Re-installing Vista for the first time. Am I forgetting anything?

My system is starting to get a bit cluttered despite my regular maintenance. So I'm going to re-install Vista entirely, just the C: drive basically.

What's going to take AGES is the update process... but I'll get through it progressively. And hopefully most recent updates were follow-up from much older ones so I won't have to get them downloaded/installed AGAIN.

I made a list of all the software I use daily, and of all the tweaks I've done. I've saved up every configuration I can transfer (Firefox, MS Office...) and taken note of what I'll need (things like AIM, Skype, Steam + DOD/CS source). I'll go through it all progressively but this time I think I'll kill the clutter before installing new things... Start by a smaller system than last time and build up.

Is there anything I'm forgetting, or that I should know about this? I'm dual booting with Ubuntu and I can restore the MBR after, that much is easy. But I've never installed a Windows OS on top of another one, from scratch. I'll lose all my files so I backed everything up, but it does seem like a daunting process despite by ability to break/repair things almost indefinitely.

 

1- Download and backup all the system drivers first.
This means: motherboard chipset, sound card, video card (GPU), TV-Tuner (if any), wireless card (if any), wired card (Ethernet), webcam (if any), printer/scanner (if any).

2- Backup C:\Users\<ACCOUNT NAME>\AppData\Local, and C:\Users\<ACCOUNT NAME>\AppData\Roaming. Note that "AppData" is a hidden folder.
These 2 folders contains every program settings related to your account.

For all settings form program which affect all accounts backup C:\ProgramData. Note that "ProgramData" is also hidden. Make sure to put them BEFORE installing your software.

Wen you do, you will see programs like Firefox, which will be exactly the way you left it.
For software that needs product key, that will still need to be re-entered, but the settings that you set for the program won't be lost for the great majority of the programs

3- Make sure you backup all your personal and important files outside onto an external storage device such as another computer via network, CD/DVD, external HDD, or USB memory stick. This is important as all your files will be lost.

To install Windows, you will need to boot from the disk (see your system manual on how to boot from a DVD/CD).
The setup is really easy, it's just like installing programs under Windows. You'll have a nice wizard which will guide you step by step.
At one of the step, it will ask you "Where do you want to install Windows?". From there, click on the partition where you have Windows, and using the options bellow, format it, to have space to install Windows on it. Once done (a quick process), select the partition and click on "Next" button to continue the installation process.

WARNING: There is a chance that your dual boot with Linux with gone. If that is the case, the system will automatically boot to Windows, but don't worry, your Linux is still there! See with a Linux community on how to add Linux to the boot system of Windows, or replace the boot system, so that you can dual boot between systems.

 

I wouldn't expect much performance benefit, unless something's messed up with your current installation. But if you want to, go ahead.

Nah. Windows will just go on the internet and find all yoru drivers automatically. But... I would have a copy of the network driver, just in case the default one doesn't work right. But you probably won't have to use it. With that, you can run in safe mode and get the other drivers through Windows Update... and anything Update doesn't find you can grab manually.

Backing these up is a good idea (I would just grab the whole AppData folder, or even your whole home directory), but I wouldn't restore them unless you can't get things working some other way. The point of reinstalling is to get rid of cruft... so don't just put it all right back.

Or just configure the settings again... no biggie.

I suppose you can do it either way. But I say if you want to start over from scratch, then start over from scratch.

This part I totally agree with.

I've used a free program from NeoSmart called EasyBCD to put my boot menu back so I can get to Linux again... but you may want to search the web for some examples of how to use it. I'm sure there are other ways to do it too.


Anyway, another thing I'd personally download is the Vista SP1 and SP2 standalone updaters. I've just had much better luck using these than using Windows Update to install the service packs. But... if everything goes right, you should be able to do it either way.

Also, I recommend updating to SP1 and then SP2 before installing any drivers... everything is more likely to go smoothly that way.

 

The reason why I suggest to manually download drivers, is that some systems like my Dell Latitude, when I was under Vista, only had GPU and Ethernet and wireless drivers, and outdated from Windows update. Outdated driver is no problem, it's not old drivers that will affect you in any way, they might just as well be the current drivers that you had which worked great for you, but it's just nice to have everything updated.

Also, I want to prevent the surprise that, for some odd reason, Vista doesn't get the Ethernet and wireless card drivers, and then what. You need to get another computer, get the drivers from there, and so on and so forth, we know the rest. It's usually not problematic, but it's not a smooth install experience. And I prefer that our friend has the best smoothest experience, by using our own personal experience to be ready for anything.

Another thing:
- You can't just backup your account director, or AppData entirely. As it contains system files (I don't know what they are, but I tried several times) that can't be replaced. Granted you can skip, or even the file as it has some random name, would be next to the real one, in such case it just ads clutter.

Oh and you don't need to backup "LocalLow".

Another thing is in your backup, of Roaming and Local, you may want to delete the "Temp" directory, and any programs that decided to leave files behind when you uninstalled them some time ago, if you ever did that. There is no obligation, it's just to keep things clean.

 

Yea, I installed windows 7 on a friend of mine's computer, and it couldn't find the GPU driver. Even Windows Update didn't turn up anything. I would download the following drivers: Wireless, GPU driver, chipset drivers. I have copies of all my programs and keys on my external so that if I wanted to re-install windows I can just install. I have all my games Disc Imaged and all my game saving folders from "My Documents" synced to my external.

 

Thanks everyone, great tips! I'd be reinstalling from a recovery partition on the PC, so all drivers will still be there and present. I'll backup my profiles/settings and then all I'll need to do is reinstall all the updates and software.