How To: Clean Vista install

[skykit84]

Suprise Suprise to hear that my new SZ4 series that I got yesterday had junk installed with the Vista restore pack.
Not happy once again although the amount of junk was less than my SZ2 series.

Anyway... Not wanting all that rubbish trialware... I decideded to format the machine.

Obviously doing it via the restore pack will only put the rubbish back... so I used the rumours that have been going around.
"basically... all flavours of Vista are on ONE DVD (32bit flavours on one, 64 on another)... it is the Serial Number that determines WHAT is installed".

Not sure on legality just like my XP clean post but I borrowed a Vista Home Premium Retail CD from work and made a copy.
On installing this, once the serial number screen popped up, I entered the OEM serial number of my laptop (the sticker under the laptop)
Suprisingly, it worked!

It went onto install the rest of the way.

Only issue was activation whereby it would not automatically activate online. But having called the MS activation centre, it went through flawlessly.
I am unsure if this was because of the different media used - although I doubt it.

Lastly... prior to formatting, on clicking the VAIO restore Utility... you can create "vaio support folders". This creates a VAIO folder that has the following:-

Applications
Drivers
Hotfix

Hotfix is empty but all the essentials such as battery checker, fingerprint software, bluetooth and so on, is under the applications
The drivers is obvious - all drivers for your laptop and most had both XP and Vista enabled drivers.

Infact, the whole process took less than an hour from the install to having it up and running with all apps and drivers installed thanks to Vista being able to search for drivers within subfolders... all you do is set the folder to c:\vaio\drivers and each time you search for the hardware - it finds it!

Most drivers however were already installed - including, wifi, network, graphics, sound

Hope this helps.

Bottom line is, you CAN still get rid of the junk in a clean fashion.

[sgrenfurm]

Thank u for this thread Akash84, but one question though.

Would this work by just using disc 1 of the recovery disc set? Seeing as the vista os is burned onto this disk (i think).

Could u check how many processes u have running in task manager after booting up the laptop? I want to know what the standard number of processes are after a clean install!

By the way. The vaio folders u mentioned are also available on disc 2 (application recovery).

[skykit84]

Hi, not a problem, I still feel that a complete clean install without a sony restore is cleaner than using the disc 1, I dont know, its personal Now to answer whether it will wortk with dvd 1, I have to say, I dont know. I tried earlier but I was not getting very far - incomplete install, constant asking for dvd 2 and so on.

as for processes, I hope you did not want it before ANYTHINg is installed?
I have literally just formatted so lucky for you however, I've installed the drivers and the sony applications and thats it

The apps are things like the finger print software, infineon, battery checker and so on.

With the above in mind, and dont forget, apart from the above, NOTHING else is installed... the following number of processes are in Task Manager:-

62

Hope this helps.

[skykit84]

How Annoying, I cannot edit my own thread because its older than 3 days!

Ok, the following is just an update with me messing around with Vista that might help some of you guys

we know vista can now be installed as a CLEAN install using any media of Vista as long as it contains a complete version of the operating system (regardless of the box stating, business, ultimate, premium etc). The S/N under the laptop/desktop determines WHAT installs.

I have done several reinstalls to figure a few things out which may help some of you lot.

Firstly, the original restore is a 32bit install. It will tell you this in control panel>system.
This was the first reinstall I did back from the restore pack to my clean install and they are both 32bit. I am unsure why this is because the CPU in this laptop is a 64bit but with the lack of driver support, its fine by me!

Secondly, like the XP install, if you do install your drivers in any order, it might mess your machine up or slow it down.
Install it in teh following order:-

1. Intel Chipset
2. Video
3. Audio
4. Modem
5. Network
6. Wireless
7. WebCam
8. Memory Stick® (Check below for getting back the Memory Stick Icon)
9. UPEK TouchChip Fingerprint Coprocessor
10. Infineon® Trusted Platform Module
12. Bluetooth
13. Protector Suite
14. Update the Unknown Device (I forgot what they are but the drivers are in the drivers folder)

Then do the apps 1-10 (or however many there are)

Thirdly, some may have delayed system sound. For instance, you click on a web link and your webpage opens THEN it "clicks"
Or get an error, you see it, press ok, then the asterix error sound comes up.
This will not happen if you do not update the driver for Audio however, I would. In which case, go to control panel>sound>double click on the sound audio device, effects tab, and disable system effects. This will solve this issue.

Fourthly, constant clicking in the drive. This is the indexing service. Although windows software does not infact show the indexing service to be installed... it is. Its called Windows search service I think. Disable this and your clicking ends. Naturally the downsides is your searches may be longer than before but who actually does that much searching of files??

Once the above is done, activate - over the phone. It will not accept on the net for some bizarre reason. Interstingly, the sony restore pack has a different serial number to the one under the laptop and in the restore, it is activated. This I found by the 2nd install i think. The s/n ends with 4B if this matches anyone here? Might be a corp pack? who knows.


Lastly, I would recommend you update each device. Vista has 80% of hardware installed with its own drivers however, the sony folder of drivers are NEWER.
Some hardware such as your camera will be installed as a USB Imaging device and will not work. Update it, and straight away, it updates to the Sony camera driver and works.
There is a current known bug in teh sony driver which sometimes disables the camera but Sony are working on this. For this reason, go through all your hardware and update it...
Modem, network, wifi, audio, camera are all OLDER than what Sony supply.


Thats it for now... if I find anything new, I'll let you know!

[herpof]

Using the same install key on a new installation, even with other media than the Vaio recovery disks (ie. the Vista disk from your work) is completely legal.

[sgrenfurm]

Great, so using restore disc 1 is not an option. The problem now is that i don't think i can get my hands on a retail version of vista (legally) . I'll check if i can find one at work!

I do have another option (i belief). When i bought my laptop (fe41s) i received an Windows Vista Anytime Upgrade disc. Now i think this disc also contains all version of vista (as you said). The disc size is about 2.53GB. Do u know if i will be able to use this disc and the key on the bottom of the laptop?

Will the sony apps also be installed (power management, vaio update, hardware diagnostic etc)?
Are these apps necessary? If so which ones are? These aren't available for download (at time of writing) at vaio-link.

Final question: After using an retail vista disc (clean install) will the hidden recovery partition still be available on the hard drive? Doesn't a vista clean install mean formatting the hard drive completely?

[fldq]

http://club.vaio.sony.nl/clubvaio/NL/nl/forum/viewthread?thread=36891

yes it will to answer your question. see my last post.

[Bonce11]

I am going to use the anytime disc that came with my FE41Z to do a fresh install of vista this weekend. This morning before work I checked that it would boot the vista setup from that CD (it did) in case I needed to borrow a proper vista install disc from work.

And in answer to the question about the recovery partition, you should be able to choose whether to keep it if the vista setup is anything like the NT/XP setup where you are able to create/delete partitions before formatting.

[skykit84]

Great, so using restore disc 1 is not an option. The problem now is that i don't think i can get my hands on a retail version of vista (legally)  . I'll check if i can find one at work!

I do have another option (i belief). When i bought my laptop (fe41s) i received an Windows Vista Anytime Upgrade disc. Now i think this disc also contains all version of vista (as you said). The disc size is about 2.53GB. Do u know if i will be able to use this disc and the key on the bottom of the laptop?

Will the sony apps also be installed (power management, vaio update, hardware diagnostic etc)?
Are these apps necessary? If so which ones are? These aren't available for download (at time of writing) at vaio-link.

Final question: After using an retail vista disc (clean install) will the hidden recovery partition still be available on the hard drive? Doesn't a vista clean install mean formatting the hard drive completely?

Going in order with your Questions... I suppose as Herpof says, it is completly legal (which i know but you always have to act dumb to ensure you are right!) then can you not also download a copy from peer2peer but still use the LEGAL key under your laptop? Feel free to edit this thread if I'm saying something against the rules.

As for the upgrade disc... Nope, I'm afraid it will not work. The complete versions are on one DVD, the Upgrades on another, and each have their 32bit/64bit edition too.
I cannot confirm this however, but it is what I've been led to believe (that upgrade and complete are two seperate media)

However, I've read (please google) a lot of threads and reports that there is a loophole. You can install Vista using the Upgrade disc, and then "upgrade" it. Essentially, you install vista twice but it does mean you do not need XP installed making it a bit messy.

Apps: I think some are important. Things like the battery checker, HDD protection, camera software, fingerprint scanner software and so on... the powermanagement too... Up to you really, I've run many sony's without them.
As for location, I would just make a backup of the applications and drivers folder from your restore.
I forgot to do this the first time and ended up restoring the machine, and grabbing the folders.

As far as your final question goes...yes your recovery partition WILL stay
Annoying for some I guess is that Vista install does not give you the chance to delete it. You can delete it however via Administration Tools>Computer Management... I guess I prefered the XP Option whereby you could delete the partition on the initial install so that you could create the biggest partition then, rather than deleting it later once installed, then creating / merging a partition
but back to your Q, the partition will remain.

[sgrenfurm]

Thanks for the help guys.

So about the retail vista disc. I found one at work!! Made a copy and am good to go. I will do a clean install this weekend and let you guys know if all went well or not (it will i hope).

Thanks Akash for your help. I also found articles on the net about the loophole to install vista clean with an upgrade disc. Finally i can do a clean install the right way. Seeing as vista is a new os i didn't know if this process would be the same as in xp.

As for Bonce. Please let us know if it is possible to do a clean install with the upgrade disc. But remember to do the install twice! The first time install vista without the activation key (so install the trail) and after the first install do the second one with the activation key found on the bottom of your laptop. That should do it!