Maximum PC

My wife has a HP pavillion laptop and we want to install a clean version of Win 7 without having to use the recovery disk from HP with all of that crap on it. Is there a way to do that without the HP disk? The drivers shouldn't be a problem if Win 7 says they have them in windows update, right?

Not really familiar with HP's way of doing business but besides the recovery disk did you get a disk with system drivers and any misc support software? I only ask just in case you have a driver problem.

The only reason anyone needs a OEM recovery disk, is because the OEM has "supposedly" installed and verified that any optional software you may have ordered, such as M$ Office, is properly installed and ready to go. This is actually just a mirror image back up of the original sys. Fine for noobe.

If you have your own OS disk there is no reason you can't do a clean install as long as you have copies of any drivers ready and copies of your other programs to install. The only special conditions would be in the case of a raid 0 set up. In which case you must make your driver disks as they must be inserted when Win 7 asks for them. That would be about the only real reason I could think of to worry about the recovery disks and the hassel of removing bloatware.

there were no disks with it when we got it out of the box. the recovery disks were on the d drive and it only let you make 1 copy. i think i'll look in the disks to see if it has any drivers in there. one thing that pisses me off about the thing is that it keeps saying we need to activate the norton internet security program, which is trialware. i have tried my damndest to get it off there but so far nothing has worked. it even got by pc-decrapifier.

I would just go to the HP site and find the drivers for that machine and down load them. Put them on a CD/DVD do a clean install with a retail version of Win 7 and manually install the drivers in the proper order. The driver site or your user guide should tell you what the proper order is If not let us know and someone here will come up with one.

As any productivity suites, etc, If you did not get the disks I don't know what to say.

I believe there is a way to either create windows discs from the recovery disks or tell it to install a non crap filled version. There is no need to go out and buy a retail copy of an OS that you already own. I havent found anything specific to windows 7 yet but i did come across this link which tells you how to create an install disk from XP recovery disks, i'm not sure but it might work for 7 as well.

As for your norton issue, if its NIS 2009 or 2010 you may want to consider keeping it. Norton has made some serious improvements over the bloatware infested crap that it used to market as antivirus software. MPC gave NIS 2009 great reviews a few months back, and I've been using 2010 with absolutely no problems. That being said if you still want to get rid of it, you're probably going to need to download and run the Norton Removal Tool available HERE.

Try Revo-uninstaller to install any stubborn apps. As for Norton, download the Norton Removal tool.

Just do what I do. Every computer that I don't actually build and it comes with an OS I will go ahead and stop off at my local www.iwillnotpostpiratinglinks.com or www.iwillnotadvocatepiracy.com bit torrent site and download a clean unaltered copy of Windows Retail and burn it to disk and from there I do a clean install and use the license Key that is attached to the laptop to install the OS.
If Windows refuses to activate choose to activate over the phone and just be honest to the MS rep on the phone and they will be happy to activate it even when it violates MS policy.

Wow, really? You're talking about pirating Windows here? I don't care if MS helps you out or not, that's a bad decision bro. I also find it hard to believe that you tell an MS rep you got a copy of Windows from Pirate Bay or Demonoid. You mean your selectively telling the truth, right?

Also, this thread is 3 months old. I'm pretty sure you know the rules.

Regardless of what you do, advocating piracy is against the forum rules and should not be discussed here.

The best method is to borrow a clean disk from a friend and install that way. The installers you find on torrent sites may be filled with malware and/or exploits which could leave the operating system naturally vulnerable and you wouldn't even know!

One more thing, the key on the bottom is an OEM key which would fail in a Retail disc.

Are you sure? I thought Windows keys were universal, and you can use any key to install to from any disk, but obviously you get the copy that the key gives you, not the disk.

That was Vista only, they changed it back for whatever reason unfortunately. (See a reason i <3 Vista)

Actually, I'm getting a bit mixed up here. Its the licensing type that isn't or never was universal. They had universal editions (possible in 7 also) but licensing type isn't. You need an OEM style key for OEM version and Retail for Retail version. Then that key also then specifies what Edition you have whether it be Home Premium or Ultimate. (I think that it, I just woke up..)

install the HP disk fully, then run PC Decrapifier to get rid of some of the bloatware in one shot..

^ ^ ^ This. Decrapifier is awesome.
I would, though, recommend first running the uninstall utility for whatever AV (Norton, most likely) is preloaded on the laptop. Just Google for AV name uninstall utility.