New windows 7 pcs

[Capella]

We all know how windows vista had so much crapware that running it was quite a shame. What I want to know is, how much trialware does windows 7 pcs usually include? similar amounts?
Also, are the number of crapware different for customized ones from the website versus computers you buy from retail?

(Im asking this because I just bought a dell i5 computer and it came with ZERO crapware. All it had were, roxio, dell dock, and mcaffee, and perhaps, a dvd application. There weren't trial games, NOT EVEN A SINGLE ICON ON THE SCREEN. Notification area had three icons. Is this normal for a windows 7 new computer)

 

[pparks1]

You don't get the "crapware" trialware when you install from the cd direct from Microsoft. You get that added stuff when you purchase a prebuilt computer from a manufacturer. The amount of stuff depends upon the manufacturer really. Usually the manufacturers get a kickback from the software vendors when they install their stuff....so it's often put on there to help lower the cost of the computer.

 

[Capella]

Yeah, I knew that you don't get the added stuff from a custom installation. Im just asking anyone who has bought a windows 7 preinstalled machine, how much crapware do they have. Im also asking if there's any difference when you customize a machine (like from dell) rather than buy a machine at a store (like ebay) and whether the customized machine will always have less crapware.

 

[pparks1]

There is no telling how much crapware you are going to have on any machine. Regardless if I build or buy...my machines end up crapware free as I always format and reinstall the operating system. 99.9% of that stuff is just garbage and I likely have a free alternative which is smaller and easier on system resources that I am already familiar with.

 

[madtownidiot]

The level of factory installed bloatware and trialware hasn't changed. I recently bought a Lenovo Y550, which came with Win7 Home premium, for my daughter. On the first startup there were 92 running processes including the Symantec infection.

 

[Capella]

im....disappointed......
thanks for responding madtownidiot

 

[madtownidiot]

That's just part of the industry. Software companies pay big money to get contracts to have trialware included with new PCs because a large portion of their business comes from people who choose to upgrade the trial to a permanent license. Unfortunately, a lot of the trialware is for lower quality applications. I've chosen to accept that part of buying a new computer includes erasing the HDD and starting with a fresh copy of windows and drivers.. then building from there.

 

[Zepher]

The more crapware pre-installed on the machine makes the machine cheaper to buy, as those companies subsidize the cost of the computer.

 

[noobvious]

The level of factory installed bloatware and trialware hasn't changed. I recently bought a Lenovo Y550, which came with Win7 Home premium, for my daughter. On the first startup there were 92 running processes including the Symantec infection.

92?? :shock:
Holy crap that's a lot of shiznit.

 

[madtownidiot]

92.. kind of ridiculous ain't it.. I wiped the HDD, reinstalled windows and the drivers it needed to run, office 07 home and student, MSE, and malwarebytes, freeing up 55 Gb of space on the HDD and reducing the number of processes to 44. Turned a slower than average laptop into something that would make people who are still stuck with vista or xp jealous.

 

[Fantail]

Gotta love the HP laptop restore disks - factory image & "crapware".:devil:

 

[madtownidiot]

Gotta love the HP laptop restore disks - factory image & "crapware".:devil:

Oh yeah. I'm really familiar with those. It was no wonder HPs used to overheat. HPQWMIEX.exe caused a lot of problems in my old HP laptop running xp. Totally unnecessary process that would at times use 100% of the cpu for several minutes at a time. Only good thing about HP (and dell for that matter) is that any restore disk would reinstall a good copy of windows on any HP without the need for a key code.

 

[pparks1]

Hmmm...my wife has an HP (I don't know the model). It came with Vista and I recall deleting about 1/2 dozen things that were there from the factory, but I didn't think it was too bad at all. Performance has always been satisfactory on the machine based on the cost. I guess they (HP) certainly do treat certain models differently.

 

[madtownidiot]

HPs have been steadily improving over the past few years. The laptop to which I was referring was an HP pavilion circa ~2004 with a Celeron processor, 256 MB RAM, and a 40 GB HDD. It would've choked on vista. Ironically, if I still had it today, and maxed out the memory, it would probably run 32 bit windows 7 with no real problems.

 

[MilesAhead]

If you are going to reinstall from a retail disc then it doesn't matter anyway, but if you are going to use the preinstalled OS then I'm a firm believer in waiting until it comes with at least Service Pack 1 integrated. I bought a 32 bit Vista HP PC before SP1. What a nightmare!! I spent hours and hours over months tweaking it and finding out which services to set to Manual, which to disable.. along with drive indexing and a whole bunch of other crap.

I bought another PC, an HP with Vista64 SP1. I took out a printout I made of my services tweaks on the 1st machine. Other than about 4 items, the defaults were the same as my tweaks. Saved all that aggravation. Then it was only removing the crapware and turning off stuff I didn't want like search indexing, shadow cache of network drives etc.. Much more stable, the shell copy worked correctly. I love this 64 bit machine!! A world of difference.

edit: btw my 64 bit PC is HP Pavilion m9515y. I used DeCrapifier freeware. Worked pretty well. The only fly in the ointment was I fogot to download the Norton removal tool to get all the Norton stuff out of the system. My reboots took over 2 minutes because the system was trying to load drivers no longer there. I had to run the removal tool a couple of times, but that cleaned it up quite a bit. That was over 6 months ago. Maybe PC decrapifier has been improved since then. Only thing I'd say is google and make a list of stuff that require separate removal tool downloads and have everything ready before you start.

 

[madtownidiot]

I know there's a way to integrate service packs and drivers into a custom install disk because I've seen the difference between a retail xp disk and a dell or HP oem copy of xp. Wish I were skilled enough to do it myself.

 

[pparks1]

I know there's a way to integrate service packs and drivers into a custom install disk because I've seen the difference between a retail xp disk and a dell or HP oem copy of xp. Wish I were skilled enough to do it myself.

It's actually pretty easy. Just do a google search for slipstreaming a service pack into the installer CD. You can also use tools like Nlite to incorporate not only service packs, but Windows hotfixes as well. Seriously, it's not all that hard.

 

[MilesAhead]

I know there's a way to integrate service packs and drivers into a custom install disk because I've seen the difference between a retail xp disk and a dell or HP oem copy of xp. Wish I were skilled enough to do it myself.

XP was a different animal. Many preloaded PCs had all the files you needed right on the HD. With Vista and later you need the install disc. If I'm going to buy the OS install disc I might as well get one with the SP integrated. Why spend money just to do the work for those guys I'm paying? Let them put it together! When I go to the shoe store I don't want to have to sew the soles on myself.

 

[madtownidiot]

XP was a different animal. Many preloaded PCs had all the files you needed right on the HD. With Vista and later you need the install disc. If I'm going to buy the OS install disc I might as well get one with the SP integrated. Why spend money just to do the work for those guys I'm paying? Let them put it together! When I go to the shoe store I don't want to have to sew the soles on myself.

Good point. A large portion of my income is derived from buying and rebuilding broken laptops and pcs (and macs on occasion), most of which have no restore disk available, so I have to improvise. I don't have any formal training or education, just learning as I go.