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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."
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.
MS does not force anything on OEMs.
OEMs are the ones making deals with other crapware supplies to put their SW on the computers for money.
Dell or whoever buys the bulk license from MS, Dell then goes and gets paid to put the crapware on their computers when they are sold. I fail to see how you can fault MS for any of that.
Don't want crapware, well MS sells a clean version of their OS, and now they are also offering a removal service.
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.
That's gonna cost extra, sir
[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
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.