Microsoft slams OEM crapware

[Layback Bear]

Most computer buyers don't come to web sits like ours and learn. If they did our membership would be in the millions. This tells me that most buyers don't even know what crapware is. As long as the market share of buyers are uninformed crapware will be there. I makes money. It might even keep the price down. IMHO most members here have probably removed the crapware or will soon because they have been informed. Most people who buy computers are not informed customers. Most people who buy new cars don't know it comes with ABS and don't care, it stops.

 

[Tepid]

The other problem is, not installing enough RAM.
what 99% of users do not realize is. Minimum requirements are to get a system to run stable, not well.
So yes, Vista will run with 512M of ram. But it won't run well. And these OEM's knew it, they just wanted to make a sale so they allowed it.
I also think that is why MS upped it to 1G for 7. Still that is not good enough.

It is the same with all PC games. The minimum is to make it run stable, the recommended is better, but you always want to try and have twice what the recommended is listed.
That is the sweet spot. But more is always best.

Hi there
Actually I disagree here -- Lack of RAM is NOT the main problem -- for what 90 - 95% of typical home users do on their computers (email, surf internet, some office type stuff, play music, watch dvd's etc) a modest machine (by todays standards) with 1GB of RAM is probably sufficient.

I agree more RAM is better if you want to run things like Virtual Machines and Photoshop --although you can use Photoshop on a 1GB RAM system without too much hassle if you aren't processing 100's of large photos-.

Even for gaming it's not normally shortage of RAM -- CPU processing power, decent graphic card / GPU and fast disks are usually more important.

Cheers
jimbo

We have seen it first hand. Take a Vista System that a student bought and trying to do what they need to do for school. Or a family that bought a system that start choking when they try accessing numerous apps, like web browsing and email and try to watch videos with anti virus and other background garbage apps like Itunes and there ISP's garbage speed boosters. Systems start to choke when they start getting used on a daily basis by people who try to do what they really want to do with them.

Now if you are talking about the very few out there that might check a site or 2 and do a little email, but don't try to use the system for what it is designed for, ok. But 99% of people don't do just those very minimal things.

My wife thinks she doesn't do that much, I put a low end system up for her and as soon as she tried doing scrapbooking software and printing and stuff, the system would choke. Oh yeah, Many web sites opened as well. So, there is a limit, and the largest majority of people will push a low end system past it's limit and be quite disappointed in the results not realizing they pushed past a certain limit that their system can't handle. Then they blame what? Windows.

You don't need 8G or 16G of ram, no. But you need at the minimum on any system of 2G.
And that all depends on the processor as well. Now days they have caught up, so a normal family system that gets used for more than one or 2 apps at a time does infact need minimum of 2 to 4G in todays systems. i would actually say Minimum should be 4G now.
This is the best spot for anyone who may wake up one day and decide they want to do more. Or they start seeing software they thing they might like and install it, then forget about while it sits in the background draining resources.

It's a balance of power that OEM's do not care about.

I don't sell systems with less than 2G, and try to talk people into minimum of 4G.
Even if they ask for the minimum, I would tell them no, go buy elsewhere. After explaining the reasons why.

 

[JMH]

The other problem is, not installing enough RAM.
what 99% of users do not realize is. Minimum requirements are to get a system to run stable, not well.
So yes, Vista will run with 512M of ram. But it won't run well. And these OEM's knew it, they just wanted to make a sale so they allowed it.
I also think that is why MS upped it to 1G for 7. Still that is not good enough.

It is the same with all PC games. The minimum is to make it run stable, the recommended is better, but you always want to try and have twice what the recommended is listed.
That is the sweet spot. But more is always best.

Hi there
Actually I disagree here -- Lack of RAM is NOT the main problem -- for what 90 - 95% of typical home users do on their computers (email, surf internet, some office type stuff, play music, watch dvd's etc) a modest machine (by todays standards) with 1GB of RAM is probably sufficient.

I agree more RAM is better if you want to run things like Virtual Machines and Photoshop --although you can use Photoshop on a 1GB RAM system without too much hassle if you aren't processing 100's of large photos-.

Even for gaming it's not normally shortage of RAM -- CPU processing power, decent graphic card / GPU and fast disks are usually more important.

Cheers
jimbo

We have seen it first hand. Take a Vista System that a student bought and trying to do what they need to do for school. Or a family that bought a system that start choking when they try accessing numerous apps, like web browsing and email and try to watch videos with anti virus and other background garbage apps like Itunes and there ISP's garbage speed boosters. Systems start to choke when they start getting used on a daily basis by people who try to do what they really want to do with them.

Now if you are talking about the very few out there that might check a site or 2 and do a little email, but don't try to use the system for what it is designed for, ok. But 99% of people don't do just those very minimal things.

My wife thinks she doesn't do that much, I put a low end system up for her and as soon as she tried doing scrapbooking software and printing and stuff, the system would choke. Oh yeah, Many web sites opened as well. So, there is a limit, and the largest majority of people will push a low end system past it's limit and be quite disappointed in the results not realizing they pushed past a certain limit that their system can't handle. Then they blame what? Windows.

You don't need 8G or 16G of ram, no. But you need at the minimum on any system of 2G.
And that all depends on the processor as well. Now days they have caught up, so a normal family system that gets used for more than one or 2 apps at a time does infact need minimum of 2 to 4G in todays systems. i would actually say Minimum should be 4G now.
This is the best spot for anyone who may wake up one day and decide they want to do more. Or they start seeing software they thing they might like and install it, then forget about while it sits in the background draining resources.

It's a balance of power that OEM's do not care about.

I don't sell systems with less than 2G, and try to talk people into minimum of 4G.
Even if they ask for the minimum, I would tell them no, go buy elsewhere. After explaining the reasons why.

1, IMHO -A good idea.

2. Nice to note some business ethics here....Well done.

 

[LiquidSnak]

I totally agree, I haven't ever recommended less than 2GB of RAM since Vista.

I've had many a system come to me from a friend who will ask "why is my computer so slow? I can't find viruses." I'll look at their "gaming" system they bought and it will have a gig of ram.

 

[Lee]

As a heavy user of Photoshop and Lightroom together along with working with RAW photos I can till you that 2 Gb just isn't going to cut it.

The problem is for some reason we geeks have a tendency to only see the short term effect of crapware. We know this because we can open "msconfig" and see what is happening to the system. We can see how this crapware is included in the services by clicking on "hide all Microsoft services." However, I think what we fail to see is that most of these people are somewhat happy with their system. And, we fail to see that they do us their machines for other things besides email and social get togethers. The gaming industries has been making "Billions" off of the average computer users. On line gaming has become a billion dollar industry, and that is not because of geeks and computer experts.

So in the end we geeks will just have to set on sites like the Seven Forums, and be ready to lend a helping hand. . .

 

[LiquidSnak]

Our life is a hard one, but a good one

 

[madtownidiot]

ever seen what a dual xeon workstation with 96 GB of RAM can do with photoshop or premier pro?

 

[jeffseven]

I learned about ram minimums when I bought my first machine. I am a gamer and I had 128 megs of ram with a good ( by that days standard video card) 3dfx. Does that ring any bells? It would crash ocassionally when gaming or other stuff too but I never realized what was wrong until... I was doing our taxes with my wife and the system crashed while we were trying to send our file....EEEEKKK.. I ended up calling support and they suggest installing more ram. I maxed it out after a couple conversations with friends. It ran much better after that.
NOW I either build my own or buy from a smaller company that doesn't install all that crapware.
Life is much better now as I know how to uninstall and all that stuff mentioned earlier in this thread.

I enjoy all the posts, keep writing.

Jeff

 

[toughbook]

This is a topic that needs to stay on the front burner for a long time. MS is on a good road, they just need to stay on it!

We have 4 computers in our home. An Hp Touchsmart that is a great computer, design wise, above par hardware, 64 bit, but it came with so much bloat that it literally strangled it. I did a clean install and now it is awesome.
My son's school provides there students with Lenovo's. This year they went the new Thinkpad T410 with the I-520 CPU and other decent hardware. It has more bloat on it than the HP had. However, 95% of it is Lenovo's programs themselves. Every single one of them is duplicated from what W7 Enterprise already can do! I promise it takes 3 minutes to start up I can't touch it for obvious reasons though. Then we have a Toshiba Netbook with W7 Starter. Again, alot of Toshiba and other 3rd party programs. Clean install of W7 Home Edition, another stick of 1GB and now it's good to go.

I have 2 Panasonic Toughbooks. They come with around 4 Panny programs but they are useful programs and are not resource hogs. An example is a program called Concealed Mode. I can touch a certain KB button and the entire machine will go into a stealth like mode. No lights anywhere are lit up, screen is off, etc, but the system and wireless is still running. I can adjust certain things to go off such has the wireless as well for covert type of work, but you get the point. I have to keep the Panny drivers for that installed. Each one came with 2 discs, XP Professional and Vista Business along with a disc with just drivers, and the programs for the Gobi Embedded WWAN.

So this just shows that the OEM's can and do decide what's best for the EU in mind and also some that just do not care at all. Now, I did have to pay more for the Toughbooks than most other laptops out there but the old saying holds true most of the time. You get what you pay for.

I like the post that states MS should tell the OEM's that if you install all this crap the OS is going to higher or somehow cripple them in some way. If there sales start taking a hit, they will make changes. It's all about the all mighty dollar these days.

 

[Tepid]

The top offending OEM's for Crapware that I would say......My own opinion and not based off of anything more than what have seen in the past and present.....and in no certain order, well sort of, but is subjective......

1. Sony - Worst offender for not providing downloadable drivers for some parts of the system and only included in their restore images,, namely the (so called) Programmable P1 and P2 buttons. Or atleast they used to be. But still have garbageware that can kill a system.
2. Acer - Worst Offender of Garbageware that might ahve been developed by them that really kills their garbage systems.
3. HP/Compaq (er. Comcrap) - Just bloated garbage
4. Toshiba (or Toshitba) - ehn, you know.
5. eMachine / Gateway - Gateway is not that horrible I think and can be cleaned up pretty easy. The eMachines are just garbage.

To be perfectly honest, Dell systems actually do have a bit, but it is not as horrifying as the ones listed above, and generally easy to get rid of. Especially since they do include a clean OEM Install disk and a seperate bloatware/drivers disk (which you can throw away) and download the drivers from on-line to get the latest anyway.

Instant Clean install on a dell. As well as blowing away their Restore partition which also contains the bloat.
But this may also depend on where you buy the Dell from. I did get mine from Best Buy on a lark cause I didn't have much time. Check yours before attempting anything.

Anyway. That's my thoughts.

 

[JMH]

The top offending OEM's for Crapware that I would say......My own opinion and not based off of anything more than what have seen in the past and present.....and in no certain order, well sort of, but is subjective......

1. Sony - Worst offender for not providing downloadable drivers for some parts of the system and only included in their restore images,, namely the (so called) Programmable P1 and P2 buttons. Or atleast they used to be. But still have garbageware that can kill a system.
2. Acer - Worst Offender of Garbageware that might ahve been developed by them that really kills their garbage systems.
3. HP/Compaq (er. Comcrap) - Just bloated garbage
4. Toshiba (or Toshitba) - ehn, you know.
5. eMachine / Gateway - Gateway is not that horrible I think and can be cleaned up pretty easy. The eMachines are just garbage.

To be perfectly honest, Dell systems actually do have a bit, but it is not as horrifying as the ones listed above, and generally easy to get rid of. Especially since they do include a clean OEM Install disk and a seperate bloatware/drivers disk (which you can throw away) and download the drivers from on-line to get the latest anyway.

Instant Clean install on a dell. As well as blowing away their Restore partition which also contains the bloat.
But this may also depend on where you buy the Dell from. I did get mine from Best Buy on a lark cause I didn't have much time. Check yours before attempting anything.

Anyway. That's my thoughts.

Those thoughts are appreciated too.
Thanks for taking the time to add to this News item....

 

[madtownidiot]

The top offending OEM's for Crapware that I would say......My own opinion and not based off of anything more than what have seen in the past and present.....and in no certain order, well sort of, but is subjective......

1. Sony - Worst offender for not providing downloadable drivers for some parts of the system and only included in their restore images,, namely the (so called) Programmable P1 and P2 buttons. Or atleast they used to be. But still have garbageware that can kill a system.
2. Acer - Worst Offender of Garbageware that might ahve been developed by them that really kills their garbage systems.
3. HP/Compaq (er. Comcrap) - Just bloated garbage
4. Toshiba (or Toshitba) - ehn, you know.
5. eMachine / Gateway - Gateway is not that horrible I think and can be cleaned up pretty easy. The eMachines are just garbage.

To be perfectly honest, Dell systems actually do have a bit, but it is not as horrifying as the ones listed above, and generally easy to get rid of. Especially since they do include a clean OEM Install disk and a seperate bloatware/drivers disk (which you can throw away) and download the drivers from on-line to get the latest anyway.

Instant Clean install on a dell. As well as blowing away their Restore partition which also contains the bloat.
But this may also depend on where you buy the Dell from. I did get mine from Best Buy on a lark cause I didn't have much time. Check yours before attempting anything.

Anyway. That's my thoughts.

Pretty accurate assessment. I would add that Lenovo has been the only manufacturer I have never had a problem with getting clean drivers and install media and belongs near the bottom of the list for bloatware. If I needed another laptop THIS is what I would get:
ThinkPad T410 laptop with Automatic Switchable Graphics
Sale price:$2,104.00

System components

• Intel Core i7-620M Processor (2.66GHz, 4MB L3, 1066MHz FSB)
  
  
• Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64

  

  
• 14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ LED Backlight (WWAN antenna)

  

  

  (1680×1050)​
• NVIDIA NVS 3100m Optimus Graphics 512MB DDR3 with AMT

  

  
• 4 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)

  

  
• UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader

  

  
• Camera, 2.0 MP

  

  
• 128 GB Solid State Drive, Serial ATA

  

  
• DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA)

  

  
• Smart Card

  

  
• 9 cell 2.8Ah Li-Ion Battery - Dual Mode

  

  
• Country Pack North America with Line cord & 90W AC adapter

  

  
• Bluetooth w/ antenna

  

  
• Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000

  

  
• Integrated Mobile Broadband - Upgradable​

Check out the preload options:
View attachment 104940
Only manufacturer you can get a laptop with an i7, an SSD and a GPU that can handle most current games but comes from the factory with nothing on it but the OS for less than $3000.
Also, the best thing you can do with a factory restore partition is wipe it clean and replace it with a system image backup after you reinstall windows 7.. best feature microsoft ever offered IMO

If money were no object.. this is their top end w series for $6K, no bloat included:

System components

Intel Core i7-920XM Processor Extreme Edition (8M Cache, 2.00 GHz)

Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64

17" WUXGA RGB-LED-BL

NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M 128-core CUDA parallel computing processor 1GB (dedicated)

16 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (4 DIMM)

Ultranav + Number Pad + Fingerprint Reader

Camera, 2.0 MP

Internal RAID - Configured by Lenovo

Dual 128GB RAID Enabled Solid State Hard Drives, Serial ATA

Multi Recorder Optical Drive (12.7mm)

Express Card(54mm) + Express Card(34mm)

9 cell Li-Ion Battery

Country Pack North America with DT Line cord & 230W AC adapter

ThinkPad bgn Wireless

 

[Tepid]

I concur and forgot about Lenovo.
They are ones I do recommend and I love working on their Laptops.
They are a breeze to tear down and put back together.
They are the simplest laptops to tear down, next to that would be Dell's.

I often recommend Lenovo to those wh can afford them. They are a bit more pricey, but they are IBM's after all. Which were some of the most solid systems (minus some very minor issues) that have ever been built.
But as always, some models are worse than others. Everyone has a bad line every now and then.

My top 2 recommendations are Lenovo and then Dell.

Can't believe I forgot about them.

 

[snerd]

Just received my new Dell Studio XPS. First thing I want to do is wipe the drive and install Windows 7 clean and fresh. Uh, no Windows 7 disk. I post a note on their support forum, get steered to another web form to request the disk. Get an e-mail from rahjid in India that I can use the system restore image program. I say no, I need Windows 7 disk so I don't just get a factory re-install of all crapware. He senses my getting a little testy, and says he'll make a "one time exception" and send the disk. Thanks rahjid. :sarc:

 

[Tepid]

Just received my new Dell Studio XPS. First thing I want to do is wipe the drive and install Windows 7 clean and fresh. Uh, no Windows 7 disk. I post a note on their support forum, get steered to another web form to request the disk. Get an e-mail from rahjid in India that I can use the system restore image program. I say no, I need Windows 7 disk so I don't just get a factory re-install of all crapware. He senses my getting a little testy, and says he'll make a "one time exception" and send the disk. Thanks rahjid. :sarc:

Yeah,, that is why I stated that I think it depends on where you purchase your system. Just hope that what they do send you is a clean OEM disk.

***********************

dual xeon workstation

If money were no object. I would have something similar.

 

[madtownidiot]

Dell does send relatively clean OS disks when you can get them to give you one. The drivers and bloat come on a 2nd disk, but it is possible (pretty simple actually) to separate the drivers from the bloat, or you can download specific drivers from the dell website. Run the unzip utility and copy the extracted folders to a flash drive or make a custom iso by adding the folder to an image of the install disk. You'll get a slightly better setup if you install is load the chipset, sound and display drivers after booting from the install disk by using the load drivers option and pointing it to the location of the drivers folder(s)

 

[Windows i7 920]

iBuyPower does not put any crapware into their machines. I know this because I have a desktop and a laptop from them which only included the OS, Office Starter, drivers, and a CyberLink DVD Suite.

For that matter, they left it up to me to install the stuff they sent me. This is how I like it and this is why I've been buying from them. They send you what you need for your PC. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

[madtownidiot]

My definition of crapware includes any software with an expiration date, anything with obviously limited or disabled features that will only be available with a purchase.. especially if you are reminded of their limitations at every opportunity, anything that includes advertising, and anything that duplicates a feature already available with windows. Cyberlink and office starter both fit into one or more of those categories.. but good try.

 

[Windows i7 920]

Well, I guess there is "crapware" that I like then because neither of the two have caused any problems and have actually been useful. Also the CyberLink software is not a free trial and does not pop up advertising of a full version in my face (which I hate). I will say though that Office Starter is basically crapware that often costs money. Fortunately, I did not pay for it as iBuyPower had a sale and was giving it away free.

 

[madtownidiot]

Some people like preloaded stuff.. the cyberlink dvd suite doesn't do anything you can't do with WMP 12 and windows movie maker.. but I guess that proves crapware is in the eye of the beholder...