Are factory installs garbage?

**Muddy** · Apr 18th, 2002, 06:06 PM

Is it just my imagination?

I just replaced all the factory crap with a clean install of W98, W2K, and WXP. Apart from the benefit of not having a bunch of crap like AOL icons all over the place, I could almost swear everything is a lot faster (boot, restart, opening apps).

**JungleMan** · Apr 18th, 2002, 07:09 PM

No it's not your imagination. Granted, it's a shame that you bought a prebuilt in the first place, but at least you have enough sense to know that the **** the OEM gives you is pure crap and its best to install from scratch.

Windows is a quite basic install (apart from XP) moreso a platform to run apps on and not an entire system of apps. It's good to build up and install only what you need and want, even if it takes longer to do so.

Dells are loaded down with so much OEM-branded bull**** that it is one of the many reasons why I don't recommend them.

**Muddy** · Apr 18th, 2002, 07:17 PM

Originally posted by jpbtennisman
Granted, it's a shame that you bought a prebuilt in the first place

It's a Laptop. Does that get me a pardon?

**JungleMan** · Apr 18th, 2002, 07:20 PM

Originally posted by Muddy

It's a Laptop. Does that get me a pardon?

Yes of course..you can't build laptops

Usually if I ever get a laptop, the first thing I do after taking it out of teh box is to write down all the drivers and device names, save the drivers, and nuke the whole damn hard drive and throw a clean 2K install on there.

I just can't tolerate all that crap starting up, I'm not used to someone else determining the software I use...

**Ambivalentiowa** · Apr 19th, 2002, 02:09 AM

How did you install 3 Operating systems on one machine? How big is the drive? Or, am i being dumb and you installed win98 then upgraded to win 2k then up to win XP?

**peet** · Apr 19th, 2002, 03:56 AM

Originally posted by jpbtennisman

Yes of course..you can't build laptops

...

u should start building some jpbtennisman, u need a challange

**numtel** · Apr 19th, 2002, 09:04 AM

that would be interesting...i dont think you could save very much money because it'd be hard to find parts.

**Ambivalentiowa** · Apr 19th, 2002, 09:16 AM

It would probably be a lot more complex than building a pc as well.

**Muddy** · Apr 19th, 2002, 09:45 AM

Originally posted by Ambivalentiowa
How did you install 3 Operating systems on one machine? How big is the drive? Or, am i being dumb and you installed win98 then upgraded to win 2k then up to win XP?

I set up 3 partitions, I installed W98 on the primary partition and used advanced setup options to change the partition when installing W2K and WXP.

It seems to be working well (thanks to folks on this forum

).

I did get one strange error message when restarting from WXP to W98. some file *XP* was trying to do something and 98 didnt like it. Havent seen the error since though.

Also I install some omponent one controls on XP which is on the E: drive and it copied some files to the C: drive during the install. Controls work fine, but I have to wonder if they will work if I reformatt C ...

I can recommend multi boot. It is nice to be able to test my apps on 3 platforms on the same machine. Then there is the obvious benefits of recovery from virus attacks and file corruption.

**Gandalf_Grey_** · Apr 19th, 2002, 10:54 AM

yes factory installs suck, especially if they ar of me, i find XP the most easy OS to install, just boot and install, although it takes the longest (prolly cause it is the biggest OS) i really hope MS loses the antitrust suit so they can put out a toned down version of windows without the extreme bloatware, i will run that

**JungleMan** · Apr 19th, 2002, 03:41 PM

Originally posted by Gandalf_Grey_
yes factory installs suck, especially if they ar of me, i find XP the most easy OS to install, just boot and install, although it takes the longest (prolly cause it is the biggest OS) i really hope MS loses the antitrust suit so they can put out a toned down version of windows without the extreme bloatware, i will run that

I'd like them to make both versions...that'd be cool

I still use 2K because it doesn't have everything in it

**filburt1** · Apr 19th, 2002, 03:42 PM

XP certainly is the easiest to install...it has setup music

**Gandalf_Grey_** · Apr 19th, 2002, 04:14 PM

Originally posted by filburt1
XP certainly is the easiest to install...it has setup music

???? ok next time i install it i will have to turn on my stereo, i leave it off if i am not using it, what kind of music?

**JungleMan** · Apr 19th, 2002, 04:15 PM

Originally posted by filburt1
XP certainly is the easiest to install...it has setup music

I heard about a release of Linux that lets you play Solitaire while it installs.

I hope they do that with Windows one day...

**Gandalf_Grey_** · Apr 19th, 2002, 04:18 PM

ya that distro just came out, apparently it is super easy to use and is alot like windows or something

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