Configuring New Laptop

I have a new laptop and Best Buy wants to charge me to re install original software less the non essential trials etc.
Ii also came with MS Word that I have to buy for $500 with MS Office and I only want word.

Is there any advice on what prgms with the recover disk to do the cleanup myself?
Is there any way to buy Word, which I like, by itself.

 

If you bought this as a demo unit at BestBuy, they should restore it to original for free.

As far as MS Word goes you can get OpenOffice for free and it is able to work with MS doc's and excel spreadsheets etc. I works pretty good. It's all I use.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/OpenOffice.org_For_Windows_d3461.html

 

Let me better explain, I bought the computer new and it comes with a bunch of trial software and xp has alot of xtra stuff that slows down the boot up etc. Best Buy has made up a special disk to remove all the non essential prgms. and software so it runs faster. It is only $30 so guess I should let them do it, but I thought there might be an instruction sheet where I could do it myself and learn from the task. ??

 

You can go through the add/remove programs in control panel and remove each undesired program one at a time. As far as slowing down the boot, run Startup.cpl and you can control what programs load at boot.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download619.html

The best thing to do would be a simple WinXP install which would require a format of the drive and would remove everything on the drive. You just need to make sure you have you COA sticker and number to activate the installation.

 

Thanks, the new computers only come with one disk =RECOVERY AND APPLICATIONS/ DRIVERS DVD.

I put the disk in and I don't know what to keep or not to install, I don't understand the files.

 

Actually, you would have been just as well off with your original installation. The trial period installations can be removed from Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel. This is one of the things that I hate about newer computers, trial software and no user warnings of such. Check the antivirus app that was included on your computer, and chances are it will be Symantec or McCaffee, and it probably won't tell you that it is a trial version active for X-amount of days.

MicroSoft is also doing this with trial versions of Office, so please check this also, although you may have covered that.

I would recommend any of the freeware apps on MG's to replace these trial period apps.

And as for the special disk that BestBuy has that eliminates these trialware apps, it is probably just an OEM disk of the OS that was installed on your computer, as it wouldn't have any of these, and they would just use your COA which is on your computer to install it with!

 

I feel your pain on this issue. A simple "XP Only" install would be great and allow you to install what you actually want and use. I hate all the bundled applications and trials that new machines come with these days. The Restore CDs (most laptops don't even come with them today as you have to burn your own) will not let you just install XP. When you put that Recovery CD in it will want to reformat your computer to just like it was when you bought it (trials and all, while deleting what you added).

Since you said you just bought it... before you start downloading/transferring various files. Create a restore point and start getting rid of what you don't want via your Control Panel "Add/Remove Programs.

You can by Word separately, just search around.

 

Can you tell me how to find the COA number on my computer so I will have it for future referrence?

 

The COA is a colorful sticker on the bottom of the computer that has a very long number on it. 5 sets of 5 chacters

Looks like this http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/YourPC_COA.mspx

 

Thank you shnerdly I feel like I am in a great workshop or seminar, I have learned so much the last two days.
Thanks to all of you at MG.