dv6-1260se & preinstalled programs

I recently bought the dv6-1260se, 'Artists Edition' and am so far loving it, except for the whole Windows Vista Issue.

I've had it a whole 3 days and it's already throwing errors. I installed Aion and World of Warcraft, and for one day, WoW could alt-tab fine. Now it gives a green alt-tab box and only shows the start/task bar. I hafta complete restart the entire thing to fix it, it won't even tab back to the game. Also, when I tried to use a bluetooth mouse, it started throwing HID errors. I update the quicklauch buttons like the HP help suggested, but still no luck. I got the bluetooth mouse to work, but discovered it was pretty bleh and it lagged when in games. Windows Vista is up-to-date save for Service Pack 2. The ATI video drivers are also updated from ATI.

I have Windows 7 RC on all the other computers in the house, and had it on my prior Compaq 3 year old beast before the board fried itself for the last time. I've already pre-ordered my Windows 7 for this laptop through HP, but I'm not sure if I can wait till oct. 22.

However, the Artists Edition comes with alot of decent preloaded software. Corel's paintshop pro, painter and something else. Also there's Stardock's MyColors, LoginStudio and I think Object Desktop. Some of these programs have a beta for Win 7, others don't.

However, I don't have registration keys or anything for these programs. I don't think I'll have problems with Corel's stuff (if Win 7 translates the reg keys correctly), but Stardock's stuff will hafta be eventally updated and they need keys for updates.

Has anyone delt with this on their laptop before, especially with Win7?

 

Make sure that before you update or otherwise do anything to your laptop's OS you save the C:\SWSETUP folder to either DVD's or to an external HD.

The SWSETUP folder contains most if not all the software and drivers that came on your laptop. The software you speak of may not be downloadable from HP but should be available in that folder.

The software will also be available on the restore disks you should have made but you would have to reload Vista on your notebook from the disks to access the data.

 

Okay, I just looked through that folder, and in addition to the normal drivers that can be downloaded from HP's site, I also found the MS Works setup, MyColors setup, and the DVD program (Cyberlink). Also that annoying Norton was in there as well.

There was no trace of Corel's suite or Stardock's other programs.

 

Well if your'e trying to use windows 7 RC your'e gonna have some problems as your drivers are not optimised for windows 7 and so with this vista problem your stuck with vista... what i suggest you do would be to do a system recovery using the the recovery partition on your hard drive and see if you have nay problems still...

 

As long as you didn't format the recovery partition, go to the start menu and type in "Recovery Manager". Then go to "Advanced" and you can reinstall the factory default programs, drivers, and everything from there.

 

If you do install Windows 7 get the RTM. To sean473, there are NO issues with Windows 7. None at all. It would take me 20 minutes to type all the problems that HP's preloaded Vista has.

I don't know what to say about the bundled software - you should give HP a ring and ask if the licenses are transferable to a new installation.

 

Okay, I did the 'recovery manager' program, and found how to make the recovery disks and all that jazz. As far as software programs, all of HP's MediaSmart programs are there (dvd, mvp, slingplayer, smartmenu, tv, webcam, wirless assit, ect), the cyberlink dvd program, lightscribe program, ms works, sling player, stardock's mycolors, and norton is in there as option programs to reinstall.

No trace of Corel's package. So I would assume that even if I did a recovery of Vista to fix this game issue, I would lose the corel programs. wth?

I guess I'll hafta end up contacting HP about those.

I miss the days when you bought a computer you also got a folder full of cds that contained the optional programs you can install.

 

I contacted HP's email tech support and they said they cannot offer help on programs they don't own.

So they put other companies software on their products, but offer no help for their messes.

I'm still waiting on a response on the HP windows7 forum.

 

When i upgrade to windows 7 using the free upgrade or whatever will it get rid of all those programs. Since i haven't used any of them anyways.