“Yesterday my desktop died, and so I went ahead and got a brand new Windows 8 laptop. It’s always been my feeling that as years go on, user experience has been going down for people who use a computer and the Internet, because of decisions all companies make that are clearly anti-user, either because they think they know best, or in many cases, for financial gains. But from spending all night reinstalling everything and customizing the laptop, I realized just how bad it has become.” Probably the biggest reason to go Mac or Linux. Such a shame Microsoft found it more important to pressure OEMs into silly Secure Boot nonsense instead of doing something about the anti-user crapware disaster. Goes to show who Microsoft cares about. Hint: it ain’t you.
Ubuntu is going the same way by showing search results from Amazon in the dash. Yes, they added a last-minute option to disable it, but the point that the OS should’t be full of crapware out of the box is still valid.
The problem is that as long as OEMs exist, this scenario is not going away.
– ZX Spectrum bundles
– Comodore 64 bundles
– Atari ST bundles
– Amiga bundles
– MS-DOS bundles
– Windows bundles
– Symbian operator customizations
– Android operator and OEM customizations
– Linux netbook distributions (e.g. Linpus, Express Gate)
– …
Sorry, but right up to the Amiga *NONE* of the bundled software was installed into your computer and running in the background whether you wanted it or not.
It only was when bundles came installed in the OS itself did users run into problems.
Go further back if you want to talk about bundles, many CPM systems came with them, but as far as I know on microcomputers you did not get this software forced onto you in such a manner that you had problems disabling the installed bundles until Windows came along.
And even then the early Windows bundles were easy to remove and did not add all sort of hidden code to your booting system.
Edited 2012-11-11 16:57 UTC
Yeah, providing software (that was useful) in a bundle with the old systems is completely different than pre-installed crapware that is installed with Modern systems.
Bit of a difference when you include Dungeon Master for the Atari ST in a “Gaming bundle” than installing a billion toolbars in Windows.
When talking about ‘bundles’ how about Java now offering to install McAfee? Or Cnet bundling various crap ware in GPL’d software?
Hardly needs to be mentioned that the same was obviously true for the Spectrum and C64 bundles.
Except for the cases of some Spectrum compatible computers which had some games available in ROM.
My point is that OEMs having been doing this since the early days.
The reason why they weren’t so extreme as nowadays is because in most of those systems they weren’t allowed to change the built-in ROMs were the operating system was loaded from.
Exactly. So the bundled software was something the user had to “opt in” to use, i.e. put the disk or tape into its drive and load it onto the computer. Totally different thing to stuff being installed as if it were a part of the computer.
The Commodore Plus/4 actually came installed with not-so-good software, 4 of them (hence the name).
“Unfortunately, the application suite, featuring a word processor, spreadsheet, database, and graphing, was completely inadequate for the Plus/4’s originally intended market of business and professional users.”
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Plus/4
Oh yeah, Ubuntu is definitely getting there.
Just run Kubuntu instead. Doing this kills two birds with one stone – it avoids the “results from Amazon in the dash” problem and delivers a better desktop as a bonus.
Can there be a comment where you don’t mention KDE and/or Linux?
None of the things the author here is complaining about are any new, the pre-installed crap and all have been there already since Windows ’95 – days. It isn’t something has just happened recently, yet the author acts like he’s totally surprised. Secondly, complaining about the Smartscreen filter is, well, somewhat short-sighted: it doesn’t exist to protect experienced users from themselves, it exists to protect the exact opposite kind of users. Experienced users are expected to take the few extra steps needed to disable it. Personally I find the current approach better than not having such, even if it might annoy us geeks.
And well, if he insists on installing Adobe Reader or QuickTime then it’s all his own fault; there’s plenty of good, free alternatives to both. These things have been pushing for such crap for YEARS now, so there’s no good reason to act surprised all of a sudden.
Now, that said I agree in general: there are lots of software packages that try to bundle this or that with them, with some packages even going so far as to installing spying background tasks without ever mentioning it to the user at all. IMHO there should be some sort of a law against such, the applications should offer the chance for user to install such bundles, but that would need to be a conscious decision on the user’s part instead of the default action in the installer.
Similarly, one thing I already proposed years ago is that PC-manufacturers should stop pre-installing all that stuff and instead on the first boot show the user a list of various current deals — this would allow the manufacturer to keep their deals up-to-date at all times, and it would allow the users to easily skip all of them or only install the interesting ones. In general it would be a win-win.
EDIT:
Thom, you know that’s a silly, ignorant tangent. Microsoft is actually pushing for OEMs to NOT pre-install all this stuff. Blaming Microsoft for all this crap is disingenious and shows a clear, negative bias.
Edited 2012-11-11 16:37 UTC
Yeah, *sounds* like the question of “stock” Android vs. Sense all over again; however there are differences.. it’s more like AT&T bloatware.
But either way, we must wonder what a pure (Surface?) MS product would be.
Actually, there are a few slight differences, which I think is why so many people are raising a fuss.
First of all, the ads coming with those bundles were usually for products of the same firm, or associates.
Second, they were localized incidents, if you don’t like some bundle, you can just uninstall it and forget about it, now, it’s a whole system integrated in the OS.
It’s not going away, and everyone who ever watched TV or listened radio in their lives, know this is just the beginning.
For me, the computer and software are just tools, I need them to work, work right and with no headaches. This … is like having a hammer that sings “buy head’n’shoulders” (or viagra depending on your searches
) everytime you hit a nail, irritating as hell, but functional.
People who tend to anthropomorphize their computer will feel betrayed hahaha
Edited 2012-11-11 19:02 UTC
Remove….the….app.
There, no advertising in the OS.
+1
Why this blog post made it here dunno.
The reason why such blog pots are linked here is simple – because it is to re-enforce Thom’s own bias. Don’t get me wrong, we all have bias but it would be nice for said individual to evenly link to different articles rather than the same “Windows bad, Mac good unless it is iOS which makes Apple evil”.
Before someone says, “well, what have you done to improve the situation” – I wrote a two part review of moving from my iMac/MacBook Pro to ThinkPad/ThinkCentre with Windows 8 Pro 64bit – the link was submitted to Thom via the ‘Submit News’ almost 2 days ago and still no show. I guess one can only conclude that stirring up shit is a lot more interesting than linking to articles that contain more content than the afore mentioned article as noted in the link Thom provided.
Edited 2012-11-12 01:51 UTC
Come on. Beside all those news whats great about Windows 8 its freshing to also see at least some portals dealing also with the downsides. The pre-installed crapware is one and lots of us have to go through the steps described by the articles author if we like to remove/disable that crap.
The author himself wrote that this is not a pure Microsoft problem but that it is its upstream-channels, the OEMs, that make the experience more worse. Something really not needed and Microsoft COULD prevent that if they see it as important. Right now they don’t. Articles like that may help to improve the situation in the future. See this article as bugreport, as customer feedback, as wish list. Hopefully then you realise that complaining about one aspect does not mean you have an anti-agenda against something. Its just that, pointing out problems that exist just like lots of the news point out good things that exist. This, my dear friend, is a balanced view on things. This is the golden middle between fanboy and hatter.
Edited 2012-11-12 05:01 UTC
You’re not seeing the whole picture; it’s not that they don’t see it as being important, it’s that it would be poor business, and also it would limit OEMs’ ability to offering customized setups. If Microsoft went ahead and denied the OEMs the ability to pre-install stuff on the systems the prices would shoot up considerably, resulting in obvious end-user dissatisfaction, but it would also force the OEMs to look for other operating systems in order for them to retain profitability and the ability to offer a brand-specific installation.
Such a move would generate a lot of negative PR towards Microsoft both from end-users and from OEMs in various ways, like e.g. the aforementioned increase in prices, with OEMs trying various kinds of customized Linux-installation resulting in even more animosity from users — you know, even when Microsoft is not directly responsible for something people still have the tendency of blaming them for things just simply because Microsoft exists somewhere in the line. Just check the comments here on OSNews! — and so on. Also, as the general populace tends to see things only in the short-term — think of the term “instant gratification” — such a move would in general be a bad move all around.
Microsoft does actually recommend for OEMs not to install all this crap on their PCs, and as you should be aware of, Microsoft does offer a service in Microsoft Stores that removes all this crapware from the PCs while still ensuring that all the functionality is there. Their service also checks the system for any possible mis-configurations, installs updates and so on.
And you are totally missing the point in this whole argument. Why in hell should be have to pay extra at the Microsoft store to get crap removed that shouldn’t have ever been on the computer to begin with!!!! And the other point the OP was trying to make is in all the intervening years the situation of crapware instead of getting better for the consumer is actually becoming so intrusive as to be unmanageable for the GENERAL consumer.
You sound like a shill for the OEM’s-“Well, if they don’t craptize your computer it will more expensive”. Well sister if the OEM’s can’t make a profit off of their glorious hardware alone maybe they should go bankrupt because they are hurting their own customers at the cost of profit.
Go back and read what I said. I clearly said several times that the situation shouldn’t be like this. But you’re still barking up the wrong tree.
Pull that stick out of your arsehole before it enters all the way into your brains and learn to read, like e.g. in the very first comment of this whole thread I already said “Similarly, one thing I already proposed years ago is that PC-manufacturers should stop pre-installing all that stuff” — you quite clearly completely missed that.
“Pull that stick out of your arsehole before it enters all the way into your brains and learn to read”
Nice reply, very adult. Now I know why I don’t post on this forum very much. And for your info my reading comp exceeds yours by lightyears. I was trying to make a point and I will leave it there.
You failed miserably.
Thanks.
I’m not sure you understand economics. The crapware vendors pay the PC vendors to pre-install all that crap. The highly competitive PC market then causes the crapware-infested PC vendors to lower their prices below a sustainable level for the non-crapware PC vendors. In short, crapware PCs are cheaper.
And the public chooses the cheaper PCs in droves, driving most of the companies selling the quality PCs from the market.
When a selection of Ubuntu PCs were shipping from major vendors during the Vista debacle, I saw lots of complaints that pre-installing a no-cost OS actually drove the cost of the PC up. To this day, I don’t think many of the complainers understood that the vendor cost of using Windows is negative, because the crapware payments more than cover the “Microsoft Tax”.
My long-time barber has a sign in his shop: “They pain of a bad haircut will last far longer than the joy of a lower price.” Works for PCs, too.
Support crap-free PCs with your dollars – Linux, Apple or even clean whitebox Windows produced locally – or else suck it up. You get what you pay for.
Computer OEM’s stuff their computers full of crapware because OEM’s decided to enter into a race to the bottom thus they’re at the moment where they’re looking left, right and centre for something to recover their margins hence we have crapware enter the scene. Add to that dumb decisions such as ‘share buy backs’ to boost short term share price rather than buying out large amounts of capacity from suppliers as Apple has done which has enabled them to reduce their input costs. I find it both funny and pathetic at the same time we have the same people wailing and gnashing their teeth looking for someone to blame when in reality the likes of HP and Dell have dug their own grave.
Regarding crapware itself and what Microsoft has done to reduce/remove it – anyone who has any time on their schedule is more than welcome to watch the many, many, MANY videos that Microsoft have uploaded from their various developer sessions that focus on fit and finish. If developers in these said organisations want to ignore all the advice than they’re most welcome – heck there are developers in various quarters who are completely useless when it comes to keeping abreast of the latest information Microsoft puts out. The IT industry has a whole has far too many losers and lazy individuals who think that once they get a job they can sit on their fat chuff and do nothing. As for Microsoft doing something directly via some licensing – we all know what happened in the past in regards to Microsoft and the DOJ so why even bring up the issue since you know full well what the results actually are.
Can they? Didn’t MS get sued for trying to dictate what OEMs could/could not preload onto the PCs?
I don’t know Thom’s reasons for not linking to your reviews, but I did just check them out. I do not wish to make you feel bad or anything, but from a journalistic standpoint you’re not really reviewing anything there, it reads more like a “How I spent my day” – kind of a thing. I mean, you’re installing a custom software package on the systems so you’re not really reviewing the systems as they come from the manufacturers, and you’re not really reviewing the things from a hardware point of view, either. It comes off as if you didn’t really have a well-defined goal in mind with what you were writing about, and you had no specific idea of what it is that you wish to convey to the readers.
I may come off as a dick right now, but that is not my meaning and I do not wish to offend you. I’m not a professional journalist myself, either, and I have no literature – related credentials of any sort to back up my opinions or feelings, so pay attention to what I say only as much as you feel like. That said, your reviews weren’t unpleasant to read, per se, but maybe next time define for yourself more clearly what it actually is you wish to say?
PS. Doesn’t your back start to ache after sitting for several hours on such a chair? It looks like it’d be very comfortable to watch movies in or read something, but for doing something on a computer you have to lean forward all the time while the cushioning itself is pulling you back.
I don’t know what you read but the review was over two parts (Part 1: http://kawaiigardiner.com/2012/11/07/product-review-lenovo-thinkcen… link to Part 2 at the bottom) and I clearly state the scope of the review in the section called ‘Background’. If it isn’t ‘up to standard’ then great but how about not linking to crappy articles rehashing the same crappy arguments as the linked article has done. btw, my criticism of the article in more depth I did has a reply to another person in this thread.
Regarding the seat, it is very comfortable
Nita nails it again…and I’m no apologist for Microsoft, its products or the kinds of ‘relationships‘ its cultured with its partners and OEMs.
But this happens to the best of Writers; their tired, something annoys them, there’s a ridiculous ‘personal enrichment experience‘ in getting from A to B and it ends up being a story.
This story however as the WereCatf points out not only isn’t new it’s business as usual… More then anything I’m surprise that Thom seems surprised.
Well, to be precise, the blog post wasn’t written by Thom Holwerda. Thom only latched onto it to get a few cheap shots at Microsoft specifically, whereas the blog post itself is talking about a much broader thing.
While I am somewhat in line with Thom’s overall sentiment towards Microsoft, I have to say I agree with you here. Sorry Thom, but you are really reaching.
For my part, I’m leaning much more heavily on GNU/Linux lately, especially since I found the awesomeness that is Manjaro Linux*; I’m almost ready to shelve Windows 7. The only thing holding me back is my WP7 phone, and given that Sprint has yet to commit to WP8, I may end up going back to the Nexus S by default. When that happens (and whenever my Xbox finally sells) I’ll have a Microsoft-free computing environment again.
All that said, it’s not because I don’t like Windows 7; rather, I think it’s the best thing they’ve ever produced. But if I don’t need it, if my laptop runs better with GNU/Linux, and if it gets a truncated support cycle as has been hinted at, then I won’t bother keeping it around. BUT, I’m not going to go on a tirade about how bad Windows 8 is or how much crap is on PCs made by companies with a reputation for loading crapware. Most people know that if you buy a computer from HP, Toshiba or Sony you’re going to get a ton of software you’ll never use.
One thing I do know for sure: I will never own Windows 8. Not because of the content of this article or in these discussions, but simply because I don’t like the direction the OS is going. I feel the same about OS X; Snow Leopard is on my Mac mini and that’s as far as I’m going in that camp.
—
*Arch based but with custom repos so no elitist Arch admin shenanigans can ruin the OS for those of us who actually use our computers to get shit done, instead of squealing like a schoolgirl whenever there’s a kernel commit.
Right. Because if something stupid goes on long enough, we should just bend over, smile, and ask for more once it’s done.
Edited 2012-11-12 08:58 UTC
Even though I agree with many others that this is not a new problem and actually think things are improving I had to mod you up. Your answer was just too good.
Besides, we are using our computers now more than ever to sync, work, play and even socialize. The greater the exposure, the greater the burns.
Well you know, consumers have had cheaper kit because of these crappy OEM deals.
TBH most of the stuff that gets installed it isn’t that bad these days, except for McAfee which makes everything run at a crawl.
Anyway the shit stirring with the FOSS crowd is your favorite past time.
There has always been crapware preinstalled on OEM PCs. When I used to purchase PCs from OEMs I would always make sure I buy from a company that included the Operating System disc. I found it much easier to just format the hard drive and reinstall just the operating system and then install what I wanted on the computer instead of going through the hassle of uninstalling the crapware individually.
Edited 2012-11-11 16:53 UTC
As another poster said, crapware has been on Windows PCs for decades now – it’s how OEMs recover the cost of the Windows OEM license and it really irritates the heck out of every single Windows user.
Years ago, I bought a Dell Vostro desktop – this is from their business line – and was utterly shocked that it actually came with zero crapware, a proper restore DVD and cost the same as their consumer (Inspiron) line.
So a tip might be to look at business lines of machines and see if they come with pre-installed crapware. Or do what I do and install CentOS 6 – GNOME 2, 10 years of updates and no crapware like Ubuntu’s disgraceful Amazon search nonsense. :_)
CentOS is hard to use as a desktop unless you are quite comfortable building from source or don’t mind missing things like games.
Overall Linux has felt like a very viable option that I could recommend to “normal people” with a bit of training/support since about 2008.
Personally for the average user I would recommend Linux Mint.
As if the crapware problem wasn’t bad enough, cluttering up the start screen with live tiles comes along to make the experience of getting a new computer even more miserable.
Combining this with Microsoft’s own pre-installed ad-ware, closed app market, confusing Windows RT licensing and the bizarre idea of trying to unify tablets and workstations around touch-screens, Windows 8 is looking more and more like an experiment in just how much crap a user base will tolerate from a company that is becoming ever more proscriptive and out-of-touch (pardon the pun) with its customers.
I’m convinced that touch-screens on laptops and desktops are little more than gimmicks. Touch-sensitive screens on desktop computers have been already been tried, along with stylus (light-pen) based UI’s and were rejected because of poor ergonomics in favor of a mouse and keyboard setup. If you discount the idea that workstations are going to move to touch screens, then Microsoft’s push to deprecate the pointer-based interface in favour of touch makes little sense when the risk of alienating existing users is taken into account.
While the Microsoft of today is a different beast from the peak of their awfulness, they’re still a dictatorial monster of a company that issues edicts from a comfortable position of power over the market. Hopefully Windows 8 will mark the beginning of the end for Microsoft’s dominance, and in the mean-time there will always be Windows 7…
I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Holwerda’s comments.
Windows has been deteriorating for a long time.
First, add crapware and adware and sometimes even spyware, then take away your Install disk, then add huge tiles on the screen for their promoted tools (like IE and other losers).
It’s been going on for a long time and it’s getting worse.
I’d never consider buying a PC from a mainstream Windows OEM.
Thank goodness we have the Linux alternative.
Linux will save us from crapware, except for on smartphones which is where people actually use it.
Yeah, because no one has a need to run any sort of proprietary applications, all hardware works fully under Linux and there exists a free, F/OSS – version of every possible game and application? …right.
heh? I don’t think Linux is a viable mainstream alternative on the desktop. I was being sardonic.
Saying Linux will save us from crapware is like saying that staying home will save us from car crashes.
To paraphrase Malcolm in Jurassic Park, “The market will find a way” to cut a few pennies of cost via any means possible.
But with Android, Google has responded with the Nexus line of crapware-free products, and they seem to be selling well. I bought a Nexus phone for my wife and tablet for my son, and they both love them.
So maybe there’s hope after all.
Does the Surface come pre-loaded with crapware, or is Microsoft using the Nexus model for their first tablet?
As an SA I support dozens of Linux desktop systems. It works fine for us, and at a major cost discount to the Windows alternative.
I define “crapware” as pre-installed adware, spyware, malware, and promotional offers (apps that work for a limited time before you must pay to keep them operating). Linux does not come with such pre-installed crapware. Windows does.
Sarcasm aside (of course there is not a FOSS version of every possible game and application), nevertheless there are 62,964 packages available for my Kubuntu 12.10 desktop system, of which I have a full suite of desktop applications installed for my purposes with only 1795 of those packages installed.
http://imgur.com/XFGwK
This represents a solution for all but the most specialised of desktop applications. Games are not well represented, but desktop machines are for desktop applications, most people play games on games consoles.
Whilst there are some applications within this selection that are not that good, at least there is no adware or other malware, and some of the selection is very good indeed. A large majority of desktop users would have their every need well satisfied by this range of available applications.
Edited 2012-11-12 11:26 UTC
I’m not going to say which platform has the most gamers, but considering things like World of Warcraft having over 10 million active subscriber, and Steam logging 5.6 million people online of whom 96% use Steam under Windows… well, I’d say tens of millions of people using desktop machines to play games is definitely not something one should just ignore. Oh, but again, that would go against your argument so you obviously do not wish to count them.
Actually they don’t.
Even if you don’t count, WoW and Steam as Werecatf pointed out. Is most likely bigger than consoles.
A lot of these are flash/html5 and/or games made for gambling. A lot of these games are played by women … Bingo is massively popular.
Exactly. People seem to forget about the billion+ Facebook users, of which I’m sure at least 100 million or so play FB games daily. The vast majority of those games only work on desktop OSes.
I have an Xbox that collects dust on the shelf because I’ve been a PC gamer from my late teens on up. I only have the Xbox because a friend gave it to me when the DVD drive stopped reading discs. Until I got the Mac mini, I was using the Xbox as a media player only. Now it isn’t even plugged in.
I know I’m not the typical statistic, but I feel that a lot of my generation and the one that followed are more inclined towards PC and phone/tablet gaming than consoles. To look at it from another perspective, my dad occasionally still fires up the 35 year old Atari he played in his 20s, but he doesn’t care for PC or mobile gaming at all. That said, a lot of my gaming nostalgia surrounds the NES, GameBoy and Sega systems of the 80s and 90s…but I can emulate all of that on any of my boxes including the Raspberry Pi.
Edited 2012-11-12 15:50 UTC
I read more than 1 study that a huge number of women play games on facebook.
Working in the gaming industry, there is a lot of noise about getting these casual players in.
In the form of HP Linux, Dell Linux, Asus Linux, Compaq Linux, IBM Linux, ….
Sure.
It is a good point that crapware is an OEM issue and not a MS issue. Thom bought a windows 8? Why didn’t you get a windows 7?
Thom didn’t buy a Windows 8 laptop (yet), the person who wrote the article he linked bought it.
I get your confusion though; I’ve wondered for a long time why the quoted article text isn’t indented (like Slashdot) or at least italicized so we don’t get the impression that the entire summary is Thom’s words.
I tried the Windows 8 RTM trial version…
It was bad. Pure, unmitigated bad. The interface sucks, the bugs suck, the web/ad integration sucks, it’s confusing and slow and ugly and borderline unusable. It reminds me more of MeeGo than of Windows.
I’ve never been a Microsoft fan, but I thought Windows 7 was great. This is an an unbelievable step backwards in terms of usability.
But the Server 2012 trial? Much more friendly and usable.
Only the best for Microsoft’s corporate clients. The rest of us, apparently, can go fly a kite.
It’s not like that. Corporations have more people than servers, so they have more windows clients (xp, 7) than servers (2003, 2008)
e.g. my company has roughly 10x more clients.
No? I figured that Server 2012 would also be used for workstations… I don’t have much experience on the Windows end of things.
Thanks for the correction then, and good to know that our corporate pals are also getting the short end of the stick this time.
Edited 2012-11-11 22:53 UTC
That really isn’t done anymore outside of niche development situations. The advantage with 2k3 was that you could have a 64 bit workstation. Just a little FYI.
I’d describe it as broken shovel stick that Microsoft expects corporations to not only take without lube but also pretend to like and then pay money for it.
Windows 8 is faster than 7, only a little bit it is faster.
The only thing that is slow is when a Metro app starts.
Stop telling lies.
Don’t be so quick to judge; it is entirely possible that Jones was testing on unsupported or older hardware. When I tried the Windows 8 Release Preview several months ago, it was on a machine with an older Radeon onboard video processor. Windows 8 not only didn’t recognize the hardware or provide a driver, it also wouldn’t let me install the Windows 7 driver. This made the machine agonizingly slow, as most of the GUI in Windows 8 requires video acceleration.
Installing a modern Radeon HD 6570 card instantly solved the issue, and for the short time I used it, Windows 8 on supported hardware blew the pants off of Vista, the factory installed OS.
Well running it on unsupported hardware is a little silly isn’t it?
BTW, I have run Win 8 on my VM at work and the experience is smother than Suse Linux or Ubuntu with the same VM settings.
Fedora works fine, but I am using the XFCE spin.
A couple things:
– First of all, the test computer was an EeePC, which performed reasonably well under Windows 7. I know I’m supposed to expect an EeePC to run like a sloth, but the fact is it works well enough under 7, and much less well under 8.
– The interface was slower than 7’s even with transparency and other eyecandy disabled, so it’s not like I was just boggled by the eyecandy-heavy defaults. Technically the video driver may be more to blame than the OS, but what do you think users will blame?
Also the sluggishness is kind of secondary IMO to the interface being really annoying.
People want to have their cake and eat it too. They enjoy the user experience of an appliance type device, but also want the openness of a traditional PC.
You cannot have it both ways. With the good also comes the bad. Sure, on x86 PCs you can install anything you’d like, you can switch off SecureBoot, you can download Encarta 97, etc. However, so can OEMs.
If you want a pure Windows experience, there are a few options. You can visit a Microsoft store and get a signature PC which is crapware free, or you can purchase a Windows RT device which does not allow x86 applications (and consequentially a majority of OEM crapware).
It is a great shame that things are like this, but such is the relationship with OEMs. They taint everything they get their hands on. (Look at Android OEMs for even more proof).
Yet, when Microsoft tries to break the cycle, and do things by themselves, OSNews had a brigade of spontaneous “OEM defenders” arguing that they had tough jobs, it was bad for their business, Microsoft was stabbing them in the back, etc.
So, yeah, just for future reference, THESE are the corporations that you defend.
Maybe people should rethink not backing Microsoft’s Surface efforts.
meanwhile back at Microsoft’s Marketing Department…
idiot.
And thus we have Windows slowly becoming an appliance. This is the direction Mac OS is going too, unfortunately. OS X is such a powerful system under the covers, it’s a crying shame that Apple wants to iOS-ify it.
This is why, if I do leave Windows Phone for good and go back to Android, it will have to be a Nexus phone. I do like the Galaxy Note II but it is full of Samsung specific crap that I don’t really want.
Just root the phone and its gone in 10 minutes
It has definitely crossed my mind, but I won’t be eligible for an upgrade to the Note until next summer. I still have a Nexus S 4G on hand.
But, even with rooting a device you don’t always get OS updates on the same schedule as the Nexus devices. I got spoiled on Jelly Bean when I used the Nexus S for several months.
I have updated mine 5 times already as newer ROMS are released with new fixes, that screen in a screen feature is great.
Microsoft has an uncanny ability to live and retain the market domination through constant acts of shooting itself. Well, sooner or later it should have an effect?
Edited 2012-11-11 18:25 UTC
It already has. Customers pick Android and iOS over Windows cause not only are both better but Windows is worse.
I see it differently. People just use more mobile devices which complement desktop usage. They aren’t substituting one for the other completely though. So Android and iOS aren’t pulling the user base from Windows because of its inferiority, rather because there is some balance shift between desktop and mobile form factors now. But it’s not a replacement. I.e. when it balances out, there still remains a question of replacing the desktop Windows with better desktop alternative (such as Linux).
Edited 2012-11-11 21:34 UTC
Well, the PC market shrinks very fast. For us and all those who use there PCs to get work done mobiles or tablets are not a replacement. In best case only an extension. But there are a hell lot of people out there using there PCs only for browsing the web, mails and facebook. For them a mobile or tablet does the job, is more cheap, lesser error-prune, easier to transport and handle. They are not going to buy an expensive big PC or Laptop if not needed.
Edited 2012-11-12 04:39 UTC
For some yes. But not for all. There is enough of PC users who will remain PC users, even if they use mobile devices in addition. So a fair comparison would be Windows vs. some desktop OS, rather than Windows vs iOS or Android.
Actually the PC market is still growing, it just that the mobile market is growing much faster.
No, They don’t die by bullets, only fire.
That’s what a monopoly is, people whether they like it or not, have to buy their stuff.
Unless Android moves to the desktop (I know a lot of people who would like that) it’s unlikely anything will replace Windows.
Of course they could always take back that jack*** from Nokia and put him in Ballmer’s shoes. Nothing burns hotter and brighter than greed fueled by stupidity.
Personally I don’t see Android as a mature and high quality system, let alone don’t see any good for it to move to desktop. It enjoys its success in the mobile sphere because it came in the right time, not because it’s technically superior to possible mobile alternatives. I.e. regular desktop Linux as well as mobile one is technically superior to Android. Having Android spread into desktop and becoming “Windows #2” will not be pleasant. It’s enough that it creates problems in the mobile already.
That aside, Windows desktop domination is already slowly deteriorating to other desktop alternatives (without considering any mobile shifts). It’s just not rapid, but a slow process.
Edited 2012-11-11 21:36 UTC
Not mature and high quality compared to …?
Android did hit the market at the right time but the reason they are still growing in market share, “sold” units and activations is that majority of customers seem to think its the best value for price, mature enough, of high quality enough for them then ANY other competitor out there.
I certainly agree that there could be better alternates. Meego was such a candidate. But its not there and those alternates that are there are not as good.
Whatever we think, feel or believe is better does not matter. Only the hard numbers do and they say: Android is the best OS out there in all terms that matter.
Edited 2012-11-12 04:49 UTC
Yes, the main point of Android was “come early – get the market”, not do best, get the market. It has obvious benefits which attracted many vendors though. But I’d rather not see it spreading into desktop. Even on mobile I see it as a temporary thing, since there is definitely room for better. Meego failed because of bureaucracy and corporate control failures. Now it’s regaining steam as Mer and Jolla & KDE as major pushers. I hope it’ll will succeed as a viable and better alternative for Android on mobile.
One of the weak points of Android is rather inferior multithreading. It’s not really suitable to be a serious desktop OS. So let it play its role on mobile for now. But on the desktop – no thanks.
Edited 2012-11-12 05:00 UTC
Mer, Jolla and KDE as _major_ pushers! That is stretching the definition of major.
Stop kidding yourself that Meego is coming back. No chance!
They are major pushers for mobile Linux. Who else pushes it? Canonical may be to a smaller degree. All others are too busy with Android. Meego isn’t coming back because there is no Meego anymore. There is Mer, and it’s already here.
Popularity does not correlate with objective quality. Look e.g. at BetaMax ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax ) Android just happen to fill a spot better than the alternatives at the moment — price, variety of looks and features, and so on.
I think Motorola deserves some credit for the Android adoption numbers here in the US, due to their huge “Droid” advertising campaign. In the same vein as metonyms like “Kleenex” for tissues, “Coke” for carbonated soft drinks, and “Tylenol” for pain relievers, Android phones of any make are known as “Droids” around here.
Not sure, I actually heard “Droid” only in context of Motorola models.
I guess it depends on the region. Here in the southeastern United States, it seems that metonyms are much more common than in the rest of the country. I know that there’s also a divide between techie types who call them “Android phones” or even by the actual device name, and your average user who tends to call any smartphone that’s not an iPhone a “Droid”. I’ve even heard someone call a BlackBerry Torch a “Droid” because it was a touchscreen device.
Of course, down here most people refer to wireless headsets as “Bluetooths” which is wrong on so many levels!
Yeah, since crapware is never an issue on Android devices. Oh, wait …
Windows 8 has a new feature that will do an in-place reinstall of Windows, removing everything on disk while leaving a fresh copy of the OS, and only takes about 15 minutes.
Will this get rid of the OEM crapware? Has anybody tested this?
I’d love to know this too, it would be valuable information when doing consulting.
I have a feeling though, that the OEMs could use a custom spin of the OS that leaves out that feature. I really don’t think Microsoft would go for that, but they already know Windows 8 is a highly criticized OS so they may cave in just to keep it on the OEMs’ machines.
Oh, the OEMs will keep the feature. They’ll just find some way to include the crapware in the restore image.
Sounds like you got a Windows RT laptop, otherwise, secure boot wouldn’t be an issue. Now I have taken to calling the Start Screen the wall of distraction, I agree that there a lot of problems with Win8, but secure boot isn’t one of them, crapware has always been a problem, but that start screen, it grabs my ADD addled mind and can take me off task for 20-30 minutes at a time.
Thanks MS, you accomplished an amazing feat, making me even less productive, as if the internet needed any help.
Edited 2012-11-11 18:51 UTC
The problem he describes is not that crapware was always there but that the crap increases more and more with every Windows version. I can nothing but agree on that.
When you install Java JRE, Oracle would very much like you to install Ask.com toolbar while you are at it. I hope that trickle of income goes directly to the special needs intern they have maintaining Java.
I didn’t want to post here anything, really, because I don’t care about Windows nor OSX systems, but I see a quite dangerous tendency here in comments. It can be described as “whoa, this crap was here almost from the start. IT is full of crap. Where’s the problem? [it is normal]”.
First of all – this is not true. In the beginning there was only open and free [of charge] software, available for huge computers. Source code was shared between places and people, usually academics and – later – hobbyists. This software had no crap inside. There was no bundles in terms of crap. It was only later that few companies started to charge people for the software they added to their hardware+software bundles.
Secondly – the fact that we got this crap on a market today doesn’t mean it is *normal* in any way. It is not normal, it destroys your freedoms, privacy and it makes your life harder and less personal.
Of course you can accept it, but do it on your own. You don’t have to care about your own freedoms and your own privacy. Heck, you can even think [your!] privacy is dead. However, please don’t expect everyone to accept this pathological situation. There are many individuals and groups who do not agree to this situation. The easiest possible solution is just to drop commercial software and switch to something else, but again: is it normal to be forced to do so? no, it certainly isn’t. It’s no choice when someone tells you “take it or leave it”, or if someone threatens you with the gun pointed at your head “do it or you’re gonna die”. This is NOT a choice. You are forced to drop it, the company itself doesn’t give you other option. This is bad, unfair and ugly. Yeah, companies are companies and “they can do whatever they want to do”. But do we really want them to do whatever they want? they are realising their freedoms “to do whatever they want” [to get more money out of our pockets]. But where’s our freedom from their actions? where’s our freedom to do what we need and want to do? do we have any choice? do we really want to be left divided and helpless?
If you do, then ok, go ahead and play according to the bad and harmful rules. Others will not do it.
Edited 2012-11-11 19:30 UTC
That’s not true, IBM was selling proprietary software from the beginning. Please don’t try to push that GPL revisionist history here.
Disregarding the GPL newspeak definition of “freedom” there is a major upside to crapware which is that is lowers the entry price of computers. Have OEMs gone to far? Yes but I’m fine with non-invasive crapware like installed programs that don’t run in the background.
That is a unrealistic solution that doesn’t take into account the billions of dollars worth of proprietary software for which there is no free alternative.
GPL? come on … have you ever heard of BSD? do you even know the history of IT?
PDPs used by the academics was there BEFORE personal computing era. I’m talking about this code being shared freely between various academic places. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that. Do you really think it’s all about money? do you think it was all pushed there only for money? read about Thompson and Ritchie. You’ll see it was actually against mainstream first. It was for fun, joy, out of curiosity, to build something news, not for money at all. It is called research. Then it’s eventually pushed to the folks from various corporations. At least that’s how it worked then. Now it may be all about money, unfortunately. That’s probobly why we have so much crap out there.
@werecatf – you see, that was not being said literally, but it’s the meaning you can read out of people’s comments. “Get over it, it’s normal, accept it, you don’t have any choice anyway. Shut up and stop whining”.
BSD doesn’t try to redefine the word freedom. They state what you are free to do with the license and that is the end of it. It’s the GPL that capitalizes and redefines freedom in a creepy newspeak fashion.
Researchers share and hide their work depending on the situation, don’t act like academia is one big hippie share fest.
No you tried perpetrating a common GPL myth that the software world was some open source utopia before the ebil proprietary companies showed up.
Money and proprietary software are not mutually exclusive. Anyways Thomson and Ritchie worked for Bell labs which was funded by AT&T. It wasn’t an open source project so I’m not sure where you are going with this.
I think you might have bought into a few myths from the the cult of the GPL. That’s understandable given how widely accepted they are on places like Slashdot.
You seem to be trying to counteract the previous poster’s litany of strawmen, with a straw man of your own.
There’s the definition, and there’s the actual concept and its effects. Like it or not, the real world doesn’t care how freedom is defined. What matters is what you actually get as a result.
In some cases, the result you get with GPL licence is more beneficial than BSD.
What’s creepy is that people consider freedom to include “freedom to screw others over”. There’s simply no such thing as absolute freedom – there will always be contention. Ultimately there is a choice between GPL and BSD that anyone can make so it’s disturbing how people can view the existence of something contrary to their ideas as somehow personally affecting them.
Indeed. True, fully complete, unadulterated freedom is in and of itself an oxymoron: it would mean you have the freedom to reign over anything and everyone else while at the same time having the freedom not to be reigned over yourself by anyone or anything — you simply cannot have both at the same time. As such freedom in the real, material world will always be a subset of the actual philosophical concept of freedom, there is simply no way of fully fitting an all-encompassing, philosophical concept into a world that is governed by physics, not philosophy.
With the aforementioned in mind it’s silly to try to claim one’s approach to freedom is the best one as it is still affected by one’s values, culture and various kinds of limitations imposed by the government and plain, old physics. Debating which approach is better — not the best — is certainly acceptable, but one really needs to keep in mind that they are still merely projections of something that is unobtainable and therefore they will always come short.
One man’s freedom is another man’s prison, I suppose.
BTW, FOSS software claims to be “freedom software” from a user’s point of view, not a commercial developer’s point of view. Since the vast majority of people are computer users not developers, this point of view is by far the most relevant. It also means that true FOSS software is largely written by its own users.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Manifesto
The GNU Manifesto begins by outlining the goal of the project GNU, which stands for GNU’s Not Unix. The current contents of GNU at the time of writing are then described and detailed. Richard Stallman then goes into an explanation of why it is important that they complete this project. The reason he explains is based on Unix becoming a proprietary software. It then explains how people can contribute to the project, and also why computer users will benefit from the project.
You seem to have utterly confused this point. The BSD license, for example, allows a commercial developer the complete freedom to take BSD-licensed code, re-package and re-sell it within another commercial closed-source application, and thereby completely screw over the end users.
Edited 2012-11-12 11:46 UTC
BSD doesn’t redefine word “free”. It just estabilishes freedom to use software however you want. Ergo: it gives you a TOTAL freedom.
Researchers SHARE their work and that’s what they supposed to do in education, which is – surprise, surprise – about learning, research, sharing discoveries, etc. I think you are deeply wrong on this subject.
Ritchie and Thompson did their greates things against their own employer, he didn’t even know they were working on the particular stuff. He just gave them much more freedom, because it was research.
I didn’t try to perpetrate anything, so keep that utter stuff for yourself. This is how you overlooked and misunderstood the things I said.
“TOTAL freedom” is self-contradicting.
BSD gives me the freedom to make software proprietary; that’s more freedom for corporations, but less for end users, who may be limited in their ability to install on multiple or non-vendor devices, configure their devices as they please, etc.
GPL protects the original software authors from having to compete with derivatives of their own creations and ensures end users control of their computing experience (if they have or can afford the technical expertise), but limits other authors from distributing derivatives under incompatible licenses they might otherwise choose.
Proprietary licenses are remarkably creative (from a legal perspective), and almost always protect the corporate interests first and foremost – but if you like the products a corporation produces, ensuring their profitability is a great way to get more of ’em.
And so on. License choice is an exercise in selecting the optimum compromise for the creator’s own wants and needs, including the need for end users to actually adopt his product.
I personally choose GPL for my hobby projects, as I value the end user’s rights over corporations and other developers, but I also buy commercial software at times and carefully adhere to their license of choice.
Bottom line – “TOTAL freedom” is a philosophical rally cry, but doesn’t mean much in reality. Life is compromise; deal and move on.
Sorry? How? Surely it is equal to both?
Both the end user and a corp are free to do what they want with the code.
It isn’t directly less free for the end-user but the result is less free eventually.
The proprietary fork of a BSD project will attract more users because of the added features and polish. Things like QA testing and documentation, which are often sadly lacking in unfunded open source projects.
As time goes on the original BSD project becomes the unloved poor relative that no one actually wants to use so the choice becomes the “freedom” to use old crap or proprietary good stuff.
No it isn’t … the result is still free.
No shit. It still doesn’t mean the BSD project is less free.
There is no evidence of this.
Apple has contributed code back to BSD projects, I believe Google has and other companies.
It depends whether keeping the code BSD is in the companies interest or not (just like keeping it GPL can be as well).
Both have their places.
Believing in black and white realities, when everything is a shade of grey … hurts every community and stop communication between the two and an exchange of ideas.
It becomes repetitive and pointless.
Edited 2012-11-12 21:11 UTC
Where is the original 4.4BSD Portable C Compiler then?
It bit-rotted while proprietary compilers based on it and then GCC replaced it. Even the BSD projects couldn’t bring themselves to keep using it.
WEBKIT
Edited 2012-11-13 08:10 UTC
I haven’t seen anyone in the comments yet say it’s “normal” or “acceptable,” so I don’t know who your rant is aimed at.
Ranting is fun, accept it.
Yeah, just because it’s been going on for 10+ years doesn’t mean it’s normal or acceptable. The other option is to only buy machines with the ‘vanilla’ install disc, and that solves the problem.
As for the rest of your rant, the day that free software does everything that commercial software does for me, and does it just as well is the day I switch. Until that day comes though, all you Freetards cant take your ‘freedom’ and shove it up your ass.
I’m surprised that Lenovo’s name has not been pulled yet.
For me, they’re hands down Kings of Crapware.
(Still, Google has more hits for hp+crapware than lenovo+crapware. I’ve been exposed to more Lenovo crapware than HP crapware, so my views may be biased.)
Anyway, the whole practice is totally sickening.
OEMs have long past the point where getting rid of their crap costs A WHOLE LOT more to the customer than what they’re making from their “partnerships”.
In the end, the responsibility really goes down to Microsoft.
Would they step out and tell OEMs to stop their dirty business, they’d have no choice but comply.
But of course they’re also getting their share out of it.
Somehow, in this highly competitive market, crapware is a direct consequence of the MS tax.
Funny thing is, Lenovo (at least at one point in time) sold Linux based laptops (using SuSE Linux). They didn’t have any crapware on them.
But let’s take a closer look at the few OEMs that have ventured into Linux Land.
A person would think “They’re using a free operating system, so the overall purchase price should be less than one that comes with Windows, right? Wrong, the Linux equivalent have actually cost the same if not more, historically.
This is because there weren’t any random advertisement laden crap on there. That crap gives money to the OEMs for putting their crap on there. No crap, no discount.
The first x86 based PC that I had access to was my mother’s that was a Pentium 75 Packard Bell. Yes, it had crap installed on it (well besides Windows 95) and Packard Bell ‘recovery’ CDs was a custom Windows disk that would reinstall all that same garbage.
Of course it also had that garbage Soundcard / Modem ISA card… but that’s another story entirely.
Microsoft has asked OEMs to not install crapware with each major OS release since it became a problem. With Windows 2000 and XP, they tried to enforce a clean desktop, restricting what preinstalled apps could do, and the areas they could be displayed within the OS. The OEMs complained to the DOJ and MS was subsequently limited in the level of control they could exert, which is the main reason crapware flourished after a short lull.
Since they were limited in control that could be exerted via licensing/contracts, they’ve instead resorted limiting the integration points for new user interfaces and not allowing programatic access for actions that they feel should require user consent. The intent is most evident in their newer designs.
Microsoft is not responsible for the crapware the OEM’s pre-install on the systems they sell you. It’s pathetic anyone would try to suggest otherwise. Doing so is nothing more than a weak attempt at a weak dig at Microsoft.
As far as taking several hours to install & customize Windows — that’s just a silly. Unless you’re being stupid about reinstalling, for example not using the most recent OS image, and you’re installing a million apps there’s no reason what-so-ever it should/would take all night. That’s completely ridiculous.
Once you’ve got the OS running, you still need a lot more: drivers and hardware-related software, some office suite, some e-mail program, some antivirus/security software, a better web browser, a better video player, and even basic tools such as a PDF reader.
That’s definitely a lot of work, and very time consuming.
This kind of tools indeed ARE pre-installed by your OEM, because that’s what the average user expects from a brand new computer, only in unlicensed crap-loaded obsolete or otherwise broken versions.
Yes, MS are in a large part responsible for this.
That’s their OS, they get to decide what goes with it.
They define the rules, and OEMs can only comply.
Obviously, the current rules do not benefit the end-user.
It indeed seems as the rules Microsoft defines are not focused on the best end-user experience. It makes sense to deny for example changing bing to google in IE but cluttering IE with all kind of crapware icons and toolbars is even more worse. From the end-user perspective. From the Microsoft pov it’s maybe irrelevant cause those crap doesn’t compete with own products/services. And that is short minded. They, Microsoft, should have a focus on the best end-user experience possible. They don’t cause they do not need to. Monopolists, pff.
Edited 2012-11-12 04:29 UTC
I install Windows 7 boxes frequently along with all or most of what you’ve listed. It never takes several hours, much less all night. That’s completely ridiculous. If it’s taking that long, you’re doing something wrong.
Microsoft is not responsible for the crap OEMs install. It’s the OEMs decision to load your new system with a bunch of garbage toolbars and stupid trial apps. Microsoft does not force any of this, it’s 100% OEM decision to do so.
It takes me at least four hours to get my Windows system back where I like it.
Windows install. Video card driver update. Windows updates. Restore user files from backup. Install Steam, start game downloads or a restore. Install LibreOffice, VS2010 C# and C++, Thunderbird, Firefox, Foxit, Pidgin, Java JDK, Eclipse, VirtualBox. More Windows updates for the VS2010 stuff. Remember that I wanted Doom 3, dig around in the closet until I find the box. Install that. Realize that I need special software for the surround sound headphones and the mouse. Dig through Logitech’s website to find it.
Etc, etc.
Easily a full night after work and dinner, and I always seem to forget things that I need later on, so really it drags on for weeks.
That’s assuming you have an OS-image at hand. But what if you’ve just gotten the PC and you don’t have an OS-image yet? Downloading and installing the several hundreds of megabytes of patches alone does indeed take around two hours. Of course, installing e.g. several years old version of Ubuntu and then proceeding to update it to the latest and greatest is also going to take a long time, so only complaining about Windows would be misleading.
There is something, however, about the way Windows applies certain patches that slows the whole process down without any seemingly good reason: the .NET patches. For some reason even on my quad-core system those patches can take over 25 minutes to apply, and I’ve had the patches actually get stuck in some sort of a never-ending loop several times where CPU-usage is at zero, and even after leaving the machine on for a whole night it still wasn’t finished in the morning — only a reboot or two and then trying to reinstall the patch fixed it.
That is because the .NET framework has to recompile all .NET executable and binaries that were deployed with NGEN on the system.
With an update, the code symbols might not longer be in the exact same positions, and the native code has to be regenerated.
I don’t count ISO download time (whether it’s Windows or linux) towards installation time because downloading what you need is pre-installation, not installation. None-the-less, the download time isn’t that long for anyone with a decent internet connection. Also, 2 hours is a long way from an installation taking several hours to all night along. I stand by what I said — if it’s taking you all night long, or even several hours, then you’re doing something wrong or are completely unprepared.
Another user already explained this so no need to do it again. Without question .NET can be the longest part, but it also has legitimate reason.
I personally found this a non-OS specific issue. To me, it looks more like a hardware provider specific issue.
Having that said, I still remember my second computer (80386SX), which my father bought me from a local hardware vendor who assemble parts for their customers by orders, had no crapware on it. It was installed with MS-DOS, MS Windows 3.1, a driver specific for the sound card, and that’s it!
Then my 5th PC is a Compaq Presario. I got it from a vendor who don’t assemble PCs themselves. It was the first time I learned all about crapware, although we didn’t have such a word back then.
Since then, I build all my desktop PCs because I don’t want that kind of nightmare again. Besides, I know exactly what I get from shopping the internal stuffs myself.
Although it isn’t an approach that I can suggest to *normal* users, but it’s very clear that this issue is more likely hardware provider (or “assembler” to be more precise?) related.
Edited 2012-11-12 00:59 UTC
I can’t easily remember a time when a pre-installed Windows PC didn’t come with tons of pre-loaded crap software. It happened, once or twice, but that’s such a low number that it’s below the noise level.
For somewhat experienced users, that’s not a huge deal, since they’ve already learnt to begin the usage of the new PC by an hour of cleaning up. For others it just means lots of unnecessary crap – if we’re optimistic – or a non-understandably slow new PC – it happens sometimes.
I’ve had my fair share of such cleanups with Lenovos, Toshibas, HPs, sometimes with Dells (although my latest Dell laptop came surprisingly clean-ish). And sometimes even the sellers are morons.
Yeah, one of my favourite look-at-that-face moments was one time at a BestBuy when we bought a cheap-ish Toshiba laptop for my sister, and unfortunately they didn’t tell on the web-page that this will be a piece which they have pre-installed with Windows and crapware for “testing”… right. They wanted to charge us a higher price for this “service” which we didn’t ask for, but finally we managed to agree on approx. halving the extra price for this not-asked-for “service”, but you should’ve seen the guy’s face when I said I won’t pay for them pre-installing crap since I still will need to make a clean install when we get home (he looked at me like I was from Mars or something), and how he reacted when I declined the x-months Norton Antivirus trial (you don’t want protection? …
) along the other crap.
So yes, Windows users had to become accustomed to getting PCs with loads of junk, so these days if they get the same, they don’t really get surprised by it. It became the norm, and getting a clean PC (laptop, WS or tablet) is still very much the exception, not the rule.
One of the problems the support staff here at work found was that Adobe Flash asked to update itself and also suggested you install Chrome and make it default.
Some of the less observant users let it do this. Chrome mucks up the our company Office addon and so they then couldn’t work with Office anymore.
1a) Buy a Microsoft Signature PC (http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/pd/ThemeID.275097…
OR
1b) If you bought a PC that is infested with crapware, just reinstall it from a normal Windows Disk (you can download a Windows 8 Trial for this)
OR
1c) Use the “Refresh your PC” option in Windows 8
2) Use http://ninite.com/ to install most/all of the software that you need
Total time needed, roughly 2 hours depending on your internetspeed
Next time: Vote with your wallet and don’t buy a crapware infested PC
In point of fact, you cannot. The Windows 8 trial (assuming said individual even wants Windows 8) cannot be used to install a non-trial copy of Windows. After the 90 days of evaluation, the trial will expire and a full installation from a licensed Windows disk will be needed (though you can rearm to get an additional 90 days if you do that in time). You can, of course, download the full, non-trial Windows 8 iso images (or Windows 7 for that matter) legally, but you cannot use the trial iso for this purpose. I might add that re-installing Windows falls outside the familiar territory of your typical home user in either case, so they either have to know someone who can assist them or else pay a computer shop in their area to do it. No, the procedure is not difficult, but for some reason when most people here the phrase “reinstall windows” they panic despite the fact that 95% of computer users could do it easily if they were willing to try.
Has anyone tried this? Does it refresh your PC with an unaltered copy of Windows 8, or can the OEM modify the refresh image to contain their crapware as well? I haven’t found any definitive answer on this question one way or the other, though in theory for this to work as intended the OEM would have to be able to modify the image if for no other purpose than to put in place any drivers that the default refresh image may not have.
I’ve not tried this service yet, though I’ve been meaning to do so at some point. I’m a bit sceptical of third-party services that put themselves between me and the installers I want, however.
1b) I have used trial ISO’s from Microsoft with my own keys and that works just fine. VHD’s tend to expire but trials work just fine.
1c) Refresh works exactly as you would want to remove the crapware AND you can do more advanced things (but that is out of scope of the normal users comfort zone, just like the 1b option is): http://www.anandtech.com/show/5290/windows-8s-refresh-and-reset-fun…
2) I can vouch for ninite after having used it for the last 2 years. From their site: “No Toolbars
Ninite automatically says “No” to toolbars and other junk.”. There is also a Pro version that allows you to cache the downloads locally. I have compared several downloads from ninite with my own downloads and they were identical bitwise. For years I have been doing silent installations and it was very resource intensive to find the latest files in the right language and processtype. Ninite is awesome
(yes, I am a big ninite fan. No, I don’t have any ties with them. Just a happy customer)
This kind of issue provides the perfect backdrop for Microsoft, now retooled as a Hardware company, to advertise “Premium” M$ Branded PCs and Laptops that will be devoid of the crapware.
You can get a cheaper kindle with advertising, or pay a litte more to not have the advertising there. I think OEM’s could make more money by offering their hardware with a crapware free option at an additional charge. Best buy would love to have an add on purchase that was actually a *good* idea.
Yeah… this is why many people leave Microsoft software and operating systems behind for something else. It was certainly one reason I ditched Windows by the time Vista was released, and had been planning the switch a full year or two in advance. I put up with them since the late 1990s. No more.
Sinofsky is gone effective immediately. Check out allthingsd.com
Ballmer has refused to release the actual sales figures for their Windows 8 tablet, only saying “modest sales” and knowing Microsoft if it was good news they would be blowing the horns.
Edited 2012-11-13 03:14 UTC