backup disks that HP sells for like 20 bucks and so I'm wondering if the system will still come with a upgrade disk that the clean install guide in the forms mentions? If it doesn't will I still be able to do a clean install?

-Eric

 

It's not only a difference in the boot up time, but having multiple drives on the machine. If you leave things as is, you have a big C drive and that's it. So if you want to back up your data, you have to do the one drive, unless you do it by folders. If you reformat and start over with XP, Vista, and the Shared partition, then you have 3 drives you can work with. I end up putting all my data on the shared E drive, and both operating systems can see it.

Now I can back up XP, Vista, and the Data drive separately.

 

robvia - You might want to consider going into disk management in Vista and shrinking the c: partition (if it is defragged) quite a bit then create a new partition. Understand that won't help with dual boot since its easier to have XP installed first in that case. I re-installed my dv9000t (when I had it) with the Windows Anytime DVD and it ran like a top - until I updated it. Then the dreaded slow boot / fragmented drive demon struck the hdd. I just installed Vista in a dual-boot setup on my dv2000t this past weekend and it runs like a top - but I have not wasted time going to Windows Update this time. Boot-up and log-on to wireless in just a tad over 1:15 - bootup and sidebar will build in 55 secs if I turn off the wireless.

 

I did a clean install of Vista (Ultimate) and it was a pain re-installing all the programs and drivers. Some devices weren't recognize and had to play around with it. I didn't feel any speed difference in loading.

Once I just deleted all the bloatwares and did a registry clean and that was far easier. Some bloatwares are actually useful, to me anyways.

Make sure you save the SWSetup directory before you do any clean installation.

I've tried to do the Bitlocker hard drive security and my laptop doesn't comply with it... I have a dv2138xx. Nowhere in the bios to activate the feature.