New HP laptop, want to add a copy of 7 pro while keeping stock copy?

Night Hawk · 10 Aug 2012

A set of recovery disks to restore the original preinstall as welll as seeing a full system image will allow you to nuke any HP garbage off but only if you are sure you won't have to worry about any warranty since this is a brand new unit.

On any old laptop you would simply nuke the drive and start fresh to eliminate all of the unwanted OEM type "bloatations"!

Here I would simply toss a clean install after a drive wipe for whichever edition, version, or OS is going to go on fresh and call it a day!

You could still see a working dual boot but risk potential problems with the Partition Table when going to shrink and lately re-expand the C primary. Saw that one happen before on an older XP desktop where the 7 RC was placed at the second OS. Once the RC was gone and the XP C primary expanded back the whole volume took a walk! Resizing itself can be risky at times.

For practicality you will likely find that replacing one edition for the more featured edition rather then the dual boot will leave you in a better place to begin with since you can run everything you have on the HP edition on Pro! The HP support site will pick up where the MS updates leave off as far as all the drivers you will need.

Lurch · 12 Aug 2012

Okay got it done! I am up and running on windows 7 pro on my laptop, deleted the c partition format and installed had an issue with the disk i had from a couple years back had to download a new iso from the site in the clean install guide, thanks a ton on that one! Few drivers had to go to HP and get got the majority of them done, i do have a question for all while im setting things up, Antivirus i see it says a good one is Windows Security Essentials, id been using Avast, which one would yall consider better? And is windows version up there with some of the better ones like avg or anything? i like to stay as protected as possible! i was just wondering what yall had found the best overall program to use! On my old set up i was running avast and also had malwarebytes free that id scan every couple months to check!

Also getting ready to install the hp fingerprint software, or is there any other companies that make it to use with my reader? this is my first go round with the fingerprint stuff so completely new to it!

Night Hawk · 12 Aug 2012

One of the best I have come acros is the latest VIPRE Internet 2012 edition of the GFI software. It includes not only a working firewall but an effective web filtering and intrusion protections.

Here I have the 3yr. two pc subscription going for the main Ultimate x64 case and new 7 Pro mini tower I plan to working with remotely. For an extra item being an addon for various browsers it supports the Web Of Trust rates sites with a green or red even amber dot on how privacy concern there and also offers parental control options once you sign up for a free account.

As for the freebies the MS SE has been updated a bit since it first came out and fares much better then Avast. AVG Free offers an IE Security toolbar but only alerts to not blocks bad sites like the web filtering you would see in a paid for software like VIPRE. Even their more basic Antivirus 2012 edition lacks what the Internet 2012 offers there.