Did I read this correctly -- no Vista CD with T61

I thought I read on this forum that the T61 does not come with an actual Vista CD. Is that true?

How does one "re-initialize" the laptop with a fresh, no bloat-ware version of Vista when it arrives?

Thanks.

 

No computer manufacturers nowadays send out a clean copy of Windows OEM OS CD.

 

I believe you have to purchase a restore CD. Or does it come with one? I remember reading this in one of the other posts on someone having to pay for the media.

 

Like other Thinkpads (recent anyway) the hard drive has a recovery partition pre-installed. When you receive your machine, you can use the Thinkadvantage rescue and recovery utility (accessed via the blue Thinkvantage key) to create bootable recovery disks from this partition. You'll need about 4 dvds. The disks will allow to restore the system to the original OS and factory specs.

 

What about creating multiple partitions? Is this easily achievable with tools on the recovery disks?

 

But as I understand, with the recovery disk you can't do a "clean" windows install, can you? Doesn't it come with bloatware pre pre installed?
If you download a copy of windows and install it with your serial number it's perfectly legal and you would have a much cleaner install, because let's face it, windows also has heaps of bloatware!!

 

Actually, Dell offers the option to pick your OS with or without media, at least on the Latitudes.

Does the Thinkpad recovery partition offer you the ability to selectively install things or are you stuck restoring to exactly the way the computer came?

 

That Dell media DVD just restores your laptop to factory specs, with all the bloatware included. You are just paying Dell to burn those DVD's for you. Whereas you can burn your own set of Recovery DVDs for pennies from your laptop's recovery partition.

 

Someone found a way to do a clean install of Vista using the generic Windows Anytime Upgrade DVD that comes with every laptop.

Do a search for this. I think it was posted on this forum.

 

That's too bad.

Dell doesn't actually charge you for the DVDs so I'll get them anyway if I decide to go with a Dell instead of a Thinkpad, but I was hoping they were actually real Vista DVDs. I'll have to search on the other option.

 

You can oder the discs separately. They are in the HMM. Not sure about the price, though.

 

That hasn't been the case in my experience. Certainly it is an OEM-ized version of the OS and not a straight Windows-retail-nothing-added disc, but all the cd burning, dvd viewing blah blah software is on separate discs... sometimes even the drivers are on separate discs. And the Google toolbars and the old versions of Adobe Reader are nowhere to be found on the Dell discs.

Then again, I've never received Dell media with a system on DVD in the first place (just reinstall CD), so maybe what you say is the case with some other models?

 

i have 3 dell recovery discs and they are all just an oem version of windows with dells name slapped on the cover. they dont have anything dell in the software at all.. of course as stated by k3davis they are cds not dvds and i have all the drivers ect on other discs provided alongside the windows disc

 

Thats how dell used to do it, lately I have been seeing bloatware DVDs or no disks at all (just the recovery partition)

 

This has been discussed quite a few times recently:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=127358

Yes, you can do a clean install. You can do it a couple ways. The answers are in these links:

http://jstigall.googlepages.com/t61clean.html

This might be the easiest way:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=127358