I did exactly this. Pretty happy with it so far. I don't play 8 tables regularly, but it can handle it fine.

Yes you do. You need drivers for the graphic card and the motherboard. Just make sure you know the name of all the hardware and then download the drivers from the internet and burn it to a cd. You rarely get cd's with only drivers when buying name brands; you usually get a reset disc that installs everything (all crap aswell) that was there when you got the computer.

The most important is the motherboard drivers, since nowadays the network cards are integrated in the motherboard so you need the drivers to activate the network and surf the internet - where you can download the other drivers you need.

You say you just need graphic card and motherboard drivers but then you say "(internet) where you can download the other drivers you need."

What are the other drivers you need? Just google "NVIDIA GeForce 8400M G drivers" for the graphic card as an example? How do you know the name of your motherboard? Thanks for your help and sorry for my ignorance.

Formatting a new machine to get rid of shovel ware is over kill and if you do it wrong you run the risk of being without a machine until you can track down the right drivers. Go into Add / Remove software and remove pretty much everything that doesn't have Microsoft's name in it or is a program you want. It will take about a half hour or so and is much less likely to leave the machine unusable.

Also, if you are new to Vista I would highly recommend going to your local Borders or Barnes and Nobles and getting a Vista book. Look at a few and see which one you like the writing in, they are all going to have about the same content.

Sorry I was a bit unclear. When I said the other drivers I meant the graphic drivers.

If you have a NVIDIA card you go to nvidia.com, click download drivers and select the appropiate card and OS. You'll have to look in the technical specification (where you order it/ask in the store where you buy it) to know wich motherboard you have. I'm guessing there is probably some program you can download that tells you aswell.

But as kerowo said, it's a slight overkill to format if you don't know what you're doing (although it's very easy) so if you're not confident/have a friend that can help you - just go with the add/remove programs way.

If you do go ahead and format, just make sure you have the motherboard drivers burned to a cd and if you got one - the reset disc that usually comes with name brand computers.