[SOLVED] Creating my own "unbloated" Windows 7

I made one of the backup discs provided to us through Digital River. My system is legal, still fairly new (two and a half months old), and I have my Windows Home Premium (64 bit) key. What I want to do is do my own install without all of the "bloatware" that's included with my system. But I do want to keep some of the programs. I have a recent backup (yesterday) of my current system state. Also, I plan to dual boot with XP Pro SP3. That's no problem. And my recovery partition will remain in place. Now, here's my concern, as I've never done this before. Will I be able to move my preferred programs from my backup onto my new Windows 7 partition? It's on a WD external drive. Or should I use Power2Go to burn my preferred programs to disc, and install them that way? And another thing of importance: Will my key work to do the install with, or will I have to obtain another?

As far as I know the only "good" way to move programs from one install of Windows to the other is to have the installation file for that program. Just moving the folders & data usually won't work. If you are not using the key for any other computer, then you should be fine.

Have you looked into making a slipstream DVD and incorporating applications you want Cat ?

There is a program called NLite which you can do what want.

There are tutorials on it also.

Ive used NLite in Slipstreaming XP it works very well it does need .NET Framework 2.0 to run and you may have to use compatibility mode

OK, let's put this another way. Can I first install XP Pro, then using the three recovery discs that I made when I bought the computer, install it on the remaining partition, then use a program like Revo Uninstaller to get rid of what I don't want? I just want to make sure that my important programs work after the reinstall of Windows 7. Or even better, would it work from the recovery partition, seeing my partitions and allow me to select a partition to install on? Or one last option, since that Windows 7 is the (C) or primary partition, can I simply shrink the partition about 50GB, then install XP Pro that way?

Well, why don't you just do it and then tell us how it turned out?

Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't believe in using recovery discs, recovery partitions and all that other extraneous stuff. Most other techies don't mess with this stuff either.

I believe in and use the K.I.S.S. principle. The simpler the better.

Nibiru wrote

And for me thats the best way, I use Paragon to backup my boot drive (the complete OS) each Sunday so if i ever have a problem with my OS i can replace it from the backup archive in a few clicks ... to me its neat and simple.

You know I had to look this term up. I had heard it before but have not seen it abbreviated.

"keep it simple, stupid!"

This is my goal, The bootable media would be much simpler if placed on hard drive. Veedaz just spent two hours looking for a disk so he could boot to it for repairs. If a partition was fixed with this same media, he would not have lost two hours searching. My point is if you are not prepared, things get misplaced or even lost.

I don't like recovery partitions either. After a restore the first thing I do is remove the bloatware. If I could remove the bloatware and then rewrite an image back to the Recovery Partition. Then I would have a "Not So Bloated Recovery Partition". I do know this is possible. One article I read stated that Ghost 9.0 was used for creating the backup image. One could use Ghost 9.0 to create a new image and then replace the image on the recovery partition. This is no longer an option now that I don't have a name brand computer with a recovery partition.

I know there is a way to place any bootable media on a partition. I could do any of this with DOS. Since the introduction of the NTFS partitions and the fact that DOS could not read the drives, I have not figured it out yet. Perhaps it is due to the fact I have not studied Linux. I guess I need to do another research on the topic so I can quit asking those who know just as much as I do on the topic.

Back to the "keep it simple, stupid!". It would be simple if there was a point and click solution to creating a recovery partition.

I agree with both Veedaz and c_c!

I always recommend to my customers to use either Acronis True Image, Paragon or Ghost! There are other system image backup utilities out also.

This statement by catilley confused me because I didn't know if he was referring to "bloatware" in a Windows 7 clean install or the "bloatware" from the original recovery discs he burnt from the laptop.

A few years ago I bought a Compaq laptop that had Windows XP on it, plus tons of "bloatware". The very first thing I did was wipe the hard drive clean completely and reinstall XP Pro Corporate Edition that I had. Of course I had downloaded all the necessary drivers before I did this and stored them on my portable hard drive.

Then I reinstalled all the software that I prefer to use. System ran quicker, booted faster, and was more responsive. It also helped that I added another 1GB of SO-DIMM RAM DDR2.


c_c - I like your signature bar avatar from Avatar! LOL It's pretty cool!