New Dell PC - Reinstall XP?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Just got a new Dell laptop with XP installed plus a whole bunch of who-knows-what-crap installed as well. Already deleted some of the ISP stuf like AOL.

Should I reinstall XP?

I bought a XP installation disk with another PC and I have the licence - so thats OK.

It would be nice to make the system as simple as possible and load the most recent drivers on.

Should I reformat first, or is that being too obsessive?

2

If you are sufficiently computer-literate, I would indeed advise you to re-install. I did it with my Dell years back because the OS screwed up within a week.

The re-install has several advantages:

  • you get rid of all the standard crap,
  • you know exactly how to do it for future reference (write down the steps you go through),
  • if you need additional drivers for hardware, you can get them easily now (and save a copy to a disk/CD). In a few years time they might be much more difficult to get by.
3

Sounds like a good idea. While you’re at it, you can partition the drive, so C: is your boot / system drive and then have D:, E:, etc. On my 120 gig drive, I’ve got something like a 20 GB C:, D: is 10 GB and contains downloaded drivers, intallation files, etc, and E: is where I moved “My Documents” to and is the only partition I worry about backing up.

4

I ‘only’ have a 60GB HD. My concern with partitioning is that it locks me into a pattern of HD usage that is difficult to change. I back my stuff up regularly and HD’s dont fail often these days do they?

You have convinced me about the reinstall of XP. Using my desktop PC I can burn all the drivers and apps I need onto one DVD for convenience.

5

Won’t you have problems with Product Activation if you’re reusing a disk from another computer?

6

For that matter, shouldn’t you get a reinstall disk from Dell as a matter of course?

7

I put WIN 2000 on a Gateway laptop and it has the advantages that you do not get all the promotional software that each vendor installs on their machines. No more Dell this and that so I would think it would be a good idea too.

8

Yes but it will reinstall all the proprietary Dell crap and “free AOL trial!” bits and so forth that he’s (she’s?) trying to get rid of.

9

You sure? That never happened with my old Dell WinME reinstall disk.

10

No. I have 2 product key stickers for XP. One on my laptop and one on my desktop.

I just use the same generic OEM installation disk that I installed on the desktop but use the laptop key. It is the sticker (key) that you pay for, not the disk. Well thats my understanding.