Dell E1505 XP Questions...

Hi,

I just received my first laptop a couple of days ago, and am probably going to reinstall XP Home edition, however I have a couple of Questions:

(1)When I reinstall XP, do I still need the Dell PC Restore, or will that just take up space (if my computer fails down the line, can I just reinstall XP again?)

(2)Are the drivers contained in Dell's driver CD up to date, or are they outdated, meaning that I have to download new ones?

(3)Is fixing Mediadirect a hard process? If so, is it worth the effort?

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

 

Don't reinstall your operating system unless you get yourself in a situation where everything is so screwed up you have no other choice.

Just uninstall the stuff you don't want on your system and leave it at that. Will traces of stuff still be on your system if you do an uninstall, yes. Will they cause you any problems, take up valuable system resources, or do any other noticeable damage or retard your efforts to hack into sattelite systems of small communist countries, no.

I know, I know, it's like become an internet moron standard that you need to wipe out your hard drive and do a fresh clean install so everything can be virgin. All it amounts to being though is the fix all hope of idiots and you'll accomplish nothing in doing it.

The same type of person who thinks they are making anything better by wiping their drive out and "starting fresh" is the same type of idiot who will do so, then install a ton of garbage "fix it" and "test it" programs afterwards on their "clean" system.

At best your going to waste a day and a half if you do installs all the time, day in and day out like I have when you add up looking up and downloading drivers, installing the OS, getting all the drivers installed, getting everything working, installing all your other software you use, and then adjusting all your settings to work the way you want them to. If you don't normaly do all this stuff you could be looking at a system that never works right again, or works so severely retarded that your too retarded to notice the problems.

Just leave it alone and instead spend that same day and a half reading and learning about system processes and how to controll them. You'll get 3 times the performance increase your after as opposed to saving 3 Mb of hard drive space on a 40, 60, 80 or 120Gb hard drive by reformatting.

If your just after wanting to learn or try a new install, then pull out your working hard drive and set it aside, buy a second new hard drive and play with that. At least then if you have problems, and you will, you'll just have to swap hard drives back and be up and running again. Trust me though, your learning time is much better spent learning how to controll and manipulate what you already have up and working. Reformatting everything and reinstalling your entire operating system is exactly what a brainless moron would do who doesn't know any better.

 

hth

Mark

 

Not always. I am the kind of person that's going to format my computer about 5 minutes after I get it and check everything out but there are a select few programs that I need and use every day that're going to be installed.

There won't be any registry cleaners, benchmarkers, etc. getting put on it.

I also install Acronis True Image and make an drive image every time I'm going to install some new software to play with. If it sucks, I restore the image and it's like it was never there the first time.

Your opinion might hold true for someone who has to ask about how to format and what they should re-install but not for mnay.

lmao

I think tons of people would disagree with you there although, again, I think it might hold true for someone who isn't familiar with what they are doing.

 

Nice attitude.

 

Really with the whole reformat option, you have a choice. Most people do a clean install while others just delete what they don't need and clean the system with programs.

Both ways are great...I did both.

I started with unistalling all the stuff I didn't need, "bloatware". Then I cleaned my system with RegCleaner and TuneXP. After a while I did a re-install...their was a performance increase, but nothing that I would do a clean reformat for.

So really it is a personal preference...if you like starting out with a "virgin" computer then do the re-install.

Just my $.02

 

i reformat about every six months.

i did it between every semester in grad school.

takes a couple hours.

no big deal.

 

Well once I get my e1505, I dont plan to reinstall or anything.. why? It has MCE2005.. which is about the same as XP Pro..

Unlike a XP Home system, which YES I upgraded or reinstalled from scratch.

Once my laptop comes in, I plan to uninstall bloatware, install X-Setup to run my tweaks, install Norton Systemworks 2005 and Norton AV CE 10.

Run a reg fixer real quick like to ensure all is up to snuff and I am good to go. =)

I UNDERSTAND however why people choose to do a FRESH install, People like me like to know EVERYTHING that was done to the PC. If your a techie, you wanna know the ins and outs and know what was done to the PC. However.. in the MCE2005 OS thats coming with this laptop.. I dont think I will have to do anything major at all to be honest, just get my programs installed, alchol120%, FFXI, Starcraft, the works hehe.. and then of course, setup a dual boot to install Xandros 3.0

 

Thanks for all the info guys, much appreciated

All of your help helped me to solve my problems, thanks again.

Oh, By the way, can anyone provide me with some sort of a guide for uninstalling / completely removing dell software from my notebook?? I searched but couldnt find one....

 

fwiw.... Here's one I posted a while back....

hth

Mark