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MS Will Remove OEM 'Crapware' For $99
walterbyrd writes about a program from Microsoft to clean up bloated base installs, for a price. From the article: "Microsoft even offers up numbers to show how detrimental this OEM-installed crapware is to your system. Microsoft claims that Signature systems start up 39 percent faster, go into sleep mode 23 percent faster, and resume from sleep a whopping 51 percent faster compared to their crapware-ladened counterparts. (A 'Signature' system is one without crapware). But now, Microsoft will offer customers the opportunity to give their Windows 7 PC the Signature treatment by bringing it to a Microsoft Store and paying $99, according to the Wall Street Journal."
Oh my... Is this just like going to an MS store and buying an brand new Windows 7?
Looks like MS wants to double dip here. They force feed Windows licenses to constructors that don't know any better than to crappify it, and then you have to go to MS again to de-crappify it?
Thieves.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I have a CD labelled "Ubuntu"
I wonder if this will be a problem for linux, if linux on the desktop really takes off. Looking at android, I guess so.
Bring your brand-new car back to the dealer, and for only $1000 we'll put air in your tires so you can accelerate to highway speeds!
I tell everyone to simply install Ubuntu...
And I thought it was a rip-off when an OEM offered to not install crapware for $15.
Not that it makes a difference. The people that have crapware can't read code.
I openly concede to being completely anti-Microsoft, and proud of it, but even I wouldn't claim that people who buy computers loaded with additional crapware can't read and understand code.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
That's gonna cost extra, sir
Steep? Not so sure about that. We're talking about a process which takes a considerable amount of time. Of course, when I do it, I pay particular attention to verious details such as reloading the applications software as well as device drivers. I'm not saying it's "hard" but it is time consuming.
My first reaction was "Do they uninstall HP printer drivers?" I swear, I used to love HP printers. But lately I haven't seen a "driver only' install in place. It's always dozens of programs monitoring and reporting on printer things... paper, ink/toner and all that. Still not as bad as a Xerox program which consistently prevented a machine from shutting down normally, but it's kind of ridiculous.
[I know I'm gonna be modded troll, but whatever...]
People pay for a computer with an OS, then pay again to remove all the crap that come bundled. Yet it will still interrupt them in the middle of their presentations with annoying antivirus/upgrade/whatever messages, or keep them from using their computer for more than ten minutes when they had to restart, and the system becomes non-interactive updating itself*.
Then these same people come and ask me: why do you use a free OS? It must be crap! [insert facepalm image here]
[*true story, happened to my teacher during class. I guess it was deserved, for he had installed Windows in his MacBook.]
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
I could do that, but then it wouldn't be as compatible with some of the crapware I do want to run.
No, and I don't bother to reinstall Windows either. I just uninstall the Dell junk I don't want to use. There are also couple of items that are somewhat useful and already included in the (cheap) price I paid so I left those alone.
IMO, uninstalling Windows and installing Linux is just trading one set of headaches for another. Not worth the trouble in my case, though it is for some.
Ah, but what they're selling is that it's done by "trusted" Microsoft people and what you get is a Certified Microsoft Windows Enter-Buzzword-Here. You always pay more for a name brand, even if you're getting the same thing. Or in this case, the same name brand.
I tell everyone to use a far better decrapifier. Those who have listened always thank me profusely every time the subject comes up.
The probability that a geek will post a oh-so-cleverly disguised link to a Linux distribution as the all-purpose solution to any problem with Windows approaches 100% on any online forum ---
but the trend line for Linux adoption remains as flat as the Kansas prairies.
Top 5 Operating Systems From Apr 2011 to Apr 2012
OS Platform Stats 2003-2012
The good folks who post to Ars Technica have grown rather weary of the business --- and quite sharp with those who continue to waste their time.
Because these users can't find the blue E and think the internets are missing.
The same users who freak out if the start menu is not there. The same users who look at Unity and go WTF ... same as Metro I may add etc.
My exwife was one of these users and made me go back to Windows. Why? Because Ubuntu kind of closed too worked on this laptop. There was always an issue. Always a config file to try something out with a cool Compiz graphical effect. Meanwhile her slooow Vista laptop just worked when she turned it on. She viewed Windows as having supperior quality because of that.
You can get angry at me all you want but it is her opinion. She also uses macs at work and dislikes them but tolerates them. She likes Windows. These same people who stick with XP because WIndows 7 is so radically start menu wise hate change.
THey will freak out when they put a blu-ray disk in and it can't play, clicking on MP3s wont work, their Ipod can't sync etc. Sure you can use medibuntu repositories to add them to you and I. Does the user even know what a codec is or care that the DMCA forbids mp3 and h.264 support out of the box? No. THey will get angry and blame Ubuntu and you for installing such a piece of crap etc.
Not to mention people do not give a damn about computers but us. Its like an appliance for them. It is illogical to buy a fridge or LCD TV and replace the LED for fun or the compressor in the fridge for tinkering. Just leave it alone and use it as a tool etc.
If you hate MS convincing them to use a Mac is a better bet. They just work, have great fonts, aesthetically pleasing, and reliable. That is what a user wants right? Even geeks prefer Windows for desktop use. Not everyone wants an ubuntu upgrade to hose their X settings, because the Linux kernel lacks an ABI ... in 2012!!
http://saveie6.com/
Just a wild guess, but I'm thinking you're not their target market.
Not quite. Microsoft isn't using surgical precision to target scattered customers hiding in the wilderness. If nothing else, Microsoft's flagship product —which is merely the latest rehash of the operating system developed by and unwittingly freely donated by Digital Equipment Corporation, i.e. NT— is a swiss army knife of desktop operating systems (and fully recognizing this is a tremendously generous characterization of it, boy do I wish that's all it were). Microsoft wants it to be everything to everyone. They want everyone to pay and repay for many many licenses of Windows.
Now... I must digress. I had an emotional reaction to this summary that is epitomized in either some Jackie Chan meme I can't quite articulate, or an as yet unknown Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. meme. I had a similar reaction when Defender was announced. I realize that many of us work with Windows intimately, and need the hostile environment Windows creates in the sense that the unacceptable state a Windows installation inevitably degrades to puts food on the table: Windows is our work, and if it were perfect, we wouldn't have jobs.
But it just seems anathema to me that instead of fixing the product before they sell it to us and our clients, i.e. adjusting Windows such that crapware becomes extinct, Microsoft instead turns around and recognizes that there is this new market here created by a deficit in their flawed product, and now that this market is being exploited by the enterprising individuals that support their flawed product, Microsoft can now step in and directly compete with them. If I didn't know better, and I certainly do, I'd say Microsoft's target market was moronic lemmings.
It just occurred to me that what you meant was GP couldn't be the target market for this "product," the un-OEMing cleansing, because GP no longer uses Windows. And so I apologize to you because ... you are seriously hilarious and I missed it because I am mildly emotional about the announcement of this new "product," and well, look again at those pictures I linked to and try to figure out just what meme belongs.
Car analogy time! Lets imagine that the vehicles coming off Ford's assembly line are immaculate, and pass any white glove test. But (allow me to invent hypothetical) evil Ford OEM distributors for some reason feel it's necessary to cover the cars in a fine dusting of filth that is quite tricky to completely get rid of... the yuk seems to multiply. Oddly, it slows the car down and kills its gas miliage while doing it. And now Ford customers have been complaining that by the time they get their new vehicle, its covered in filth and grime. Enterprising Ford dealers build car washes next to their dealerships to not only satisfy the customer as best they can, but also to make an extra buck. So... when is Ford going to start building signature car washes to compete with the Ford dealers and get into this newly recognized car washing market? While the GP is saying "screw cars! I can't take the filth they attract," I'm (please find the meme for me, I'm tired) saying "Dammit, Ford... you've been selling these filth magnets for ages... when are you going to fix your cars so they can't get dirty??!"
Well... although my metaphor seems to weaken my own argument, because we all know that in reality, cars really do attract dirt and there's nothing anyone can do about it, operating systems are not cars and absolutely can be engineered to not allow OEM CrapWare® (and to a large extent, can be engineered to be self-secure against malware, viruses and the like).
The Admin and the Engineer
As IT people it is not our time we get paid for... it is our knowledge.
A considerable amount of time?
Yeah, because paying for someone to eat donuts and stare at the progress back is a good use of money.
This is yet another reason not to use Windows. It's broken by default.