All the laptops I've gotten have come with "restore" disks with the operating system integrated into it. The disk has a lot of driver software and stuff specificially engineered for the laptop to make things work on it properly, so that if you scrubbed it down, and just installed a purchased OS on it, the machine often ends up mostly crippled.
What I have done during an OS rebuild is to use the restore disk, get the system to where it was when I bought it, then I can install a purchased, FULL version of the next version of Windows on top of it. You could probably get away with an upgrade, but I like having the complete system. It comes in handy sometimes.
I'm not touching Vista with a ten foot pole for a few years yet. Heck, I'm still pondering upgrading to XP from Win2000. XP is now at the point where I consider it a mature OS.
Geek Speak » in reply to installing OEM applications
OEM sucks.
The whole thread (38 posts)
- Vista
- End Game - Trojan Horse Declined
- Lightwave on Vista?
- re: Vista, woe unto us!
- Vista: Barred Windows in a Brick Outhouse
- Misadventures on the road to success with Vista
- Notes on Audio; update on Photopaint; more...
- HP laptops
- correction - AMD gets the flame, not Intel.