Do you recommend reformatting a laptop as soon as you get it?

To get rid of all of the excess programs and improve performance?

 

If it comes with tons of bloatware yes I do but first I backup the image in case I plan to sell it in the future. My Dell Vostro's came with almost no bloatware.

 

depending on your level of expertise in clean loading ... and what you will be using the machine for YES. I make a set of origional recovery disks then wipe and clean load almost every machine we get for personal or business

 

Personal use and I have competent knowledge of how to install a new copy of windows, find/load drivers on manufacturer website.

 

then back er up and fdisk the beast is my advice

 

Yes, its true for me as well. When I get my laptop, there are loads of apps and when I format it and run clean install, it really speeds up fast.

 

Yes, it's always a good idea to start fresh i.e reformat/clean install the OS. This is because usually when you receive the laptop, it will have quite a few problems and errors from when all the bloatware and drivers that weren't installed correctly at the factory. Therefore by clean installing, you'll get an (hopefully) error free machine.

 

............oopss posted in wrong thread............. deleted

 

Depends where you get it from, but for 90% of them I do recommend it.

 

Check out the drivers and what you get in the package before you format. If you can get the drivers from the manufacturers website then go for it. Sometimes you run the risk of not being able to find the correct drivers for extra stuff.

An example. My old hp had a button to adjust the volume, mute, and toggle off the wifi. I had all kinds of issues trying to find the driver to make those work correctly. The best I ended up with was function but no-led notification from them (if wifi was on, it would glow blue.. without the driver the leds never came on).

 

here comes the 'bloatware' word and assertions that the factory load will automatically have 'quite a few problems'............

 

There have been a few posts that mentioned how it depends on the individual manufacturer and machine.

I would personally opt for a clean install in order to get a clean start.

Drivers aren't usually a problem with Windows Vista and 7 because for the most part, the OS will be able to install those from the get go, and find appropriate updates later on.

 

I would say that it is worth doing to roughly 60% of machines today (it used to be like 90%). I'm willing to bet that on most machines, you will see a noticeable difference with a clean install as opposed to the factory install. And, yes, most notebooks come with bloatware - some of it more annoying than others (I'm looking at you mcafee and norton).

But a clean install will never hurt the performance of a machine (unless you botch the driver installations/ some other user error). It is not too difficult of a process, just:
1) Backup any data on the system
2) Make recovery discs, or images of the system partition or the recovery partition
3) Backup the OEM activation with ABR (you can use the key on the bottom of the notebook, but the abr method is basically hassle free)
4) Obtain/Install Windows
5) Restore activation with ABR
6) Install drivers from manufacturer's website or driver discs (DO NOT reinstall the bloatware )

 

When I first got my Acer I had no choice. Acer empowering technology software is total junk, and aside from that, I couldn't use ctrl alt del, do a system recovery, etc. So formatting fixed all my problems and got rid of all the bloatware.
I'm sure i'll do a clean install with my next system aswell.

 

I didn't have to with my Dell XPS M1530 - it was free of anything.. I'm still using the same system as it was shipped (except reconfiguring the partition using GParted, but that was just for my own organization n convenience)..

Having said that, of course, different manufacturer' might have installed different app'.. some of which might not be needed by the normal user...

I would see what program' and app' are installed from the factory, see how much they are useful, and I would just go with uninstalling them at first (before doing a complete clean install), and see how the system is..

Just my opinion...

 

Before you use an original W7 ISO, try the recovery discs.
You can save yourself a lot of work and end up with just swapping DVD's and wait, if your laptop discs works like this.
I have two examples:

- Asus X59, bought with Vista. Before doing a clean install with a Vista DVD I had, I tried using the discs that came with the laptop.
To my surprise, I ended up with an install using about 50 services, and not one piece of bloatware!
The original install was a totally different story, as you can imagine..

- HP Mini 210, shipped with W7, I had a really hard time trying to get WLAN working at all after a clean install, and yes, I had copied the swsetup folder but that didn't help me.
I used the recovery DVD's I had made, just to find out if there was some other files I could use.
After booting the first DVD, the menu showed an option called "Minimal Install" (or something like that, it was a Swedish copy), I got curious and used it.
I ended up with an install with everything working and a size maybe 1 GB bigger (than a clean install would be with no separate drivers installed) and about 50 services running, great success!

 

Have you tried this?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...your-quickplay-buttons-way-you-want-them.html

 

Windows by nature is at it's best performance after a clean install. Win 7 is the best since Win 2000 to not slow down as much over time.

In terms of recommendations... if you're hardcore performance, obviously you format. If you're not, then you don't.

 

My point was that it can be a much easier alternative available without you knowing it, and you end up with an install that's close to perfect.