Can I install a retail verison of Win 7 on my L501x ?

I have a Win 7 retail edition and wanted to install it on my L501x. Will this work ? and when I install Win 7 and update it will it also find any other necessary drivers that my laptop needs ? or will I need to use some Dell drivers ?

I'd rather bypass Dell's drivers if I can. Do you see any problems with my plan ?

Also lets say I theres something not working can I use a Dell driver even though I installed my own version of Win 7 on the latop ? or will the Dell drivers only work with there version Win 7 that came with the laptop ?

Last question when people here say doing a fresh install and only installing programs they want what do they mean ? Do they mean what I want to do above ? Or just reinstalling their bacup discthey made when they got their laptop ? When I first got my laptop I did a backup disc on a Dual layer DVD so if I were to reinstall the OS thats on the DVD it would install all the programs so I don't understand what they mean when they say I'll install only the programs they want. thanks

 

I always do a fresh install and reformat the hdd,Dell is notorious for adding a ton of crapware,and yes you can use dell drivers or direct manufacturer drivers and windows updates,I put ssd drives in all my systems and its easy a little time consuming but easy.I just did exactly what your asking on my m11x works great,youll be amazed at how much better it runs without dells resource hogs running in sys tray also optimize your pc when your done and itll zip better than ever!

 

yep, i reinstalled using my own copy of windows 7 enterprise.

i can't seem to think of anything bad about using non-Dell drivers as long as its for the right device, execept it is easier to have all the drivers in one place as finding the right drivers can be tricky. Dell drivers will work with whatever version of windows 7 you have except make sure if ur installing 64bit drivers on a 64bit Win7.

 

I would at least create an account, get the recovery media done and use it first and see if it is to your liking. Personally the 2 Dell's I bought albeit business class notebooks, had no bloatware on them (Latitude 13, Latitude E6410).

 

The only downside I've found using non Dell drivers is for the Realtek audio.
No other drivers seem to auto-detect when a device is inserted into a jack with a pop-up prompt.
Since I use the digital out this is a bit of an inconvenience as I have to manually change the playback device and then some software will still be using the previous output.
Kinda petty but it does annoy me no other drivers do this.
Other than that I've found that using non-Dell drivers are more recent, even to the point I've modded NVIDIA drivers to keep up to date and had to use NEC's USB 3 drivers & firmware updates to resolve issues so for the best part you're probably better off!