Crap on a New Windows PC

[rkr1958]

When you take a brand-new Windows PC out of the box, it's shiny and scratch-free, but on the PC's hard disk, it's a different story entirely. Most major hardware makers clutter their systems with preinstalled applications, browser toolbars, search settings and utilities -- not to mention self-launching advertisements enticing you to try out even more software.

In essence, they have sold your PC to the highest bidder long before you take it out of the box. Instead of having Windows defaults or your own preferences, the system is set up to maximize the profits of the computer maker and its business partners at the expense of your convenience.

full story at, http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131370-page,1/article.html

[TBoneit]

And this is worse than computer makers that were selling XP systems with 128Mb memory or Vista Systems with 512Mb to make them look cheaper than they really are after you pay retail for the needed memory upgrade.

And what incentive is google offering to have so many software installs bundle its Google toolbar as an opt out option rather than a opt-in option?

I see computers come in with so many toolbars they have over 2 inches of screen lost in IE. Google, MSN, AOL, Yahoo and then the malware search toolbars.... Bah!

[rkr1958]

I build my own PCs. Full control of the O/S and software installed on it is almost as important to me as picking my components. It's so nice to install what I want and not have to worry about removing all the preinstalled crapware.

[TBoneit]

I've always built my own computers (intel based) since I did a dual floppy 8088 PC Clone way back and then added a whopping 20Mb MFM hard disc drive. You know I never did fill that 20 Mb back in the DOS days.

However when I can buy a Dell for less than the same specs build my own.......

One advantage to the Dell if you ordered with the discs...

We do repairs and if I use the Dell XP install disc on a Dell, I never have to activate the XP. Pro or Home version they both pass the WGA check and I don't have to enter the product key from the side of the computer saving me a liitle time and bother.

Myself I use ASUS mobos and prefer Intel CPUs most of the time. I have toyed with a AMD Dual core and it isn't bad.

I just don't think the nForce chipsets are as stable as the intel chipsets.

[oldandinthe way]

These software packages pay cash to get onto your system, thereby allowing the manufacturer to sell the system at a more competitive price, and still make a profit.

Did you ever wonder how anyone could sell a system+monitor+printer for as low as $299 (after rebate) and still make any money? This is how. You couldn't buy an Windows OS, a processor chip and memory for the prices some of these systems sell for - let alone a hard disk DVDwriter, motherboard and case.

Companies like HP/Compaq and eMachines/Gateway do this all the time to offer full featured systems at low prices. The alternative is to skimp on the configurations the way Dell does to meet a price point.

The only people who should be complaining are people who buy a top of the line system at a premium price.

Apple started this crap about preinstalled software because theey still can't get their prices down.

[ranchhand]

I home build, always have. I cannot compete with lower-end, "cheepie" units from manufacturers, it is true. It is also true that I wouldn't want to own one. But when I build upper end, I can beat the underwear cost-wise off manufacturer's compared to their hi-end units. Example: Newegg just dropped the AMD 2.6GHz Dual Core, 1megX2 cache chip to $170 include shipping and no tax. You can go to a 3 GHz chip, same specs, for $230.

[ranchhand]

Might enjoy this link: http://wiki.castlecops.com/Starting_With_A_Clean_Machine

[ahhaa]

the two that really affects basic users are not providing a restore OS disk, and the big one...

trial internet security suites.

I am still encountering people who don't know they need to update/scan, and think just having some expired software is good enough.

Just had one who was advised to uninstall/reinstall Norton. The reinstall failed, so they just left it off...

[stiltman]

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

It used to be Dell decrapifier

[oldandinthe way]

ahhaa

Folks who get an installed Norton or McAfee Internet security package and do not update or scan are hopeless. Both vendors are downright annoying about scans and updates, and especially resubscribing. And this is the default setting on most preinstalled systems. They have to take action to ignore the packages messages.

Ranchhand

I limited my comments to the lowend because at the highend there are far more alternatives to be considered, and none of the variants are likely to be mass volume products. The high end in many big box stores is present to feed the ego of the buyer - and this sort of buyer is likely to be offended if the buyer of a cheaper system got something he didn't. Sure you can meet or beat the value at this level when you build and you can get the system you want. But after having a career where I sold and serviced thousands of PCs, I prefer to have someone else fix my new computer if it breaks. I can still get my kicks working on my older machines.

[MOVIEGEEK]

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

It used to be Dell decrapifier

That's good and so is CCleaner,you can stop programs from running at startup.
I bought a Toshiba notebook last year and the thing was full of crapware.

[ntscuser]

Dunno what you lot are complaining about? I love all that crap that comes pre-installed on a PC. I especially love the way the PC packs up altogether if you don't subscribe to Norton after the initial trail period expires. Best of all is when you've spent three years finally getting rid of all that crap and the recovery partitition reinstalls it all over again along with feature crippled OEM Windows minus all the updates that have been added in the meantime

[buttzilla]

I build my own PCs. Full control of the O/S and software installed on it is almost as important to me as picking my components. It's so nice to install what I want and not have to worry about removing all the preinstalled crapware.

I hear you there. Building you own system will insure you are getting what you want.

[rkr1958]

Best of all is when you've spent three years finally getting rid of all that crap and the recovery partitition reinstalls it all over again along with feature crippled OEM Windows minus all the updates that have been added in the meantime

That's why I image my O/S & application partition at least once a month. Even in the event of a castrophic event, e.g., an harddrive failure, I can restore my system back to the latest image.

I also run RestoreIt and give it 5-GB. This usually provides me with a month or two of restore points. I back up my critical data (e.g., pictures, email) daily using a scheduled (i.e., task scheduler) windows backup script (*.bat). It backs up these files up to two physically different drives.

[buttzilla]

If my c drive craps out or windows crashes it really not that hard to reinstall a fresh install. I just make sure i keep nothing of importance on the c drive. all my data and important stuff goes on the backup drives

[TBoneit]

I just had a customer in last week who kept all his important data on a backup drive (WD External) and, Ta Da, you guessed it! He dropped it and lost all unless he spends big bucks for pro recovery.

[ntscuser]

I just had a customer in last week who kept all his important data on a backup drive (WD External) and, Ta Da, you guessed it! He dropped it and lost all unless he spends big bucks for pro recovery.

Exactly. A backup drive should be for backups and not for main data. Likewise the video files on my PC are all "work in progress" and not permanent archives. I delete them as soon as I'm certain they're no longer needed.

[ahhaa]

It'd be interesting to see some stats on backups; like how many keep their backup right on or near the computer (so it can be destroyed or stolen), how many are using DVDs (and finding the DVD unreadable later) or using the new online backup services...
... of course this'd be a small percent of of those who backup but never have tried to restore it (don Quixote's helmet theory); which is itself a fraction of those who just assume nothing will go wrong go wrong go wrong

[TBoneit]

I'd suspect that the majority of backups in a home are kept by the computer and are done more of a in case the hard drive dies than fire,flood or crooks.

As in many things how to prevent theft, fire and flood. Well if my DVD collection gets flooded it will be the least of my worries and washable too. Fire? How many of us can afford a Safty deposit box big enough to keep everything important safe? Triage is needed to seperate the most important and irreplacable items.

Theft? Make it look unimportant, How many theives will steal family photo albums? TVs, Make it too big, one advantage for RPTVs. Disguise, don't try and hide it. Hide it in plain sight.

I see more data loss since digital cameras became popular. it seems that the "'ll just shoot these Wedding / Bar Mitzvah / First Communion / Baptism / Vacation Pictures and I'll download them to the computer and erase them right away and never back up since hard drives or computers never die" mentality exists. Or the darn thing died right before I got around to backing up, or I got tired of backing up every week and got lazy.

We used to take the 8th tape from a rotating backup set for one of our corporate customers and store it in our safe every week as their off site backup. That works for me. Use enough tapes so that this weeks Monday is next weeks Tuesday and store the newest one off site just in case.

[Nelson37]

That rotation deal is popular, safety deposit or an employee takes offsite. Standardized storage medium is next, I have really grown to dislike tape over the years.

MULTIPLE copies is the key to data security, multiple locations is even better. Flood is actually quite likely in my area.

Saddest backup case I ever had was a company backing up all their accounting data to floppies. Religiously, 14 disks, every day, fridays set taken home, monthly set rotated out. Only problem was, about two years ago they had changed from Quickbooks to Peachtree, and apparently no one had changed the backup settings. First time I saw it was when the hard drive blew.

They were a wholesale fruit and vegetable shipper, with no or very few paper copies, and deadlines and schedules measured in hours, not days. The company closed their doors the next day. The look on that woman's face as the disks were running out and I'm watching all these Quickbooks files go by and asking "Are you SURE you use Peachtree? Not Quickbooks?" "Yes, Peachtree, Quickbooks was a while ago, why do you ask?" "Any other backup sets?" Went thru three of them, including the month-old one, just in case. Nada.

[ntscuser]

Saddest backup case I ever had was a company backing up all their accounting data to floppies. Religiously, 14 disks, every day, fridays set taken home, monthly set rotated out. Only problem was, about two years ago they had changed from Quickbooks to Peachtree, and apparently no one had changed the backup settings. First time I saw it was when the hard drive blew.

We've all done it at some time or another, thought we were making foolproof backups which turned out to be completely useless

[sg2007]

One of the first things I do when I get a new computer is start deleting those "buy me, buy me" icons. Then go to add/remove programs. Disable startup items etc.

[sammie]

Feel everyone's pain. Have usually rolled my own 'puters, but broke down and bought one the other day. Was just too cheap to pass up and I needed a new one for the "family box". I'm not sure how much we should name names, but it's the one with the cow-skin box.

It was so loaded with crap it was unreal. There is stuff embedded in the start menu's in some way that even though I've deleted the programs, erased the folders and searched the registry, deleted it from the start menu, it keeps re-appearing each time I start the computer!!!! Un flipping believable.

They also put some customer service pice of crap software on there that created a VPN back to their tech support. Annoying to begin with because who the heck knows who is snooping for what over that or how vulnerable it is. BUT!!!! worse yet it picks up an IP and forces the computer to that IP address! In other words, I can't see any of my local network, and can't even directly address anything on the network that I've limited to a narrow range of addresses. I did finally ferret that one out and kill it.

The worst part is that the computer doesn't come with any useable disks. There is just an ISO file on a separate partition that you can use to burn a restore disk. But the restore disk doesn't allow configuring or installing specific features. It's just an image file that restores the computer back to how it was out of the box. Junk and all.

Spent hours on the phone with tech support trying to figure out how could I do a clean install with just the OS and drivers. Played up the "I'm in a sensitive business, we might buy a lot more computers, but we can't have all this unknown crap on them" line which usually gets me to someone pretty fast who tells you how to do a clean install. No dice. All they would offer was to sell me a Windows disk at full MFSR price and point me to where drivers could be found at their website.

I understand they make a lot of money from the ad-ware, but they should really at least offer some reasonable way of cleaning it up. This one actively prevented you from removing things.

[TBoneit]

Saddest backup case I ever had was a company backing up all their accounting data to floppies. Religiously, 14 disks, every day, fridays set taken home, monthly set rotated out. Only problem was, about two years ago they had changed from Quickbooks to Peachtree, and apparently no one had changed the backup settings. First time I saw it was when the hard drive blew.

We've all done it at some time or another, thought we were making foolproof backups which turned out to be completely useless

Way back when the local, long since closed video rental store used floppies to backup. I was there one day when the girl was doing it.

She was having trouble doing the backup. In conversation I found out they only had the one backup set and overwrote it each day with the new backup. Formula for trouble. I tried education her why it was a bad idea, I don't know if it ever soaked in though.

[TBoneit]

Well the HP restore partition does work. Why HP feels the need to have their disc creation software only allow one set of discs is beyond me.

My maain gripe with any restore partition or the ISO such as was described above is that they advertise the computer with a 200Gb drive even if they use some of the disc space I just paid for becsuse they are to cheap to spend a few cents per disc to include restore discs.

[ntscuser]

Well the HP restore partition does work. Why HP feels the need to have their disc creation software only allow one set of discs is beyond me.

I think it may be a licensing restriction by Microsoft?

My main gripe with any restore partition or the ISO such as was described above is that they advertise the computer with a 200Gb drive even if they use some of the disc space I just paid for becsuse they are to cheap to spend a few cents per disc to include restore discs.

It was mentioned in another thread that the average customer hasn't a clue how to use a restore disc.

[TBoneit]

And it is obvious how to use the restore partition? I suspect it results in a call to customer support before they even know they have one. How many disc creation reminders have I seen on over a year computers? Lots, never been run by the owner.

If they made an obvious selection to run the restore function, how many would do it just to see what it does? At least HP has a swsetup directory that has a automated restore drivers and apps function. Or they can be done one by one manually from that dir.

[ViRaL1]

The funny thing about the restore partition is that half of the users ignore the prompts to make restore CDs until their drive is toast. BTW, you can always use the same drive that you made your initial restore discs with to make additional copies. The ones I've seen DO tell you at the end of the restore disc creation process that you cannot make another set, but nothing prevents you from backing up your backups. I haven't ever come across any restore CDs that wouldn't allow themselves to be copied using Nero et al. Again, the downside is the people who ignore the messages to create the discs probably also ignore the part about it being a one-shot deal.

As far as why companies put all the extra crap, it's the same reason magazines are full of ads. Hardly anyone buys a computer for the advertisements (shoppers guides excepted). It's their way of subsidizing something to sell at just above or possibly below cost without really taking a loss.

I build my own systems because I usually have specific needs and wants for my own system, but at the $299 price point it's practically impossible to compete on one-offs. If we're talking large orders, I have some wiggle room. For those who choose that route, more power to them. I can make it up on the service end somewhere down the road.

[ntscuser]

The funny thing about the restore partition is that half of the users ignore the prompts to make restore CDs until their drive is toast.

That wasn't even an option with my particular H-P. I at least had the sense to purchase a set of restore CD's before the PC crashed. My only niggle was that the company insisted on supplying the files on a set of seven CD's when the PC had quite obviously been pre-loaded from a DVD. The restore partition was 4.7GB which is too much of a coincidence. If any one of the seven CD's refuses to load properly I have to repeat the process all over again, which takes 50 mins. Even that is nothing compared to the time it takes to update Windows XP and drivers from the version supplied when the PC was first sold.

[ViRaL1]

I never understood that about the big brands. What good does a restore partition do me if my drive dies? I need installable media (and preferrably not the least common denominator).

Unless there's some pre-installed app you can't live without (or download freely and legally), I generally opt for a clean OEM install with at the very least the latest SP.

I'll be interested to see if anyone starts bundling or sending 'Restore Flash Drives' with flash drive prices coming down. Just Plug, Boot, Voila!