Fresh Win7 Install Eliminates Bloatware

Enough cannot be said about the importance of doing a fresh, full and clean installation of Windows 7 on your computer if it has never been done in the past. New computers contain vast amounts of bloatware (trial programs, manufacture specific utilities and freeware), as well as specific settings that will slow your computer which serve to ensure the stability of the system for the needs of the manufacturer. Many times, newer systems contain programs that the consumer believes are vital yet utilize a vast amount of system resources to do their job. This slows your computer.

Did you ever wonder why some computers take several minutes to start yet others take less than 30 seconds??? A ‘clean install’ alone will change your start times significantly. The most valuable upgrade one can make to a computer is a fresh installation of the operating system and its hardware drivers. We first need to put pen to paper and determine what will be involved in our new OS installation.

• Did the system come with an OS Win 7 disk? If not, we definitely need one of them;
• Are we aware of what hardware is installed within our systems in order to find the proper drivers?
• Do we know how to find our drivers through the manufacturers support site or that of the hardware vendor themselves?
• Have we downloaded these drivers onto a separate USB/DVD so we can have them when needed?

These are very important questions we have to tackle before the new installation because, sure as heck, something will go wrong even with all the preparation in the world. Care for an example?

I bought my new system, an Acer 1810T-6188, a few weeks back and wanted to do a fresh OS installation. Well, my first thing to tackle was finding the OS disk as I never received one with the system. It came with an internal system recovery drive which was useless as I was also changing to a SSD. I dug up the disk but then needed to create an .iso file in order to create an installable Windows 7 USB disk for the installation as my sytem doesn’t contain a DVD drive. I then learned that, since I was moving over 64 bit form 32 bit, the USB disk couldn’t simply be created on a 32 bit system. I tackled that and then did the installation only to find out that the laptops wireless module was not recognized by my new installation of Windows 7. This wasn’t good. I didn’t figure I would need to download the drivers as I would simply do it after the installation as I was told that all hardware would certainly be recognized by Windows 7.  It was a long day, but one that I enjoyed because I thrive on problem solving which is an asset if your following through with this thread. It never stopped there though. While experimenting with different service settings the next day, I did a computer reboot only to find my ‘hardware’ wasn’t recognized as a result of a hardware or software change. So I tackled that.

 Ok so… I’ve probably done a great job of disillusioning and scaring you right? If so, refer once again to the above READER ALERT! because once you start it’s just too late to go back. It becomes an addiction which will definitely present, yet one that will make you confident in your problem solving skills and your creation of a new system to suit your own personal needs and ideas.