Some questions/confusion about clean installs ...

Hey guys,

I just ordered an X200 earlier this week, I can't wait to get it

But from what I hear there is a lot of cruft and bloatware in the default Windows install. So I have bunch of questions:

1 - Whats the best way to do a clean WinXP install on my machine ??

1 - I purchased the laptop with Genuine Windows Vista Business downgrade to Windows XP Professional [add $0.00] . Does the laptop come with Vista or XP installed ??

2 - Do I get XP reinstallation media ??

3 - Assuming I do get XP reinstallation media ... whats the best way to have a very clean XP install ? Should I just use the regular media, or can I use nLite on the media and cut out the cruft manually ??

Thanks a lot guys!!

 

Check out Arkit3kt's Guide for the clean install of XP.

 

WHen I received my T400 there was hardly any bloatware. So, I'd save the time of doing a full reinstall. Unless, you really hate the Lenovo tools. Other than that, there was an option to click a link to install McAfee (which you don't have to do), and Office 2007 (again, which you don't have to do). There was Roxio, though, and that's about it. Overall, I was pretty impressed by how clean the system mostly was for pre-installed software.

BTW, I only had Vista, No XP downgrade.

 

No you have lots of bloatware, thou' very less compared to Dell.

Like the wireless software and Roxio and others which you just mentioned.
I'd suggest you do a quick clean install (I did it 3 or 4 times.. dont ask why !!). It doesnt take much time and if you follow the mini-install guide it would be fairly easy. Plus even thou' you uninstall programs, I believe lots of regisitry keys still remain. And talk about HDD Fragmenting involved.

jeff

 

Thanks for the link.

BUt I'm still wondering ... do I get XP recovery CD's ? or something else ??

If I need to provide my own XP recovery CD's ... do I have to get a particular version or something ?? It would be pretty ironic if my new system failed WGA,

 

yeh my question to everyone is: if lenovo offers a windows xp or vista cd, doesnt that include the bloatware as well? how do you clean install?

right now i just use xp cd's ive bought from school that are completely clean of any bloatware, and i'm assuming that when lenovo sends me a vista cd, it wont come clean.

 

I agree; unless you have to do a clean install for some reason, you can skip it. Just install the apps you don't want. The bloatware takes a few minutes to unload, and delete the icons (that point to bloatware, but aren't installed).

I did both a clean install, and a "remove the bloat" and keep going install, and it's performing the same.

 

I don't know what lenovo sends out. The recovery discs that you can make from the hidden partition on the machine CANNOT be used for the clean install. You need to do what you did, get a OEM, Retail or Anytime upgrade disc from somewhere and use that to do a clean install.

 

That might be true if you run only Windows on the machine. But having a Vista disc and being able to clean install whenever I want/have to and not deal with Microsoft, calling them for activation etc is invaluable with a dual boot of Linux and Vista.