[TALLandNcharge]

I have a DELL Inspiron E1505 and I am going to install Windows Vista Home Premium. I've had it installed on this laptop before and the only driver that it didn't automatically install was a card reader. Since DELL offers downloads to all the drivers, should I install all of the drivers from DELL's website or should I just install the drivers for the stuff that is missing? I'm trying to get more than one person's opinion.

[AuroraDizon]

imo it would be less hassle to just download the driver upgrades indicated on dell's site for vista

[TALLandNcharge]

So your saying I should install the drivers from DELL even though Windows already has them?

[AuroraDizon]

If its an upgrade you should download them anyway. If its specified Vista and the drivers you have are not, download the Vista drivers even if it seems to be working. Stuff that may not work later. Example, I had a Wireless B router and got a Wireless G adapter, it did work for a while then one day the connection just wouldn't work and was pretty difficult to figure out. In the end it came down to that the wireless b router sent off the signals at a different frequency even though it did work. So its better to upgrade if you have the chance

[techie4fun]

Hi TALLandNcharge

Personally, you could go in either direction. If you feel that you want to have all the drivers updated, by oh means, download them from Dell and do a whole system upgrade. In my opinion if everything is working I would just get the missing drivers that you don't already have, and go from there. You can however, do as Aurora suggested, and do so that way. In my shoes if things are working already I would just get the missing driver and leave everything in tact. After about a month or 2 months of use, go update ALL the drivers so that your system is up to date.

[techie4fun]

I'm wondering why I remember posting a reply to this topic but when refreshing the page the forum says I have a reply but no post shows here....

[mphenterprises]

Hi Techie. I noticed several "irregularities" earlier this morning. I put in a notice to Kellie. I am sure there is probably some type of forum update.

[techie4fun]

Alright, yeah.. I noticed my original post showed up randomly out of no where after I made my second post. Hmmmm.

[smax013]

mphenterprises said:

Hi Techie. I noticed several "irregularities" earlier this morning. I put in a notice to Kellie. I am sure there is probably some type of forum update.

I got notice of a message that had been posted to a thread that I had posted to, but that message never appeared on the forums and when I clicked the link in the email message, I just got an "unauthorized" screen/message on the webpage. I don't know if the message was deleted for violating community rules or if it was something screwy with the forum software.

[smax013]

Oh, and I will note that roughly somewhere about 10% to 25% of the time, I don't get the Rich Text tab in the posting window to show up...only the ability to use Plain Text to post. It seems to be much more frequent then a couple weeks ago.

[mphenterprises]

There was an outage this morning that threw the forum out of whack. Everything appears to be in order now. As for the Rich Text/Plain Text situation, I haven't had the Rich Text option for weeks now, at all. I just figured that was something that was removed. I think, I could be mistaken, but I think the PCWorld techs are working on this, as well as several other issues.

[techie4fun]

Yes, in fact what Smax just said ---

Oh, and I will note that roughly somewhere about 10% to 25% of the time, I don't get the Rich Text tab in the posting window to show up...only the ability to use Plain Text to post. It seems to be much more frequent then a couple weeks ago.

--- I have noticed the same thing.. I was going to quote what he said but the Options are NOT being given to me right now. And I just tested this and the issue seems to be happening in BOTH Firefox and IE 7. I thought this was a Javascript problem, but my javascript is Enabled... So this must be a forum issue. It's been happening almost 65% of the time whenever I make replies in the forums.

[smax013]

mphenterprises said:

There was an outage this morning that threw the forum out of whack. Everything appears to be in order now. As for the Rich Text/Plain Text situation, I haven't had the Rich Text option for weeks now, at all. I just figured that was something that was removed. I think, I could be mistaken, but I think the PCWorld techs are working on this, as well as several other issues.

Definitely was not removed...just "flaky". For example, this post did NOT give me the Rich Text option, but the post that I just did on the Outlook thread about a minute or so ago did.

[smax013]

techie4fun said:

Yes, in fact what Smax just said ---

Oh, and I will note that roughly somewhere about 10% to 25% of the time, I don't get the Rich Text tab in the posting window to show up...only the ability to use Plain Text to post. It seems to be much more frequent then a couple weeks ago.

--- I have noticed the same thing.. I was going to quote what he said but the Options are NOT being given to me right now. And I just tested this and the issue seems to be happening in BOTH Firefox and IE 7. I thought this was a Javascript problem, but my javascript is Enabled... So this must be a forum issue. It's been happening almost 65% of the time whenever I make replies in the forums.

You should still be able to quote the previous post in Plain Text mode. Just click on the little button with the quotation marks (i.e. like this: ").

Oh, and this post was done in Plain Text only mode too.

[techie4fun]

Okay, yeah, I see it now.

[smax013]

techie4fun said:

Okay, yeah, I see it now.

Yeah...I learned that "trick" right when the switch to the new format occurred as at first I was not getting the Rich Text option. Seems like I am going "back to the future" so to speak! :-)

[rgreen4]

TALLandNcharge - we in the forum sometimes get sidetracked on other issues, but to go back to your question, not only would I download ALL of the Vista drivers for your computer model from the Dell Website, I would burn them onto a CD before I attempted another install of Vista.There is a Document that I prepared some time back that may help.

Drivers provided on a manufacturers website for your model computer and operating system (either current or the one you are going to) are always the best choice. Many times Windows install "generic" drivers and they will not update because they do not specify the exact device by model. I am not sure about Dell, but HP drivers are provided in what they call "Softpacs" and all start with the letters SP and six numbers. The are compressed driver packages that must be expanded by double clicking on them.

After you have the drivers downloaded and saved, then do a clean install of Vista. When it is finished install all the drivers. I would start with the chipset drivers, then the video drivers and then the ethernet and/or wireless drivers. Then all the rest. That order gets the machine functional, although many of the Windows generic drivers will give a basic functional machine, but will not have all the options you may like. This is especially true in the video card area.

Let us know if you have any problems.

[greathl]

Well, if you have a high processing computer, do it, cause it lagged on mine when I downloaded them.

[tomjennings83]

i Agree just download everything you need.