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.

[Bonce11]

Thanks guys, I will do that.

[sgrenfurm]

Hey Akash

I have a question regarding your instructions for the installation. Could you further explain how you activated vista (something about calling ms)? Did u actually call? Please explain.

Thanks.

[skykit84]

Hey Akash

I have a question regarding your instructions for the installation. Could you further explain how you activated vista (something about calling ms)? Did u actually call? Please explain.

Thanks.

Hi,

I'm not sure if its a problem with Vista activation that the servers are not yet "updated" with all their products but it def did not activate only.

When you select "automated telephone activation" it will give you a number (its toll-free inthe UK and US not sure about other countries) and you simply call them up
Initially the automated computer lets you input the 40 digit code your phone
99% it will fail and then you get transfered to an operator (i've been getting the same one everytime!)

You give the first 5 digits to them when requested, they ask a few questions like is this the first time you installed it, how many computers is this installed (0 computers!) and why are you reinstalling....

They then give you a nice long 40 alphanumeric code to type in.

And thats it!


Now one very good piece of advice
Normally in XP, you dont bother to note down the 80 character (in tota) that you get from MS and the one Vista gives you on screen
However, after the 3rd time I called them for my various reinstalls, I noticed the reactivation codes were the same everytime!

So this time I wrote it down
On the 4th reinstall, when I went to activate, it asked for the 40 characters, I typed in the ones from the last time and its working fine!

Hope this helps

[herpof]

Yes, as long as your hardware remains (almost) the same, your request code doesn't change.

[Bonce11]

It worked a treat. Took about 2 hours to swap the 4200rpm hard drive of my FE41Z with a 5400 one, install vista (twice) from the upgrade DVD and the driver software. Got a lovely clean install and a vista performance index of 4.5 (the hard disc score jumped from 4.2 to 4.8).

Thanks for the tips chaps.

[skykit84]

It worked a treat. Took about 2 hours to swap the 4200rpm hard drive of my FE41Z with a 5400 one, install vista (twice) from the upgrade DVD and the driver software.  Got a lovely clean install and a vista performance index of 4.5 (the hard disc score jumped from 4.2 to 4.8).

Thanks for the tips chaps.

wow whats he FE got that mine doesnt?
I got a Core2DUO 2.0, 2gb ram, 120gb 5400rpm drive, geforce go 7400 and im getting 3.3 ??

[sgrenfurm]

Hi guys,

Install worked like a charm. Had to activate via phone though. Now all that needs to be done is to install all my software (no more sony junkware :smileygrin: ) and then the job is done. Thanks for all your help.

Akash, as for the score vista gave to your system. Mine system got a score 4.2 (fe41s). This is based on the lowest performing hardware element of your pc (hard drive in my case). My configuration is a little different your SZ

Here are a few specs: T5500, 160GB 4200rpm, 2GB 667MHz DDR2 and Go7600 GPU. The score you receive of vista is based on these elements. The difference between mine config and Bonce is the processor (and now hard drive). Did you receive this score after the clean install or before? I think the 3.3 should then be based on the GPU because there is big performance difference between 7400 and 7600. But this will only affect you if your a gamer.

By the way Bonce, is it difficult to swap the drive to a 5400rpm? I know that sony drive replacements are real hassle. Is the drive located adjacent to the touchpad?

[Bonce11]

Here are a few specs: T5500, 160GB 4200rpm, 2GB 667MHz DDR2 and Go7600 GPU. The score you receive of vista is based on these elements. The difference between mine config and Bonce is the processor (and now hard drive). Did you receive this score after the clean install or before? I think the 3.3 should then be based on the GPU because there is big performance difference between 7400 and 7600. But this will only affect you if your a gamer.

By the way Bonce, is it difficult to swap the drive to a 5400rpm? I know that sony drive replacements are real hassle. Is the drive located adjacent to the touchpad?

Hi sgrenfurm, I only just noticed your post, sorry.

Out of the box, my vaio had a score of 4.2 which was limited by the hard drive. I swapped the hard drive with a blank 160Gb drive (so I sacrificed 40Gb of capacity, but I can live with that) then did the clean vista install, then installed all the sony drivers and only then redid the benchmark, which gave me a new score of 4.5, limited by the graphics card because the hard drive is now 4.8 and processor is 4.9.

In answer to your question about swapping the hard drive, it was a doddle. The Toshiba 5400rpm replacement was only £100 and was installed with the following steps.

1. Prepare a clean anti-static work area, have a small philips screwdriver to hand, pliars are handy but not required
2. Remove power supply and battery, close the lid and flip it upside down with the front of the machine facing you. The hard drive panel is in the right hand corner of the front edge. Undo the two small screws, carefully remove the plastic panel with a gentle wiggling motion
3. When you look down onto the hard drive there are two screws holding the caddy in place, they are on the left hand edge. Unscrew them and put them in a safe place but resist the temptation to undo any other screws you can see!
4. This is the only tricky bit, you need to slide the drive caddy to the right to disconnect the data and power connection. Some very very careful and gentle levering against the caddy (not the disk) helped with this.
5. Lift the caddy out, undo the four screws holding the drive in, screw in the new drive and refit everything in turn.
6. Once everything is back in, the panel is back on and you're sure you've not left anything out, replace the battery and power supply, boot up and press F2 to go into the BIOS. Your new hard disk size should be displayed in the bios menu. You're now ready to install your OS from a bootable CD.

DO NOT ATTEMPT THE ABOVE UNLESS YOU ARE USED TO HANDLING PC COMPONENTS, and don't blame me if you break anything!

[Zane81]

Hi guys,

Install worked like a charm. Had to activate via phone though. Now all that needs to be done is to install all my software (no more sony junkware  :smileygrin: ) and then the job is done. Thanks for all your help.

Akash, as for the score vista gave to your system. Mine system got a score 4.2 (fe41s). This is based on the lowest performing hardware element of your pc (hard drive in my case). My configuration is a little different your SZ

Here are a few specs: T5500, 160GB 4200rpm, 2GB 667MHz DDR2 and Go7600 GPU. The score you receive of vista is based on these elements. The difference between mine config and Bonce is the processor (and now hard drive). Did you receive this score after the clean install or before? I think the 3.3 should then be based on the GPU because there is big performance difference between 7400 and 7600. But this will only affect you if your a gamer.

By the way Bonce, is it difficult to swap the drive to a 5400rpm? I know that sony drive replacements are real hassle. Is the drive located adjacent to the touchpad?

Hi

You are right about the GeForce Go 7400 and the 7600 I have the 7400 in my notebook it only has about 65mb of dedicated RAm the rest is shared, and the 3D Graphics score is only 3.3
lowering the whole score. For me it's no problem because I do not game, the graohics are probably just used for the GUI lol!!!

Ryan