Windows – How to best re-install software and setup computer after re-install

Dell will normally send you any disks that originally came with your system if you contact them (personal experience has shown that if the system is in warranty they will give you the first replacement for free and if it’s out of warranty you will need to pay shipping charges).

This is the option I normally take for my customer’s as Dell will send driver CDs as well as the OS disks.

Use this link to request a set of Dell XP discs.

If you have sufficient time, and enough specific software, creating an unattended install script(guides here and here may be a good idea.

For some software you can shortcut this with ninite which allows you to download and install a subset of a selection of software - for example browsers, some dev tools and so on, and is what i use. You may also want to look at TGSP, or allmyapps amongst others, since they may have a different/more suitable set of software

windiff will allow you to check differences between sets of registry files and you can get a copy here - you can then export the difference between your modified system and the baseline system to the baseline system i believe.

On the other hand, there's an easier way - software virtualisation. I personally favour svs/svw (SU question linked, cause its a pain to find the software in question) to create a layer with all my software. Simply move the layer over to the new system and everything would be as it was. There's other options for software virtualisation, but this is the one i know that works