Dell Vista Laptop Reformat and Bloatware Removal Guide

Rite just making sure...

So after step 9
Run "DellKit" and press enter to complete installation of MediaDirect;

I can go into vista and instead of using the drivers cd i can download all the drivers from dell website and install them and then finish?

 

Exactly. What I typically do is that I save all of the downloaded drivers on a USB drive prior to reformatting, and then I just install them all as soon as vista starts up post-re installation. Either way works though.

 

So do you look through your list of drivers then go to dell's website and save the drivers you have installed to your computer then save them to a usb stick then reformat windows then intall the drivers from the usb drive?

 

Yes. I pretty much know which components I have on my Dell notebook, so I just go down the list in the Dell support/downloads page and download each driver that I need(Intel Matrix, Nvidia video, synaptics touchpad, wifi, quickset, etc.). After I finish re-installing Windows, I just pop in the USB drive and install each driver on there, one at a time.

 

Just a follow-up on my question asked earlier... anybody know at what point I'll need an internet connection to complete the re-install process? If I start this in a totally off-line configuration, will Vista fail to install in the absence of a network that'll permit product verification?

 

with all xp systems ive ever built, I give virtual memory its own partition, as well as a scratch disk if it will be a photoshop rig.

Would you recommend this for Vista. It drastically cut down fragmentation by allowing the ever size changing V-MEM to have an 'empty drive' to itself.

Also, Im mainly used to simply allocating A simple C: partition in windows initial setup, then use disk management to do the rest within windows. I prosume this can be done in vista too.

Having looked at D-management in vista, there are 4 partitions.

Since I just got the laptop today, I may as well givve your step by step a go, i hate bloatware!, ugh, antivirus's with sub's.. like mcafee.. no thanks dell, i'll stick with AVG

 

so it sounds like all the information originally posted isn't everything that you need to do, since people are asking all these extra questions...?

 

I believe that you can do the entire reformat process without internet access. If Vista doesn't activate itself offline, it will still install fully and just request that you activate it later.

The original guide is a comprehensive guide that if followed step-by-step, a user can successfully reformat their PC. This, of course, does not ensure that people will run into unique issues during the process. The multitude of posts with problems are about these unique situations that they are having.

 

If it's not too much to ask would you be able to maybe send me an email with these drivers or their links for the 1530 if i pm you my email address. (if the ones i would need are the same as yours) i have had problems with drivers on older systems. Maybe it's easier now im not sure. Or even send me the links to the ones i would need if it's not to hard.

 

I've skimmed the thread and wanted to check quickly on an issue I've had (XPS 1730, 32 bit vista ultimate 2 x HDs).

I followed the steps exactly twice now, but each time I get to the point where windows is installed and I have to put the media direct 3.5 disk back in to complete the installation I have the same issue. I start the install program and at between 4 and 7% it simply states installation errors and stops the process forcing me to quit the installer. No clarification whatsoever on what the errors are.

Both installs I've seen what I assume to be the 3gb Mediadirect partition marked as Local Disk X:\ under Other in My Computer but I'm not able to access or check it in any way. (C:\ is 3gb short as would be expected, I chose option 1 when partitioning with the media direct cd on both occasions).

Any help would be great.


Any ideas?

 

I tried this earlier and am pretty sure i screwed up (computer novice) because DHCP Client was not responding on anything i downloaded like Mozilla. On computers it showed the C drive but there was the square (cant see image) pic for the other drive.

There were only about 4 things checked, then had no idea which things i should extract. Things like FPrintreader/Audio/Nvidia/ Intel chipset etc.. were all unchecked.

How do i know which ones i should extract and which things i should download from dell support?

Again, I apologize for these noob like questions.

 

i've also got a question - i just started the process and selected option 1 to allocate all space to c: and i know that formatting the HD takes a while but i just have a blinking cursor, no progress bar. is that normal? and if not, any way to "abort" and restore things to factory?

 

You need to extract each driver that you have that component in your machine. Some of the unchecked drivers need to be installed as well. The Intel chipset is a must. If you have a fingerprint reader, install that driver, you will need the audio and nVidia drivers as well.

 

Reinstalled again.

ONly had 3 checks come up on driver/utilities installation.

Dell Wireless
Intel wiFi
Marvell Ethernet.

So, I extracted those along with the fingerprintreader and Quickset (complete).

Im assuming that I now go to Dell support and only download the ones they say are "recommended"?

 

Sorry stupid question, where can i find the information listed for all the components on my machine?

 

Well, it will vary depending on what hardware you have in your 1530. These are links to the main drivers you will need to extract and save to a USB drive.


Intel Chipset Driver

Intel Matrix Storage Driver

Nvidia Video Driver

Touchpad Driver

Sigmatel Audio Driver

Ethernet Controller Driver

Intel AGN Wifi Driver( Dell 1505 Wifi)

Fingerprint Reader Driver

Webcam Driver

Bluetooth Driver

Memory Card Reader Driver

Dell Quickset

Again, most of these you will need. Some things like Bluetooth Driver, Fingerprint driver, you don't need if you don't have these installed in your laptop.

I would imagine you would definately need the drivers listed up to the wifi driver, and then select the ones after that that you know you have the hardware in your laptop.

 

This is in reference to the hardware features that you customized for your laptop, such as whether or not you have bluetooth, fingerprint reader, webcam, etc. You can see these components listed in your Windows' Device manager, or more accurately in your Dell order receipt or Dell service tag that details each and every part that you have.

Which Dell notebook do you have T-dot? If you have an m1530, you can use the links I provided in my last post.

 

I got the 1530.

Downloaded pretty much the basics along with the Intel Turbo.

As far as the partition goes; I only show C showing 229 free out og 229 GB.
The other is DVD RW Drive. Should there be another partition somewhere?

 

When you reformated the first time, did you delete the 10GB recovery partition?

If you have the 250GB HDD, Windows will only show about 230GB of it.

 

im not sure, but definitely not showing the recovery partition. Is that necessary? Do I have to reinstall again?

 

I could be wrong here, but I believe the recovery partition would appear in the my computer drives area. It's ok if it is not there however, as we can always do a reformat with all the necessary drives. The recovery partition is only if you ever needed to restore your computer to factory state(how it was when you got it). If you do have a 250GB HDD in your m1530, Windows showing 229GB Total should be fine.

 

Thanks Dartsat, youve been very helpful.

Its is 250 gb, showing 229 without the recovery partition.

Lastly, anyone know how to change languages on Media direct, my set up and update for it is in Korean.

 

please delete?

 

I think that happened to me. You didnt press "key" fast enough. I just turned it off and restarted. I could be wrong though.

 

I just got M1530 in UK, however, I don't see the MediaDirect CD everyone's talking about... mine comes with 5 discs:

1.OPERATING SYSTEM (Already installed)
2.DRIVERS AND UTILITIES (Already installed -Oct2007)
3.DRIVERS AND UTILITIES (Already installed -Webcom manager)
4.Microsoft Works
5.Roxio Creator9

Is that Disc1, I should be using for clean install? Sorry, I'm confusedquite a bit.

 

NewCross, The Operating System DVD is the one that you will boot with to install Vista. There should also be another disc called Dell Media Direct. This is the disc that use use prior to reinstalling the Operating System.

So step 1 of this guide requires the MediaDirect disc, which is not on your list of 5 discs that you have(but should be).

And step 4 of this guide is when you use the Operating System disc.

The drivers and Utilities dvds only come into play after the operating system has finished installing.

 

Thank you for your quick response, darthsat. Right after I read your reply I search all the DELL packaging & filecase etc. then I found it!! the thing called APPLICATION (MediaDirect 3.5) ! At first I thought the missing disc was just because this one is UK version. hee.

 

Good to hear. Please feel free to post if you encounter any other issues when you are reformatting.

 

I'm installing drivers & Utility now. What is exactly 'Dell OS Tools' and "Dell notebook System Software" for? I guess this is the main thing we are aiming to get rid of by clean installing Vista, but the description in the resource CD doesn't help me much.

 

Hey, I just wanted to say 'thanks' to Les and all the other posters who have contributed to this thread. It made the 'cleansing' of my new XPS M1530 much smoother.

The only glitch I encountered was installing the bluetooth drivers. I found after a bit of googling that I needed a patch from Dell to turn the BT back on in order to complete the installation. After that everything was good.

To reformat, partition (160GB drive into 4 sections), and install the o/s incl. drivers and updates took about 4 hours. Now I have the laptop set up to what I like.

Thanks again!

 

Hi When I go to Dell website to check for the drivers http://support.dell.com/support/dow...D=INS_PNT_PM_1420&os=WLH&osl=en&catid=&impid=
it does not give me an option to download drivers for vista 64. When I choose my model inspiron 1420 it only gives vista 32 drivers and not 64. Where can I find the drivers for vista 64 for Inspiron 1420? Kindly help.

Sorry............ wrong thread to post it.. just ignore......

 

Just wanted to publicly say thank you to Darthsat for the assistance here. Due to work commitments, I am only able to get near the computer for a day or so on the weekends for the past few weeks including this upcoming (this with my wife screaming in the background)

Thank you again Darthsat!!!!

 

It might have been asked before, but since this thread is so huge, I'll take the risk : I have a DVD for Ultimate and currently awaiting my 1530.

Is there a way for me to slipstream all the necessary Dell drivers on an Ultimate disc so I can just use that new system disc and have all the drivers taken care of in one shot ?

 

No...its best you create a driver disk.

 

No problem at all, Les. Glad to help.

 

hi...i got my xps 1330 the other day and did the laptop reformat today...I'm not too great with computers, but it all seemed to go ok.

the only problem is I can't get wireless internet to work....i went to the dell website to download wireless drivers, however I had no idea which one to choose so i have downloaded the following:
1. Intel - Driver
Applies to:
Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
2. Dell - Driver
Applies to:
_Wireless (Except US,Japan) WLAN Card
3. Dell - Driver
Applies to:
Wireless 1390 WLAN ExpressCard
4. Dell - Driver
Applies to:
Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module (Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR)
and it still doesn't work

I have also gone to the firewall settings and made sure that wireless is enabled.

When I got to wireless connections it says that there are none available- which I know is wrong because we have another laptop in the house which is connected to the wireless perfectly.

When I click on Dell Wireless WLAN Card Utility this error appears "The wireless adapter could not be accessed. This application may have diminished functionalty as a result."

Does anyone have any advice for me?

Thanks

 

Hello Les, let me first start out by saying you have the patients of a saint and i don't mean to be obtuse but i got to page 13 and kind of got sick of reading the same questions over and over again, so like the other guy said its a lengthy thread and since you are still responding to questions on this thread as of yesterday.

i will also take the risk and go ahead and ask you my questions if you have answered them previously, if you would just state that or if you know the page its on state that as well if you would but i can and will search through every page to save you the hassle if these questions have been answered.

oh and just an fyi: i have not received my 1720 as of yet but i like to be prepaired! however i hope it comes today! ive been tracking like a kid in a candy store!!!

questions:

1) If i am not worried about the 10gb system restore and just want the bloatware off of it can i just uninstall all of the bloatware? will this work?

2) I ordered the trend micro pccillin for anti-virus etc. software if i follow your steps will i lose this or is there a cd for it or do you know?

3) Also as you can see im a newb. ive built my own desktops but this will be my first laptop and as you have an xps you know there not a cheap endevure especally for a college student so i understand that you said all you have to do is put the cd back in and do it again if something goes wrong but lets say worst comes to worst and i totally screw things up (sometimes i could screw up a crow bar) all i have to do is put the cd in and start over this is 100% fool proof right?

4) When i stopped reading on page 13 you where reffering to windows vista ultimate edition, if i just want the premium edition back on my comp. i just put in the cd correct.

and yes i know i asked a few of the same questions but i guess now that i have posted i understand how those people fell if you ask and get an answer straight from the horses mouth (so to speak) it makes you(me) feel a bit better about understanding the process.

thanks for the info Les, and again appreciate the info you have posted and any further information you can supply me with!

 

lilnicole, the driver you most probably want to get is this one:

1. Intel - Driver
Applies to:
Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

Which Dell notebook do you have?



ChevyTrucks, welcome to the forums. I'll try to answer your questions here.

1. You can always try the method of just going and uninstalling the bloatware using the windows programs and features item in the control panel, however, this leaves holes in the OS and in the registry. When you uninstall these programs, they will not actually completely dissappear from the machine. Doing a full reformat is a way of giving you a completely fresh, clean machine that has nothing on it except for what you want. Not only this, but there are extraeneous background services that run on your laptop when you receive it. These background services may slow down the performance of your OS. Doing a reformat may decrease the number of processes significantly. When I received my XPS, it had about 65 processes running out of the box. After a reformat, that number was down to about 45.

2. I am not sure about this, but I would predict that you will receive a cd with the software loaded on it in case you need to reinstall it.

3. You said that you are not going to be deleting the 10GB restore partition, so if something does go wrong, you can just reboot and press F10 at the Dell boot screen to load the system recovery partition. This will reload everything on your computer back to factory settings. This is a fail-safe. And even if you do accidentally delete that partition, you will still have the Windows Vista Premium DVD that you can pop in, and boot from to reinstall the OS. From that point, you will have a drivers disc with all of the drivers that you need to install to get everything working again. So if something does go terribly wrong, you have both the 10GB restore partition as well as the Vista Premium disc as backup options to bring things back up.

4. Yes, if you ever want to just reinstall your Vista premium, you will have a DVD with it on there.

 

I have the xps 1330, T9300, 4GB Dual-channel, 320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive, 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS, Intel® 4965 Wireless-N Mini-card.

I found the dell driver site quite confusing and annoying because there were so many options and they are almost all recommended or optional. For someone like me, who knows little about computers, I had no idea which ones I was supposed to download!!

Could me not being able to connect have anything to do with the fact that the wireless router configuration is set to WPA-PSK but on Vista this is not an option?? Which one should be selected? WPA-Personal?

 

If you have the Intel Wifi link 4965 drivers installed, it should pick up the signal from your router. Try changing it the access protocol to WPA-personal and play with those settings to see if that works. You can post this problem in the Networks/Wireless forum on notebookreview to possibly get some more solutions.

 

ok thanks for the advice.

also- that list that you posted on p87 with driver downloads, would that be everything I need to download ? I noticed it was for a different laptop, but does it apply to my 1330 too?

 

Unfortunately no. You need drivers unique to the m1330. I'll try to give you a list of the necessary drivers sometime tomorrow.

 

Thanks Darthstat appreciate your help, for my elementry question and i did not know that uninstall left holes in your system (i know what you mean by that) but does it do that even if I were to install my own software and then later remove it for what ever the reason, and if so is there a way to fix this?

sorry its off topic dunno where else to post it though.

 

Whenever you install and then uninstall programs, services and other things that affect your computer's registry, there will be holes building up. You probably won't be able to notice any significant drop in performance from these, but over a long period of time it may cause decreases in speed. It is a good idea to do a full reformat once you get a new laptop so that it is completely new for you. After that, you don't really need to reformat for a long time. Some of us do it as frequently as every few months just to make sure things keep running optimally, but these people are one's who are constantly installing/uninstalling programs frequently. I wouldn't worry too much about it if I were you. It is, however, a good idea to reformat right off the bat to give you a truly fresh start. If after many months or a year, you notice that it is not as fast as you remember it or there are problems you are having with the computer, you may want to reformat again to make things anew.

 

I am not sure if you have already addressed this or not, so please bear with me. After talking to Dell support i was unable to get a clear answer. When i get my laptop (right now i am looking at an xps m1330) will it come with all the disks you mentioned (media direct, vista, drivers disks) or will i have to request them? Also if i order software which dell pre-installs (microsoft office) will it come with a disk so i can re-install it after reformatting? And finally what exactly do you have to do differently to keep the restore factory settings partition? Thanks for your help.

 

I can tell you that it will come with the vista disc, the dell drivers disc, the dell webcam utility, and the media direct disc. I don't order other software from Dell, so I can't be sure if they send you the discs for software that you buy, but it seems a safe bet that they would.

And to keep the recovery feature, simply do not choose to delete the 10GB recovery partition in the partitioning step of the walkthrough.

 

Skatanic, yes you will (and should) receive any 3rd party program discs such as Office.

 

Just bought a dell vostro, and am hoping to be brave enough to try this and get the machine running to its full potential (thougha n encouraging word would help!)

I've got mediadirect disc 3.5 (the walkthrough says 3.3) will it work the same?

I 've got vista disc 32bit that came with the kit - is this ok?

thanks

rev

 

Go for it! It is relatively painless. Follow the steps exactly and pay attention to your partitions and the prompts.

Yes. I have 3.5 as well.

Yes.

 

Thanks for the encouraging words, i'm trying to build up the balls to go for it...

I presume I'll also have to reinsall the graphics drivers (nvidia 8600MGT) is this easy enough to do frmo the nvidia website?

rev

EDIT:

my score comes out at 4.7 in the windows experience thing - is it worth me going through this procedure ( I think it is, just to get rid of macaffee if nothing else!)

rev