New dell laptop comin tomorrow

[Insomniator]

Hey my gf is picking up a new Dell E1505 from her house tomorrow
that comes preloaded with Vista Home Basic and I'm sure a whole
bunch of other dell crap that we don't want or need.

We can get a free copy of Vista Business Premium from our school,
I already put it on my desktop and am wondering if it would be a good
idea to just format the laptop and put it on there also.

I'm guessing that if Vista is already working fine on the system, there should
be no conflicts or driver issues with the install right? I just dont want to
ruin her notebook the first day she gets it...

It doesn't have any wierd dell specific components from what I can tell,
just an Intel 950 graphics chip, a/g wireless card and integrated sound.

Think its too much of a hassle or worth it?

thanks

 

[extra]

Dangit I had a comment written all out for your thread in general but it evidently got moved here and I lost it! Oh well.

Basically: DO it!

 

[Megatomic]

I put my own copy of WinXP Pro on my new HP DV6000T when I got it. It came with Vista Home Basic, but I didn't like it at all. And the lappie came with tons, and I mean tons, of preloaded crap.

The computer runs so smoothly now, I love it. So, I agree with extra, wipe it and put your own software on the new computer for the best performance.

 

[jkresh]

Home basic is barely even vista (no aero...), if it was home premium then there would be a legitimate tradeoff vs business but with home basic I say go ahead and go to business.

 

[tennisflip]

I have a question about OS installs on a new laptop. If I were to reinstall the OS using the software recovery disc do you need to activate the OS again? I assume this disc only works with my laptop and that you wouldn't have to.

 

[nerp]

You do have to activate again.

There is a workaround, though.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=120228

 

[nerp]

Ohh, brainfart. That's all specific to HP laptops.

Might be different in the case of a dell. sorry.

 

[Alone]

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/download

Might work in Vista. I think there's a Beta that does.

 

[Noema]

If you have access to another free Vista license, then by all means do a fresh install. It'll be much easier than uninstalling all the craplets that come preloaded on those laptops.

 

[DrGreen2007]

Hopefully she paid the few bucks to get the OS CD with the new lappy...just reinstall from that CD, no?
- plus there would be no activation needed

(does she need all the extras of Vista Business?)

 

[Jaxidian]

I would never permanently leave a Dell load on a laptop that I bought! Also, be careful what you install from Dell's site under the "drivers" downloads - only like 20% of those really are drivers, a lot of other things really are dellware.

-Jax

 

[Insomniator]

I just installed it, everything but media direct is working fine. I'm gonna reinstall to get that working and it'll be done.

There was so much crap on the dell load it wasn't even funny; had to get rid of it.

thanks guys