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Microsoft Worried OEM 'Craplets' Will Harm Vista
elsilver writes "An article at the CBC indicates that Microsoft is worried that the assorted crap most OEM companies load onto a new machine may affect users' opinion of Vista. An unnamed executive is concerned that the user will conclude the instability of the non-MS-certified applications is Vista's fault. Is this a serious concern, or is MS trying to bully OEMs into only including Vista-certified apps? As for the OEMs, one "removed older DVD-writing software they found was incompatible and replaced it with Vista's own software." — do they get points for realizing it was both buggy AND redundant?"
It's the operating system's fault if an installed program causes system instabilities.
To ruin the user experience
Actually it takes only 1 application that you use frequently that sucks and your overall feeling of the OS is down. Just take an example, how often have you heard "linux sucks because I XXX does not work".
Same happen in Windows. Buy a new laptop and see it painfully load 35 icons in the systray, replace the default association of JPG file to another crapware that display a 30 seconds modal popup dialog that says the viewer you are using is shareware and open IE on the HowTo buy page. The feeling of the user will be: Vista sucks, and I paid 2000$ and my machine is slow like a dog because of Vista. Natural feeling.
The same feeling that people in Europe that have been provided with the XP-E edition ( no media player ) think that XP is shit because it cannot read a stupid AVI file.
I like the Apple hardware products and the OSX, but to say that Apple doesn't load their new laptops with crapware and sleazeware would be disingenuous. If I buy a $3K MacBook Pro, should I expect to get a popup asking if I want to upgrade my trial copy of QuickTime? I enjoy the iLife suite of software, but I didn't have much of a choice to buy the laptop without it. I don't think the trial edition of OpenBase or the inclusion of OmniOutliner or ComicChat can really be considered a "blank slate."
The only thing in Apple's favor here (and it's a big point in their favor) is that it's absolutely and amazingly trivial to wipe the slate clean myself: drag unwanted items to trashcan, Empty Trash. I am still annoyed that a preinstalled QuickTime on a flagship hardware image is nagware. Hello, the 70s called and want their nags back. If the alternatives like VLC and Mplayer would really integrate as a replacement for QuickTime, I'd probably use them instead.
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I totally agree with MS on this one. Now if Microsoft would just stop all the background craplets themselves... we'd have a finely tuned machine.
Fix Your Own TV - RiddledTV.com Avoid the Landfill
Beside the annoying trial crap that fills up diskspace, the worst stuff is the boot-time startup crap that cripples the machine and adds another 45 seconds to boot time. I'm not talking about system or server services here, but the third-party consumer applications like iTunes or Real-player. Msconfig is good for dianostics, but sometimes you have to hunt down offending start-up programs in the registry to permanantly turn them off at boot-time. MS should remove the "run" option from the registry for those sorts of things and require them to go into the old "start up" folder. That way, they will be easy to find, and a normal user can delete them without hosing the entire machine.
That's the best description of those craptacular add-ons from OEM suppliers I've seen yet. Circusware, hehe. I remember the first time installing a retail copy of Windows on a home built PC. Startling in how clean it was. No trial anti-virus or AOL logos (okay, it was a while ago).
I thought it was interesting that Michael Dell asked how much people would pay to get a clean copy of the OS without all the bundled crapware. You can read it in this article: Zdnet blog
I would've asked how much it was worth to him to get me to stop building my own PC's and buy another Dell? The arrogance of the position that I would have to pay extra to get rid of crap I didn't want in the first place really chaps my undies. Screw you, Mikey. You can take your cheap ass hardware and OEM circusware, along with your call center techs who don't speak English as a native language, and stick it all right up your ass. Don't act like you have a right to my business. If you want my money, earn it you arrogant bitch.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Agreed on both points. First, just give me an OS, and stop bundling all your own shit with it. But to the GGGP post, it took me 45 minutes to uninstall all the crap that came on my new work Dell (Compuserve still lives??) - and the worst part is they don't even include a Windows install disc with the machine!! All you get is a "restore" disk which restores your computer to its initial crap-loaded state. I hate having 40 tray icons load when I boot - it shouldn't take my brand-spankin new dual core 2GB RAM machine longer to boot than my fresh Windows install on an old P4 512MB machine.
Can I see all the crap and bloat of OEM-installed apps (all for the Benjamins, of course) tainting a person's view of the OS (and even the "Dell"/other brand?) - abso-freikin-lootly.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project