Reinstalling Vista w/o using recovery disks?

[STU9000]

I have been given the task of fixing my mum's computer, and this is probably going to involve reinstalling everything (again) only she has gone and lost the recovery disks I made up for her when she got it

Is there an easy way to do this? Is there something i can download to cater for this?

It will be great to get rid of all the acer crapware, and I am planning on replacing norton with MSE, even though there is still 6 months left on the subscription. (I told her not to renew it)

Any advice on how to go about this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[whs]

You can download a completely legal Vist .iso from this site, install that and activate it with the product key from your COA sticker that is on the bottom of the laptop or the rear of the box. [Direct Download Links] Download Official Windows Vista RTM with SP1 Setup Files (32-bit and 64-bit) - Tweaking with Vishal

 

[STU9000]

Great stuff. Sort of what I was expecting. I nearly did something similar on my new Vaio Win 7 machine earlier this year, but opted to just remove some of the crapware and use CCleaner and Puran Defrag to get it running.

So I take it I just go into dos and boot from the disc and it's pretty straightforward? I might want to do a zero on HD as well before or after.

Is this the most up to date version or will I have a million updates to install after?

Would you recommend using MSE with Vista? Can you get versions of CCleaner and Puran for Vista as well?

 

[richc46]

Great stuff. Sort of what I was expecting. I nearly did something similar on my new Vaio Win 7 machine earlier this year, but opted to just remove some of the crapware and use CCleaner and Puran Defrag to get it running.

So I take it I just go into dos and boot from the disc and it's pretty straightforward? I might want to do a zero on HD as well before or after.

Is this the most up to date version or will I have a million updates to install after?

Would you recommend using MSE with Vista? Can you get versions of CCleaner and Puran for Vista as well?

Boot from the Disc, I think its SP1 so you will have a bit of updates. You can use CCleaner but, if you can use Puran or not I would suggest auslogics. I and most of the members here use it and it works like a charm. MSE is the recommended AV for Vista.

 

[STU9000]

Can you perform a boot defrag with auslogic?

 

[richc46]

No boot defrag, but I have never found it to be necessary. To answer your first question Puran is compatible with Vista 32 and 64 bit.

 

[STU9000]

Great cheers, might just stick with that as it's what I use with win 7.

 

[STU9000]

Wid ye credit it, my mum just told me she has finally found the lost disks. So now I am in a slight dilemma as to what to do. On the one hand I know what I am doing with the recovery disks so nothing should go wrong, apart from the fact that the disks are now 5 1/2 years old and could contain errors on them. I'm in favour of just doing a complete reinstall, but if it goes wrong then I'm not sure what to do.

Any advice?

 

[richc46]

If it were me, I would try with the recovery disc first. If it works, great. If it does not work then you have to reinstall. Before you reinstall, be sure that you have a valid product key number, usually its on a tag located on the computer.

 

[STU9000]

Sounds like a good plan to me. It's time she just bought a new computer anyway, I keep telling her Windows 7 is way better. Cheers for the advice guys, will let you know how it goes.

 

[STU9000]

I'm not sure what crapware to remove when I recover the disk, I guess for starters anything that has the word 'ACER' in it for starters eh? I'll get rid of most of the offending crap no doubt and create some new recovery disks. Then probably watch it all go down the pan again as it gets filled up with free game downloads...

 

[richc46]

You can download a completely legal Vist .iso from this site, install that and activate it with the product key from your COA sticker that is on the bottom of the laptop or the rear of the box. [Direct Download Links] Download Official Windows Vista RTM with SP1 Setup Files (32-bit and 64-bit) - Tweaking with Vishal

Why not try to install with this, it has no crapware. If you do not like it or there are problems, you can restore using your current method.
You must have a product key to activate.

 

[STU9000]

I would prefer to do that and yes the product registration key should be on it somewhere (I hope)

can I still use the recovery disks if it doesn't work? I mean I'd have to use them via dos woudn't I, and I'm not sure how that would work.

 

[richc46]

If you use the term recoveryy disc to mean install disc from your compuer manufacturer it should work. But not seeing your computer or your discs I am not going to commit myself to anything. I would feel terrible if you made a move based upon my say so and it did not work out.

 

[STU9000]

There was no installation disk that came with it. Off the shelf windows computers haven't come with that for a number of years now, as far as I am aware. They told us to create a recovery disk, and I can't remember now whether i used windows or acer crapware to do that. I think the manufacturers don't give out the installation disk to make it harder for you to remove the crapware.

 

[richc46]

Recovery disc just allows you to make repairs. It should still work, since the ISO that I gave you allows to burn a standard Vista CD. But why not try the recovery and if that does not work you can try the ISO. BTW, I can give you a download to remove the crapware.
http://pcdecrapifier.com/

 

[STU9000]

I think I would rather install the iso than use any third party software for decrappifying. Is it straightfoward and not likely to go wrong as long I have the registration key? If yes then that's what I will probably do.

 

[richc46]

If you have a valid key, I do not know why it would not work and yes its crapware free. Other members that I have given it to have posted back that they were very happy with the results.

 

[STU9000]

then that's what I'll do. I take it I can do this from a USB clip?

 

[richc46]

Boy, did you pick the right Forum, we have tutorials for everything
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/181538-usb-bootable-vista-installation-flash-thumb-drive.html