New Computer (What to do first?)

quovadis13

Hello all. I just got in my new desktop (Dell Inspiron with Vista) and I had a few things I wanted to ask.

First off, I am debating whether or not I should just wipe the hard drive clean right away and do a fresh start of the system. This would accomplish several things. First off, it would get rid of all those extra trial and free software that I would never use anyways and I would also be able to set up a partition on my hard drive. The partition is my main reason for wanting to do this because with my old comp, I have had to re-install Windows twice causing me to lose everything I had on there. With the partition, I would at least be able to keep all my music, movies and school work in case something bad happened.

I know that if I start over, I will have to spend a fair amount of time installing all my drivers, programs etc all over again. This may be annoying, but it is not the end of the world.


Also, after I am done with all that, I was wondering if you guys knew of anything in particular I should download that isnt games??? Things like useful software that will be useful to actual people. I remember there being a thread here that had links to like 100 things you should download, so if anyone had that, it would be useful.


Feel free to post anything else you could possibly add.

Thanks

tree bark

Here's a list of 40+ things to install after a format. I doubt you'll have use for all of them, but it includes most of the stuff that I've installed on my own computer. I'd also recommend Rainlendar (calendar application) and MP3Gain (normalizes the volume across all your mp3s).

IreneDAdler

I would recommend you go to Dell's support site and download all the drivers and put them on a CD or USB driver before you wipe your harddrive, particularly chipset and network card drivers, because you might not be able to connect to the internet without reinstalling those first. Of course if you have another computer you don't have to worry about that. Also, you probably got a Drivers and Utilities disk with your computer, so you could probably use that, though I don't know how often they update those CDs, so it's possible that there are more recent versions on the site.

Unknown

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quovadis13

Thanks for your input. That site looks like it has alot of nice things on top of the stuff I already had in mind.


I now have a newer concern. My wireless signal is strong, but for some reason, it is slow as molasses. I am using the adaptor that I ordered with the Dell and that seems to be the problem. I had a USB dongle that I used for my old laptop that was absolutely wonderful. It never had a problem with connecting or with going slow. Is there anything I can do with my comp or with my router to try and speed it up? Or should I just re-install the USB thingy on here and just dont worry about messing witht he settings??


FYI, the router and USB adaptor are both D-link products that I bought a little more than a year ago. Also, it is getting late, so I will try out your suggestions tomorrow sometime.