Clean Windows 7 Install

[Danqazmlp]

I just brought a copy of Windows 7. I'm going to do a clean install of it on my laptop but I'm unsure of what programs to back up and what not to back up. Or would it still keep vital programs even with a clean install?

 

I'm using a Toshiba Satellite L300D

 

Is there anything I should know before doing it?

Would doing a normal system recovery suffice, just in case something does go wrong?

[Sy_Accursed]

No clean install involves formatting the hardrive.

Unless you programs are installed on a seperate harddrive they will vanish; but even if they are its a bit iffy unless you wanna manually re-enter them all into the registry so they run correctly and/or do manual reinstalls/updates to repair them.

[Racheya]

Move any documents/images/videos you want onto a pen drive or hard drive. You could copy over program files for any that you can't just re-download easily enough. A clean install completely removes all trace of the previous system - which is almost guaranteed to speed it up. I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop and the amount of crapware they filled it with...

[jasignhagj]

What version did you buy? I mean OEM or Retail. I believe if you're going from vista to 7 with a retail copy you don't need a format, but otherwise a clean install would be best. Do some googling, I'm not 100% sure on this. Also make sure you have the driver CD for your laptop or certian things may not work.

[Danqazmlp]

I didn't receive any disks with my Laptop at all, which is why I'm worried that the install may remove something critical to the running of my laptop. http://driver-toshiba.blogspot.com/2009/11/toshiba-satellite-l300d-drivers-for.html lists some drivers for my laptop on Windows 7. Would it be best to download and burn them to a disk before installing Windows 7?

[VARN]

The most important driver, I think is network once that works you can download the rest.

[Sy_Accursed]

The most important driver, I think is network once that works you can download the rest.

 

The most important drivers are keyboard and graphics.

Without them two you are screwed to even do anything.

 

After they r working I'd say mouse and network (make life easier and open access to downloads) are next most important.

After that I'd say disc drive for disc based driver installers.

 

Then sound and all sorts of other non-essentials.

 

On topic: I'd say get the drivers on a usb pen just in case.

[Danqazmlp]

After doing some more googling, it seems that the vital programs will be installed along with the Windows 7 install.

[ilovecuttingyews]

I've been meaning to do the exact same thing with my Toshiba Satellite as well. Vista is just a resource hog so I'm buying a W7 disc and going to use that. Essentialy what you people are saying is that as long as I save any files / movies / music etc that I want, I can just save those to my external HDD and do a clean install, or do I need to save the drivers as well?

 

Sorry for hijacking this thread Danq but I figured I'd ask here since it's relativly the same thread as I would have made.

[Guy]

It's useful to have the drivers on a pen drive because you're going to have to download them anyway. You should definitely if your laptop is your only PC. Windows 7 has drivers (I think) that generally let hardware work, but this is my knowledge on desktops I'm drawing from - not laptops.

 

Somewhat on-topic: www.ninite.com is a very useful website that lets you create a big installer for all kinds of day-to-day programs, so you don't have to download 20 odd individual installers.

[Danqazmlp]

This is what I found to install all essential Toshiba files for the system it is installed on http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/downloadDetail.jsp?soid=2475695&pf=true I'll see how it goes, I'm planning on doing the install now. This also lists some useful/important drivers http://driver-toshiba.blogspot.com/2009/11/toshiba-satellite-l300d-drivers-for.html

[Sbrideau]

. Vista is just a resource hog so I'm buying a W7 disc and going to use that.

 

Windows 7 has higher minimum requirements. Personally I haven't seen any difference in speed or any difference in the way it "hogs" the system.

[pure_fett]

I've cleaned and then reinstalled a few OS's a few computers in my time and i have to say W7 is the best as far as everything works after an install.. (even better than XP :o )

 

That's not to say being careful isn't needed, put all the drivers listed for your hardware on a flashdrive like everyone else has said...

 

but honestly for me, all i had to do for my gateway FX laptop when doing a clean install from vista to W7 was get the specific graphics card driver,

( and that was 75mb or something so it's understandable that it didn't come with W7, but even without the driver, my laptop ran smoothly)

everything else just flat out worked perfectly.

 

EDIT*

 

Yes W7 has higher min reqs but after turning off all the widgets and the flashy graphics options (areo or something?) ( i run my gateway FX to look like XP ) i found that W7 runs MUCH smoother than vista, (although that "tiny xp" install still ROCKS for old as hell laptops)

[indy500fan]

. Vista is just a resource hog so I'm buying a W7 disc and going to use that.

 

Windows 7 has higher minimum requirements. Personally I haven't seen any difference in speed or any difference in the way it "hogs" the system.

 

For some reason even though technically 7 does have higher minimum requirements I think it runs smoother than Vista on the same hardware.

 

But personally if your computer is having trouble running Vista I would see if you can find XP somewhere, and if not that then start looking into Linux distros.

[Sbrideau]

. Vista is just a resource hog so I'm buying a W7 disc and going to use that.

 

Windows 7 has higher minimum requirements. Personally I haven't seen any difference in speed or any difference in the way it "hogs" the system.

 

For some reason even though technically 7 does have higher minimum requirements I think it runs smoother than Vista on the same hardware.

 

But personally if your computer is having trouble running Vista I would see if you can find XP somewhere, and if not that then start looking into Linux distros.

They got it very good with windows 7 where it runs better than Windows XP on system that have 512MB of RAM, but on systems that are strong enough to run Vista/7 there isn't any difference in performance from both OSes. I do have proof of that being my old desktop on which it initially had XP, then I installed Vista on it, which was faster than XP, and then Windows 7 which had the same speed and such as Vista. It is now back to Vista since I built myself a computer last year and didn't want to buy another license, and it is very stable and runs well and fast.

 

Although using Linux distros is always the best way to go if you know how to use it/like it.

[indy500fan]

Although using Linux distros is always the best way to go if you know how to use it/like it.

 

Yeah I didn't know how to do much of anything with linux, gladly I do know how to use google so it turned out okay. Now I have Linux Mint on my laptop (very new linux user friendly) and mythbuntu as my media/file server.

[Danqazmlp]

Well after spending a lot of yesterday transferring my personal files back, Windows 7 is working fine. All I used were the things I posted above. I also went through the device manager letting it automatically Update a few drivers. It is now working perfectly with no visible problems at all.