Can Microsoft cure PC makers of the crapware habit?

PC's are cheaper because of the bloatware as these bloatware vendors have contracts with the mfgs to include this stuff.

If I were to buy a premade PC, I would simply uninstall the crap that I didn't want. Run Windows update. Then image the box. The image would be my restore point at any time in the future.

Personally, I usually just opt for building the system myself, buying a retail copy of Windows and just doing the install myself. I pay a little more...but like many of you have said, paying a bit more money is simply worth it to me.

Dave76 said:

JMH said:

Nice article.
Thanks Dave.

Must admit it has driven me bonkers having to get rid of the unwanted bloatware / stuff from the {seven} new HP laptops purchased over the last ten years.
Would be prepared to pay more for less anytime!

Having to do a Clean install on a brand new Lappy really sucks!

You're welcome.

I use to just delete it, but then at some point decided to just clean installed.
All my OEMs are running clean installs now.

Now you probably think I am a bit dumb Dave but a clean install off an OEM? Surely the bloat is still there from manufacture or am I missing something here. There is also the bloat on the boards too I have had - two Gigabyte boards to date and both have Norton and other unreasonable and in my book unnecessary bloat and I just cannot tell what is bloat - I just wish there was a "bloat chart" for us dummies to check off against.

The decrapifier I did try but it only came up with apps I need and have put on myself.

It depends on how much value you assign to your own time and effort.

My friend just bought an ACER laptop for his job (the boss is going to reimburse him).
He needs a Windows PC for some programming software (turns out it won't run on Windows 7 or on an XP VM).
He uses Arch Linux.
I helped him so he wouldn't "blow a gasket" battling with W7 (and he helps me with my Ubuntu problems, even though he hates Ubuntu).

We spent several hours trying to remove the crapware and security hazards (Adobe).
The worst part was trying to figure out what each program did and if removing it would "brick" the machine.

Even after removing stacks of garbage, his machine still has 85 processes running at start up!
My desktop has 35 + 5 for stuff I want running (VirtuaWin, Virtual CloneDrive & Process Explorer).

I'm not sure what he gets paid, but if we assume a combined cost of $80 per hour (for both of us) we probably wasted about $500 worth of our time, "fixing" the machine (imaging, deleting, installing, etc.).

If it had come with a W7 disc, we could have had the entire job done (imaging, installing & tweaking) in 2 hours.

ICit2lol said:

Dave76 said:

JMH said:

Nice article.
Thanks Dave.

Must admit it has driven me bonkers having to get rid of the unwanted bloatware / stuff from the {seven} new HP laptops purchased over the last ten years.
Would be prepared to pay more for less anytime!

Having to do a Clean install on a brand new Lappy really sucks!

You're welcome.

I use to just delete it, but then at some point decided to just clean installed.
All my OEMs are running clean installs now.

Now you probably think I am a bit dumb Dave but a clean install off an OEM? Surely the bloat is still there from manufacture or am I missing something here. There is also the bloat on the boards too I have had - two Gigabyte boards to date and both have Norton and other unreasonable and in my book unnecessary bloat and I just cannot tell what is bloat - I just wish there was a "bloat chart" for us dummies to check off against.

The decrapifier I did try but it only came up with apps I need and have put on myself.

Some OEM re-installation disks don't have any added crapware.
When I installed the 64bit OS from a Dell DVD, on my Dell laptop, it was completely clean.
They very considerately have a separate DVD with the crapware, just in case you want it

On a custom rig, just don't use the CD that comes with the motherboard, the drivers are usually old anyway, I always D/L the drivers from their website before the first bootup.

I have built and bought 4 Dell pc's online and the only thing they force on you is what ever AV they are pushing at the time. That is easily fixed just after I register the pc and set it up, by immediately uninstalling the AV. Other than that there is no real crap installed unless you bought it when you were ordering the pc. :)

Corazon said:

There are those who might consider Windows itself bloatware...

And they're usually the same people who think it's 'witty' to regurgitate tired and largely un-original statements.



The only thing worse than cleaning crapware from a new PC is cleaning crapware from an old installation that's had so much stuff installed/un-installed over time to the point even the owner doesn't know what's what, yet won't allow you to reformat and start from scratch 'because'....