Reinstalled windows 7 home premium 64 bit missing drivers.

[thedogman]

I had a bunch of viruses on my computer and I kept getting more because one of them hijacked mcafee, preventing me from turning it back on. I tried to restore my system to an earlier date but all the restore dates were too recent so I decided to reinstall windows 7. I didnt have the disk any more so I downloaded it to a usb drive. I succesfully installed it, but when I logged in I noticed it looked completely different. The bottom bar was much larger then it was before, The screen looks zoomed in and the shortcuts are all much bigger, and when I go into control panel or computer the windows take up the entire screen and cant be made smaller, only minimized. Could I have downloaded a wrong version of windows 7? I also failed to realize that I would need to install all new drivers and was very confused when I couldn't connect to the internet. I tried to install the drivers by looking them up with the network cards ven id but it says they aren't supported on my device. Any help will be greatly appreciated as I have no clue what I am doing. If it helps I have a dell xps 8300.

 

[EasyLover]

Please install the video card drivers from the CD/DVD and it would do the job.

 

[smorizio]

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/xps-8300/drivers
start with the intel chipset driver.
then download to usb stick the lan drivers all 4 of them. when the system is online go to that web page download the video drivers and then the sound card drivers.
when your online then go to nvidia and amd let them scan your system for the right updated video drivers.

 

[christinebcw]

Yes, this is a driver's issue. Use Smor's link above...

And as he indicates, install those 2 Chipset Drivers first, then the NETWORK Driver for Broadcom will allow a cabled (ethernet) connection to function after a reboot. (If you only have wireless connection possibilities, then you're going to have to guess between the Dell 1501 driver or the 1520 one. One of them should install and work, and the other should fail to install with some kind of "incorrect driver version" - which is correct.

Once you get that network connection made, then you can return to the Dell website with the computer, and let Dell determine which video-driver you need, along with all the other drivers.

 

[thedogman]

I downloaded the Ethernet drivers and was able to get an internet connection. I ran windows update and it seemed to fix everything. Should I install some of the drivers manually or did windows update take care of it?

 

[christinebcw]

I try to avoid letting Microsoft's versions of drivers replace the hardware mfr's drivers - the WinUpdate versions of drivers are usually 'lowest common denominator' and might strip out some features a User is expecting. But WinUpdate notification of new drivers can be a useful reminder for me to visit the hardware support page and snag newer, more complete driver-update.

If all is working well, then you probably have the correct drivers installed but from the mess on Dell's support page, I'd probably take notes on which Wireless Driver is installed, which Video Driver is installed, etc. I might download those proper versions, cast off the useless ones and save those drivers to a disk and/or USB stick for any later need.