New HP laptop loaded with bloatware - keep/discard what?

Greg,

Thanks for your response.

gregrocker said:

The tutorial is old enough that Vista version might have been recommended then, so try Win7 version to see if it will work. Tried that first actually. Then thought well he did say to use Vista version even though win 7 version showed up in his google search on video, but didnt explain why one should use vista version so tried that too. Regardless that has same errors I got as win 7 version.

Which software is it you need from the HP image? Finger print software, (found driver not program) Xcel, Word etc at work now but know there is something else and since there is a whole slew of drivers, not entirely sure I got everything right, but lappy is up and running minus the software mentioned.

Did you check thoroughly the HP Support Downloads webpage for your model, and google the specific software to see if it's available online?

not sure of everythings name. Beltric Advisor is on old drive. To fully determine that I would have to dissemble - pull drives, swap order, rerun. Instead I was hoping that some one knew something about the program listed in tutorial so I could adapt the process and post it for others in similar situation.

linnemeyerhere said:

First off, contact HP as the disks are free and get those going.

Looked online -- $15 bucks -- what story did you use to get a free copy? Tech just referred me site to purchase it.

Thanks!

Btw is about 30-4 gig the expected footprint for win 7 fresh install including updates?

When I asked for the original drivers and software disk, I got the standard "we have to run you through all these steps that are on my check list" even though I don't really understand your problem or what your are trying to accomplish type of phone rep.

She then stated that since I had modified my original software setup, I would have to now pay her for any further support, but if I wanted to I could be pointed to their website to order the disks.

So doing the AIK tutorial seemed like a better solution for me, but no one so far seems to know much about it.

thanks for your response.

linnemeyerhere said:

FourF,
Just call HP and they will send out OS disk with all the drivers and even the bloatware and you can pick and choose what you want to load on the SSD. It's a much cleaner install then an image of the original with all the bloatware but if you are just going to load it all back into the SSD then maybe the image is the way to go as it will carry over settings and other software that you've loaded. In m opinion the clean install is most always better.

Hi linnemeyerhere, I'm trying to do something similar to what you did and am hoping you could answer my questions. Let me begin by saying this is my first attempt at a Windows install and I am not very tech savvy so please forgive me if I don't make sense or ask some dumb questions.

I have a new HP probook 4530 and want to remove the bloatware. I read Greg's tip about the minimized image recovery and wanted to use that option but for some reason "Recovery Manager" is not installed on my system (I can't find it under start->all programs, nor through a search). So I tried hitting F11 during boot which brought up a very different looking Recovery Manager window than the one's I see posted on this forum which has a black window(mine has the basic windows look, blue and light grey). There is no Minimized Image Recovery option in that basic Recovery Manager I brought up; all it will let me do is install from the recovery partition or from disk which just brings me back to what I had.

So since the easiest option is not available to me and I don't want to attempt a true clean install of windows for fear of messing up something, I want to try the reinstall from the Recovery Disks set sent by HP as you have done. I read through the clean windows install procedure posted by Greg and am not sure what to do about the partitioning part. I want to have the System reserved, HP_Recovery, and HP_Tools partitions available and functioning after my install in case they are needed in the future. But I've read that the old partitions won't function after windows is reinstalled so I guess they need to be deleted and recreated with the new install? Will the installer do this for me? I know the tutorial says the installer will created the System Reserved partition if the installation drive has no partitions on it, but will the installer create the other two (HP_Recovery, and HP_Tools) partitions?

So my question is what did you do at the partitioning step when you reinstalled from the HP Recover Disks? Did you delete or format all the partitions and left it as one block of allocated memory in C to install to: or did you leave the partitions alone and just selected install to the C: drive? If the later, then the install will not create a new System Reserved partition for you right? If that's the case, are you still able to boot from your old/original System Reserved partition? And are you able to run recovery from the HP_Recovery partition? I'm not sure how to proceed at this step so would love to know what you did to get yours working well.

Also, did the installer prompt you to insert the Drivers and Software DVD after it was done with the Windows DVD? If so, does it just install everything that's on that disk or does it prompt you to choose which applications you want to install? Sorry for the lengthy post. I hope I didn't confuse you or anyone else. Any help or info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Ok, great. Thanks for the info linnemeyerhere.