Dell laptop reinstall windows 7

Except for the monitor, keyboard and mouse, disconnect any nonessential external device, including:. For each external or internal devise you added to your computer after purchasing from Dell, refer to the documentation that came with the device for reinstallation instructions.

Some devices require you to install the associated software before connecting the device to your computer. For information about how to restore your data, refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base article, " Back up and restore your PC.

Support Wissensdatenbankartikel. Artikelnummer: Druck E-Mail English. Explore this page to learn how to factory reset your Dell computer and resolve any issues you have with your Windows 7 OS not working properly.

Zusammenfassung: Explore this page to learn how to factory reset your Dell computer and resolve any issues you have with your Windows 7 OS not working properly. Weniger anzeigen Explore this page to learn how to factory reset your Dell computer and resolve any issues you have with your Windows 7 OS not working properly. Artikelinhalt Artikeleigenschaften Diesen Artikel bewerten. NOTE: Any software installed after the restore point is removed and you must reinstall it.

My Dell in 99 seconds: System Restore from inside Windows 7. NOTES: When the most recent restore point does not resolve the issue or fails, select the next older restore point.

When no restore point resolves the issues, all of them fail or none are listed, refer to the Using the built-in Dell Factory Image Restore partition tab in the Windows 7 Does Not Start Correctly or at All section, as other actions are needed. When the Advanced Boot Options cannot be accessed after several tries, proceed to the Manually reinstall the Windows 7 Operating System tab as your Operating System may be too corrupted to use this process.

If your system doesn't have this button skip this step. The partitions for Media Direct must be set up before the installation of Microsoft Windows otherwise pressing the Media Direct Button while the system is powered down can corrupt your Operating System.

It should look like the following:. Power down your computer. Select option 1 recommended or option 2. Note: The application must be installed after the system drivers while on the Windows Desktop Step Ensure everything documents and the downloads listed above is copied over onto the external hard drive.

Note: It is recommended to unplug any unecessary peripherals You need keyboard and mouse. Note: Where possible use USB 2. Note: Ensure that the keyboard and mouse are plugged in USB 2. Note: For systems with only USB 3. Next one that says Starting Windows.

You will then be prompted for your language, time and currency format and keyboard settings. Mine are all set to U. Select Install Now. Read the license, check to select and then select Next. There are always some bugs when selecting "Upgrade" on this screen and this seriously hinders your systems performance.

Ensure that "Hide drivers that are not compatible with hardware on this computer is ticked" it should be set like this by default. Select all the drivers listed and then click next. It will take you back to this screen. Select "Drive Options".

This will reveal the drive options. The tools are rather self-explanatory. For a new hard drive you will need to select New to make a new partition case below.

You should get a message saying some space must be "System Reserved" and a System Reserved Partition is made, don't worry about it, it is very small. The Dell Factory setting won't work in either case. I recommend deleting or formatting but you must take the 3rd option if you have not carried out Step 1 and wish to keep your data. Note: if you have not backed up all your data onto an external hard drive.

Do not select any of the drive options particularly format or delete. In this scenario all your files will be saved in a folder called windows.

Type in your "username", by default the PC name will be "username-PC" but you can change this as desired. Next type in your password, retype it and leave yourself a hint. Alternatively just select next to have no password - not recommended but optional. If using retail media you will be prompted for a product key. A Dell OEM disc should not require you to input this key and this screen should not display.

Once you have input your key select Next. The following screen will display if you have input the wrong key. Alternatively you may skip this step and get a 30 day trial of Windows 7 which is recommended for testing Windows 7 on your machine. Once you have input the correct key, this should lead you to here, generally select Use recommended settings should be selected.

In this case the system is a home desktop connected to a router via an Ethernet cable. You may alternatively be asked about connecting to a wireless network. Note the above screen should show only if your system can connect to the internet. Often the network drivers are needed to be installed before connecting to a network so this step may not show or if it does skip it if you cannot connect.

Now that you have Windows 7 installed. Ensure that you have the latest Service Pack installed. It often works out better installing the latest Service Pack and Internet Explorer before installing the system drivers. Doing so in this order prevents a great deal of problems with Windows Update and conflicts with system drivers. You should have downloaded these onto a USB stick at Step 4 if your installation media didn't include them and have them readily accessible on a USB stick or External Harddrive.

Ensure you keep to the order listed above for best results. You should again have downloaded these at Step 4 and have them readily accessible on a USB stick or External Harddrive. Running the. Unfortunately often no installer runs and the file just extracts. To actually install the driver you will need to navigate to the folder where the driver extracted to and run any setup.

Many users think they have installed the driver when they haven't. We will take for example R the chipset driver for my XPS and look at it in detail:.

Select Continue. Select Ok. At this stage the setup should start and you should start the installation. If it does not the driver is not installed. In my XPS and I suspect many other systems the installers do not automatically run. Accept the UAC prompt and install via the setup program. Usually a series of clicking next, next, finish and then rebooting.

I usually tell it not to reboot until I install all the drivers it is faster this way and always worked for me however it is probably best to reboot when prompted. Press the [Windows] and [Pause Break] or go to start, right click computer and click properties.

If it says at the bottom Windows is activated then you are fine. This will happen automatically if you use the Dell disk. If it says activate Windows Now, click the link to activate.

If you used the. Use the automated phone activation. It is a quick automated called, follow the onscreen instructions.

For more details on activation see here. If you have an error, yellow? You should quickly check that you haven't missed installation of a driver and check to see that something hasn't installed correctly. If you still can't find out what it is. Right click the device with the error and select properties:. You should make a new post on the Microsoft OS Forum starting your model of Dell, the hardware ids and whether you have installed Windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit. Next after the drivers are installed you should rate your system.

Click the link "system rating is not available". Note at this stage I would re-rate the system even a number is displayed there. Although people may not care so much for the system rating it is best to perform.

Several unrated systems will revert to the Windows 7 Basic Theme even if they are capable of the Aero Interface and will not allow the user to change to the Windows 7 Theme until the system is rated. You should get the rating now. Here are the scores on my Desktop for example:. Note if you are using retail media and want the Dell logos and information in the above screens, you may download and follow the instructions for Dell White and Black logo or Dell Blue and White Logo.

The 3 screens above have the White and Black, no logo and the Blue and White logo respectively. So I am not going to argue or force my opinion here.

Just ensure that you install a security suite that you trust. Links to Microsoft Office consumer preview which users may try for free for a limited period of time may be found in the same wiki. These installers require a product key. Use your product key obtained by Belarc advisor Step 1. For more details about the Microsoft Product Identification Card see here. If your system just came with Office Starter, you cannot download it from a official source however Office Starter is becoming redundant and not worth installing.

Instead you should use Microsoft Office Web Apps which has tight integration with SkyDrive and the same functionality or slightly more than Office Starter. Microsoft Mathematics may also be installed, this is essentially a free graphics calculator for Microsoft Windows.

Useful third party additions for the full versions of Microsoft Office are Mendeley Desktop Reference Manager and Mathtype both have free and paid versions. The free versions should suffice most users. I highly recommend SkyDrive for Windows. This gives users a 7 GB free webdrive which can be accessed via the SkyDrive folder on your computer and within any web brower.

Paid plans can give you GB storage. Everything that you put in this folder is automatically kept in sync between your computers PC or Mac and SkyDrive. Skip Step 14a if your system doesn't have Media Direct. For the systems with Dell Media Direct, once on the windows desktop, insert the media direct disc It should autorun, install the application, if it doesn't you should navigate to the WindowsMD3 folder and click setup.

Use the updater within Media Direct to get it to the latest version. For some unknown reason Dell does not provide Dell Webcam Software under the drivers and downloads page for most systems.

Here is the download link Dell Webcam Software R You may wish to download the latest version of Skype before installing the webcam driver. Dell Support Centre may be downloaded and installed from here. It only works on home systems and does not work on Precision, Latitude or Optiplex systems.

Dell Dock is also not provided on the drivers and downloads page. Here is the download link Dell Dock. See my wiki Instructions on using My Dell Downloads. What other software you have available here will depend on your specific system.

Save any downloaded items to an external hard drive for backup purposes as there is a download quota. If you have everything on the external hard drive then ignore this step. Look about in this folder for anything else. Post Reply. Top Contributor. Dell Support Resources. Latest Solutions. Can't find what you're looking for? You can post your question in our community. Sign up now. You can use Windows Media Creation to create bootable media.

But, you may meet the Windows 10 media creation tool error. Here are the methods to fix it. When the Dell Recovery Tool is not working, you can perform a system restore to restore the system to earlier data. You should notice that once you have created a system restore point, you can use this method. Look Here can help you create it on your Dell PC.

Now, you can continue. Step 1: Type Create a restore point in the Search box and select the best match result to open the System Properties window. Step 2: Under the System Protection tab, click the System Restore button, and follow the instructions to select a restore point to restore your Windows 10 computer to a previous working healthy state. Windows 10 System Restore stuck on initializing or restoring files?

This post gives helpful ways to fix System Restore stuck issue in 2 cases. Follow the instructions below:. Step 3: Choose Keep my files or Remove everything.

Then, follow the on-screen instructions to complete the reset process. This takes some time and your computer will restart. You may find that reinstalling the Windows system will take you much time from the content above.

Is there a method to get the system without reinstalling? There is a piece of professional backup software — MiniTool ShadowMaker for you to do that. Then you can restore the system on your Dell PC without reinstalling it.