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MS Will Remove OEM 'Crapware' For $99

Posted by Unknown on from the i-thought-that-was-called-ubuntu dept.

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."

28 of 474 comments (clear)

  1. We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by vwpau227 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm sure we are not alone, along with other computer stores in the area, we do a "wipe and reload" of the OEM Windows (XP, Vista, or 7) for $65 plus the applicable taxes, and we'll even load the latest service pack for Windows on the computer. It can make the computer run faster, but frankly I don't think it is really necessary for most new computer systems. The Acer TravelMate and Acer Veriton (business class) systems that we sell comes with very little in terms of additional OEM bundled software.

    --
    These are the good old days you'll be telling your children about. Make them worthwhile.
    1. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I did it to my Dell at home for free.

    2. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by Solandri · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For all the crap Sony does, they get some things right. When I bought a Sony laptop for a client, I had to make system restore DVDs (it had a SSD and the restore partition was eating up too much space). During the process, I noticed a "minimal" restore option in addition to the complete restore. I did some reading and found that it's just the OS and necessary drivers. None of the crapware that normally comes preinstalled.

      So I wiped the drive, did the minimal restore, and it was exactly as advertised. Clean system, all drivers preinstalled, no crapware. Hats off to the Sony engineer or manager who insisted on that feature.

    4. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by KDR_11k · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I got the driver package labeled "IT professionals only", that didn't include the crapware and was 1/10th the size to download.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    5. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by NiceGeek · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ah, hyperbole. "Every couple of weeks"? Since I installed Win 7 on my PC, I've been asked to authorize it exactly *once* and I've even swapped out the motherboard since the initial install.

    6. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by mysidia · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There are plenty of Microsoft Certified Professionals out there that work in a computer store

      Those certifications are skills accreditations based on passing a test. Just because the professionals doing the work carry a personal Microsoft certification, does not mean that Microsoft certifies or stands behind their work product or controls the results in any way whatsoever.

      Just because the work is done by a MCP does not mean the actual work is certified by MS; the MCP is not employed by Microsoft, so Microsoft does not certify all their work, they only accredit their ability to pass certain tests.

      Now presumably, they are certifying the work done by their stores in some way, like most businesses do.

      There are plenty of professionals who have paper Microsoft creds that are not really qualified, and could not get (or keep) a job at a M$ store doing the work.

    7. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by EdIII · · Score: 5, Interesting

      1/10th?

      My jaw dropped when I saw Dell pushing a 700+ MB printer driver. You have to look for it but you can find a 6MB driver only install instead.

      How on earth you need 700MB for a printer driver and software is beyond me..

    8. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually friend its really not, you just haven't had anyone show you the correct way to do so. before you do a wipe and reinstall you need to go to WSUS Offline and have it download any patches and service packs you need for later. In mine I have every patch and service pack from Win2K through Win 7 X64 so no problems there, just launch once a month to have it update the latest patches. If you use MS Office you can have the service packs and patches included with WSUS, same with MSE antivirus. At this point you can download the latest drivers if you wish, but I only go for the graphics and wireless usually as I've found some of the OEM drivers for sound and NICs to be more buggy than the Windows defaults.

      Next once the OS is installed you run WSUS, depending on how far behind your OS disc is from current this could take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour but since its all automated who cares. My discs have the last service packs already so only the patches after the last release are needed, about 30 minutes or so depending on the system. after that has finished and you see all the drivers are checked out you simply go to Ninite and pick any of the third party stuff you need,browser, Libre office, codecs, flash, whatever. the only third party I use that I don't get from Ninite is either Pale moon (a Firefox fork compiled for newer CPUs) or Comodo Dragon (Chromium based with some nice security features) but since I have both of those on my network drive along with WSUS no time there. Once that is installed i go to Ninite and pick Klite, flash, Hulu TV (my customers enjoy having Internet TV) LO, Foxit, and PDF Creator. I usually give them Comodo Internet Security but if you use MSE or Avast you can just skip that step or grab Avast at Ninite.

      Voila! You are talking about maybe an hour, hour and a half tops and since the majority of it is fully automated you only have to look in once in a while and see if you are ready for the next step. Since I usually have the systems on my KVM all I have to do is click over once in a while, couldn't be simpler friend. That is why I only charge $50 plus tax for the same service MSFT is wanting $100 for so I don't see why MSFT couldn't do it even quicker and cheaper than me.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    9. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by Pentium100 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      One fun thing with HP driver I experienced is this:

      I have a HP Professional Series Color 2500CM printer (quite old, but can print on A3 pages and the cartridges are very easy to refill, making the printing very cheap). The printer is old enough that Windows XP has a built-in driver for it, and it works quite well. Once I decided to download a driver from HP and try that out. It showed error messages saying that the ink cartridges and print heads have expired. As it turns out, HP has burned expiry dates to the printheads and cartridges, but the Windows XP driver does not check, which allows me to use the parts until they wear out (the yellow ink cartridge was supposed to expire in 2002 and I'm still using it).

    10. Re:We do it at our store for $65 plus tax. by Iamthecheese · · Score: 4, Informative

      I looked into it once. Drivers for every nearly related printer in every language, an extra bloated install program to choose which the user probably needs, spyware, more spyware, drivers for related all-in-ones, extra bloated "user friendly" crap, useless programs supposed to be usable for things like screen capture, photo editing, scanning, photo archiving, thumbnails, and sample data.

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
  2. PC Decrapifier: Free by Sarusa · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://pcdecrapifier.com/

    I tell everyone who gets a pre-installed PC to run this.

    1. Re:PC Decrapifier: Free by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 5, Funny

      I tell everyone "leave me alone, what do I look like, a tech support volunteer?"

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      This space available.
    2. Re:PC Decrapifier: Free by bhcompy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not that it makes a difference. The people that have crapware can't read code.

    3. Re:PC Decrapifier: Free by mozumder · · Score: 4, Funny

      I looked through that site. Didn't see anything useful there, just a bunch of linux distributions.

    4. Re:PC Decrapifier: Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Which is just what I expected you to do, try to qualify it by excluding those people who didn't listen to you.

      If they had, well, then they'd be enlightened and thank you. If they don't, obviously it's their fault.

      Typical. Anybody that doesn't swoon over it, they're the ones with the problem.

      And yes, as the other person said below, your advocacy is your own worst enemy.

  3. I do it for free... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have a CD labelled "Ubuntu"

    1. Re:I do it for free... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I used to. Pre-Unity. Now I use Xubuntu.

    2. Re:I do it for free... by Cito · · Score: 4, Funny

      PFFFT! I'm much more cooler than all of you windows/linux/mac fanbois!

      I have no operating system on my computer! only idiots would install that bloated mess.. I have no bloat! I stare at my bios screen and it RAWKS!

      black screen or bios screen... it's all ya need

  4. I wonder.. by Duncan+J+Murray · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder if this will be a problem for linux, if linux on the desktop really takes off. Looking at android, I guess so.

  5. Re:$99 !!!!!! by firex726 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. Wow by gman003 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And I thought it was a rip-off when an OEM offered to not install crapware for $15.

  7. Re:try $30 no tax cash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess their new motto is "We kick the crap outta crapware!"

  8. Oh, so you want the meal without piss in it? by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's gonna cost extra, sir

  9. In related news by wbr1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    GM announced that all new cars would be sold with holes in the tires and a low fuel mileage ECM program until you purchase GM select service.

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
  10. Surreal by dmbasso · · Score: 4, Insightful

    [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
  11. Order without crapware by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

    The last time I ordered a desktop PC, it was from Central Computers, a computer chain with a clue. I ordered it without crapware, and the invoice actually said "no crapware". Very nice.

    Central Computers, though, is a local SF bay area chain, based in Silicon Valley. They do mail order, but they assume you know what you want. The order menu starts with "select AMD or Intel", and the operating system menu has "No operating system" as an option, which reduces the price by $109.95,

  12. Preaching To The Choir by westlake · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.