New Notebook with Vista changing to W 7

Bought a New HP Pavilion Notebook dv4-1287cl with Vista 2 weeks ago. Got the free W7 Premium upgrade disk today. Have never had the computer out of the box. I hate all of the extras they put on it and wouldn't mind getting rid of them. Can anyone recommend a plan for me? Take crap off then put W7 on and make recovery disk? Make recovery disk then W7 then clean garbage off? Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks Dorothy

P.S. thanks for all of the help with my other puter it works great now.

Check out this tutorial, should answer most of your questions
Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

If theres anything your not sure of post back

It is wise to make the Recovery disks first in case you ever want to revert to Factory condition to sell or service the Hardware warranty. However, HP can also provide those disks at that time if necessary.

So get the cleanest possible install by booting from the Win7 DVD, selecting Custom install, then using Advanced drive tools link to delete all partitions, create new one(s) as you wish, then format before installing Win7 on first partition.

If you keep your ethernet plugged and select "connect to the internet during install" it will add newer drivers/Updates into installer as it installs, then afterward more new drivers will come in on first Windows Updates. Any others can be gotten along with favorite apps from the driver/apps CD in the Upgrade kit, or from the Support Downloads page for your model on the HP website.

1. If you want to get rid of the extras, uninstall them with Revo ( Revo Uninstaller Pro - Uninstall Software, Remove Programs, Solve uninstall problems ). If you used the advanced option, you also get rid of all the files and registry entries the program uninstaller left behind.
2. Then burn the recovery disks as gregrocker suggests. Just type REC into the start/search and you should see "Recovery disk creation" (or something like that) above. That's the wizard that will guide you. Have 2 DVD-R's handy.
3. If you still want to slim down Vista, run the disks you burnt thru vLite ( vLite - Windows Vista configuration tool). With vLite you can further customize your installation disk.
4. Now you can install Win7 as suggested - clean install, of course.

Thanks for all of the excellent advice. My only problem is I know very little about computers and nothing about partitions. If I do the clean installs will it walk me thru the process including new partitions etc? Thanks Dorothy

dotbowels said:

Thanks for all of the excellent advice. My only problem is I know very little about computers and nothing about partitions. If I do the clean installs will it walk me thru the process including new partitions etc? Thanks Dorothy

Dorothy, don't worry. Even if you miss somthing at first, come back and we will get you back on track.

If you right click on Computer, then select Manage and Disk Management, you can take a look at your partitions just as you will see them when you boot into the Win7 DVD and select Custom install.

Chances are you'll want to install Win7 where your Vista is. You can also change the partitions in the installer by using Custom Advanced drive tools to delete, recreate New as you wish, then format before install.

The installer is driver-complete, with newer drivers arriving in Windows Update after install. You should be able to find any missing drivers or favorite apps on the drivers/apps CD included in your Upgrade kit, or by looking on the Support Downloads web page for your model computer.