New windows 7 pcs

Hmmm...my wife has an HP (I don't know the model). It came with Vista and I recall deleting about 1/2 dozen things that were there from the factory, but I didn't think it was too bad at all. Performance has always been satisfactory on the machine based on the cost. I guess they (HP) certainly do treat certain models differently.

If you are going to reinstall from a retail disc then it doesn't matter anyway, but if you are going to use the preinstalled OS then I'm a firm believer in waiting until it comes with at least Service Pack 1 integrated. I bought a 32 bit Vista HP PC before SP1. What a nightmare!! I spent hours and hours over months tweaking it and finding out which services to set to Manual, which to disable.. along with drive indexing and a whole bunch of other crap.

I bought another PC, an HP with Vista64 SP1. I took out a printout I made of my services tweaks on the 1st machine. Other than about 4 items, the defaults were the same as my tweaks. Saved all that aggravation. Then it was only removing the crapware and turning off stuff I didn't want like search indexing, shadow cache of network drives etc.. Much more stable, the shell copy worked correctly. I love this 64 bit machine!! A world of difference.

edit: btw my 64 bit PC is HP Pavilion m9515y. I used DeCrapifier freeware. Worked pretty well. The only fly in the ointment was I fogot to download the Norton removal tool to get all the Norton stuff out of the system. My reboots took over 2 minutes because the system was trying to load drivers no longer there. I had to run the removal tool a couple of times, but that cleaned it up quite a bit. That was over 6 months ago. Maybe PC decrapifier has been improved since then. Only thing I'd say is google and make a list of stuff that require separate removal tool downloads and have everything ready before you start.

madtownidiot said:

I know there's a way to integrate service packs and drivers into a custom install disk because I've seen the difference between a retail xp disk and a dell or HP oem copy of xp. Wish I were skilled enough to do it myself.

It's actually pretty easy. Just do a google search for slipstreaming a service pack into the installer CD. You can also use tools like Nlite to incorporate not only service packs, but Windows hotfixes as well. Seriously, it's not all that hard.

madtownidiot said:

I know there's a way to integrate service packs and drivers into a custom install disk because I've seen the difference between a retail xp disk and a dell or HP oem copy of xp. Wish I were skilled enough to do it myself.

XP was a different animal. Many preloaded PCs had all the files you needed right on the HD. With Vista and later you need the install disc. If I'm going to buy the OS install disc I might as well get one with the SP integrated. Why spend money just to do the work for those guys I'm paying? Let them put it together! When I go to the shoe store I don't want to have to sew the soles on myself.