Toshiba laptop, format

[Klatt]

Hey guys. I just bought a Toshiba laptop from a store nearby and I'm interested in formatting it and install a clean Windows 7 OS on it that doesn't bring all the weird and pointless programs with the Toshiba recovery disc. However, someone told me that this might cause me some troubles seeing as I might be unable to use the touchpad because of loss of drivers and similiar problems with drivers and stuff that's uniquer for Toshibas computers.

Anyone got any experience with doing a completely clean install, not with the manufactorers recovery discs? None of these utilities interest me at all, I just want a working computer with a clean and quick OS.

Halp!

[Spools]

You could try using vlite. It's supposed to be for Vista but it looks like others are using it for 7 as well. You should download all the available hardware drivers for your laptop model and include them in the vlite iso that you create.

[glc]

Why would you need vlite? If you buy a copy of Win 7, just install that. You will have to download all needed drivers from Toshiba.

With that said, why don't you just use PC Decrapifier to uninstall all the shovelware, followed by a few sweeps with CCleaner to clean up the remnants and registry entries?

[Hi Ho]

I have done this multiple times on my Toshiba laptop without issues. It came with Vista (before Windows 7 existed) and the first thing I did was wipe the hard drive and install a clean copy of Vista. I had a Vista OEM install disc from my other PC and it worked fine with the CD key on the bottom of the laptop. After that I discovered Vlite and slimmed Vista down by quite a bit and installed it.

I have since installed the Windows 7 beta, RC, and now the final version of Windows 7 Professional. I have had no problems with any drivers. In fact, Windows 7 installs all of the drivers automatically. The only extra drivers I downloaded and installed was the track pad drivers which gave me all the functionality like virtual scrolling. Toshiba track pads aren't unique. They use Synaptics track pads like just about everyone else.