Would love to purchase a SZ1XP, but...

...I just can't ignore the bloat-ware and clean installation of XP issues. When I purchase a computer its important that I have control of what goes on it. It's typically instrusive of Sony to say I can only recover a corrupt version of XP using only their recovery disk (which I have to burn myself). Is it really to much to ask to have the drivers available on one provided cd so all the hardware could be installed on an O.S of my choosing? Is this a similar problem with all Sony laptops?

 

It pretty much is.
Its easy to install XP without the bloatware, and I am pretty sure you can install all the drivers on any given XP with the recovery CD. When you launch the recovery CD there is a tab which says Drivers and that lets you choose which drivers you want to install.

 

This worked on S460

Its possible to use the recovery disks and get minimal bloat ware, make your recovery disks, run then programme, after its recovered the XP side of things and youve reinputed your notebook details (ie notebook name and user name and stuff) the notebook restarts, eject the disk before it finishes booting up, your then left with a error message saying it can't find the file/programme. go into Start - Programmes - Startup - and remove the recovery programme from startup (cant remember proper name but its pretty obvious), restart notebook and its sorted. You still end up with a couple of bits you need to uninstall (acrobat reader and 1/2 other) but the vast majority of the bloatware will not have been installed.

All drivers will have been reinstalled as well

ps If you do buy one buy it from a reseller and not from Sony, youll potentialy save yourself a stack of hassle

 

The bloatware really isnt that bad. It only took me about 30 minutes to remove everything that I did not think that I would use. Ran a registry cleaner over and defragged after I had installed all of my usual applications and it runs perfectly.