Microsoft slams OEM crapware

[NoN]

Also, keep in mind that many of those things on the Sony are 3rd party drivers and utilities for the hardware that is installed on the computer. I just choose to use the Windows 7 drivers as long as they work...but it's possible the 3rd party ones might give slightly more performance.

That's exactly the point of manufacturers and their brands, installing their own bloatwares and 3rd party drivers for the machine running smooth.

"but it's possible the 3rd party ones might give slightly more performance"
Sad to hear but it is damn true!

So you'll have to choose which are staying and those needing being pulled out.

Lucky confusing situation for those asking questions on how to uninstall ALL THAT CRAP & BLOAT!!!!

Those aware could better advise them, now!

I used Compaq, Hp, Acer and all are built the same manner, hard to use only the MS drivers on any of kind of OS to keep it stable for a long time.
At least, a quater of their Crapwares/Bloatwares are needed.

 

[si8mon]

Their marketing strategy is"if they can't spend at least $2000.. f@^% em."

LOL, but it is the sad truth.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Third party drivers etc are OK -- It's all the TRIAL and BLOATWARE that usually gets installed on OEM supplied machines too that I think Microsoft was objecting to.

I recently bought a decent Netbook in PC World ( OK a crap store but I needed the machine IMMEDIATELY) which had W7 Starter edition on it -- but it was FULL of "Trial Ware" such as Ebay / facebook and so much Utter junk I can understand MS's annoyance.

I re formatted the disk and installed W7 Pro -- a much better option even for a netbook.

If the EU made sure that anybody who buys a PC had a RIGHT to a "Bog standard" INSTALL OS disk whether a DVD or a USB stick rather than waste their time on worrying about giving users the right to choose which browser to install we might get somewhere.

I still think it should be ILLEGAL to sell a computer with a pre-installed OS WITHOUT including a bootable media containing the OS.

These hidden partitions also reduce the amount of available disk space and also if you DO use them they just re-load all the trial and crapware that was on the machine when you got it from the store.

MS is 100% correct on this one -- it's been a LONG time since I've said that BTW.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[madtownidiot]

There are quite a few factory driver downloads from that include crapware...some Dell and HP wireless drivers don't come without the WLAN utility or "wireless assistant" for example.. at least some of them can be separated from the bloat prior to installing by using 7zip to extract only the driver.. using the same method that I use to install Itunes without bonjour and the other bloat it contains. But that only works when for downloads that come in MSI form

 

[Win7User512]

Funny how they can slam it yet allow it to be put on there. They could have OEM manufacturers leave that out if they want to sell Windows.

 

[SledgeDG]

If 7z doesn't work, I would give UNIExtract a try (esp. for those nasty Inno Setup.exe and similar others). Granted it doesn't unpack them all but sure a good portion more than 7z alone.
HERE is a list of supported formats.

-DG

 

[mickey megabyte]

nvm

 

[madtownidiot]

I've checked out uniextract.. in combination with exetomsi converter, it works pretty well for repackaging some installers without the ask toolbar and other crap that most freeware downloads include

 

[SledgeDG]

I use that puppy for several years now and it unpacked quite a few installers for me. Only thing: uniextract has the bad habit of taking over all involved formats during installation if you don't pay attention

-DG

 

[LiquidSnak]

Funny how they can slam it yet allow it to be put on there. They could have OEM manufacturers leave that out if they want to sell Windows.

But then they would have to offer OEM support!

 

[bobtran]

And it only took how many years to get here?

 

[madtownidiot]

Microsoft really has no say in what the manufacturers install on their products, and that is the way it should remain.. They contribute to the problem by insisting the 30 day office trial is installed on virtually every new computer. If they really wanted to do something about it, they would make the windows home versions free to anyone who asks.. or start telling manufacturers to either include an unaltered windows install disk with every computer or lose their OEM volume license

 

[Win7User512]

Microsoft really has no say in what the manufacturers install on their products, and that is the way it should remain.. They contribute to the problem by insisting the 30 day office trial is installed on virtually every new computer. If they really wanted to do something about it, they would make the windows home versions free to anyone who asks.. or start telling manufacturers to either include an unaltered windows install disk with every computer or lose their OEM volume license

Currently they probably don't have any say. But they could in new contracts with OEMs demand they not install this stuff.

I doubt they will though.

 

[Tepid]

I don't know. If these OEM's want to sell and make some money off Windows, which they do.
And MS says, you can install that stuff, but the discounts we give you for the OS are not going to be as good.
In other words, if the OEM pays $25 per OS and license now, MS could say, "fine, want to install that garbage? The OS now costs you $100. Get rid of it and we will give you a better discount."

They could do that. And no, Linux would still not gain any traction in the long run over Windows, if they did try to do an end run around by installing a Free Linux Flavor. End users would not know what the hell to do.

 

[chev65]

I agree Tepid, hit them where it hurts most. If Msoft is serious about this complaint they should do something about it rather than just complaining.

I really think all this bloatware is making an otherwise fast Op system feel like a slow Op system and it's hurting Msoft's bottom line and reputation. The problem here is that even if you told people what the problem was for some reason they are either afraid to uninstall the bloatware or just don't know the difference between bloatware and useful programs.

 

[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.

 

[LiquidSnak]

My seven hovers just under a GB when I'm messing around using it for it's basic functions. They list the lower RAM requirements so that Microsoft can sell as many copies as they can. They are a business, and while that may not be great, it's making them money.

 

[Tepid]

Hey I have no problem with people making money. My problem is, selling garbage when you know you are selling garbage. It's unethical. And the more people allow it and let it go, the more garbage we get.

Sell quality at a decent price not quantity as a cheap price. But then, that is up to consumers as to what they are willing to pay for. So............... this is what we get.

We only have ourselves to blame.

Which is partly why nothing is made here anymore, that and unions.

 

[LiquidSnak]

Definitely why I am glad that MS is raging about it

 

[jimbo45]

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