Should We Remove Bloatware on Office PCs
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@Jason said:
Not really, It takes maybe 30min (complete, until it's ready for the user) for our guys to image a computer from WDS.
It takes me about 20 minutes to prepare a computer from unboxing it to giving it to the user. So that proves my point - imaging IS slower
Only because you are willing to give your users something we would classify as "not ready for use." I'd call it "not prepped yet." You have to have a different standard for what you hand to them than we would accept. Mostly in terms of unknowns (you haven't had time to investigate what that machine is like) and inconsistencies (can you make sure everyone is getting the same thing.)
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@scottalanmiller said:
There is often so much and so often requires a reboot after each package.
I don't reboot after every package. I don't believe its necessary. I just reboot at the end and assume all the tidying up for all the uninstalled software will be done at that point.
I also don't remove the "bloat partition". What's the point?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
There is often so much and so often requires a reboot after each package.
I don't reboot after every package. I don't believe its necessary. I just reboot at the end and assume all the tidying up for all the uninstalled software will be done at that point.
On the ones that I have seen, it literally won't let you remove without rebooting. It's not an opinion, the OS does not allow it.
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@Carnival-Boy For the record, my wife’s laptop (and that’s my "main end user") has some game preinstalled and uninstalling it took me literary an hour – just because of the uninstallation progress. It just happens.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I also don't remove the "bloat partition". What's the point?
If you don't, you are just throwing away disk space as well as a small amount of performance. And since you would never want that partition to do anything, I see it as removing risk too.
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@angrydok said:
@Carnival-Boy For the record, my wife’s laptop (and that’s my "main end user") has some game preinstalled and uninstalling it took me literary an hour – just because of the uninstallation process. It just happens.
That's closer to my experiences. I could only get to ten minutes if I left most of it.
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Here is an article I did some time ago about letting vendors set up servers. I think the same thing applies here. For a good end user experience and very little overall effort, you can get consistency.
http://mangolassi.it/topic/5474/never-let-the-vendor-set-up-a-server
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It really depends. Even a lot of business machines come with very unnecessary pieces of software installed. I've seen HP Probooks and Elitebooks that are pretty good but still...yeah...
I'm a huge fan of imaging with generic images. A non-brand specific, OEM disc that you can use a key with. Assuming you have VL, this makes it easy. Then you have totally vanilla Windows and you can customize it to your heart's content.
If you're deploying many of the same machine, create an image this way and use that.
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@scottalanmiller said:
On the ones that I have seen, it literally won't let you remove without rebooting. It's not an opinion, the OS does not allow it.
What can I say? I assure you it takes me 10 minutes. Maybe European HPs are set up differently to US ones?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
On the ones that I have seen, it literally won't let you remove without rebooting. It's not an opinion, the OS does not allow it.
What can I say? I assure you it takes me 10 minutes. Maybe European HPs are set up differently to US ones?
That is VERY possible, in fact. Almost certain.
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Do European ones not get that "HP Smartsecure" suite or whatever that is called?
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Oh yes, managing OEM keys, we forget that in the calculation of time and effort. With modern machines making keys so hard to get, how do you handle being able to do OEM installs? It has been a decade since I needed to track OEM keys and match them to machines, but doesn't that alone cause even bigger headaches today than it did in the early 2000s?
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There is quite a bit of security stuff, yeah. Can't remember what it is called. And you have to uninstall it in a particular order.
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We used to have OEM Keys with all of the necessary info about what could be installed on each machine. Now, it seems, that is far harder.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
There is quite a bit of security stuff, yeah. Can't remember what it is called. And you have to uninstall it in a particular order.
Yeah, I knew that it was order specific. But it always makes me reboot. The "Programs" dialogue will refuse to work and force a reboot to continue.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Oh yes, managing OEM keys, we forget that in the calculation of time and effort. With modern machines making keys so hard to get, how do you handle being able to do OEM installs? It has been a decade since I needed to track OEM keys and match them to machines, but doesn't that alone cause even bigger headaches today than it did in the early 2000s?
It's annoying. Since Windows 8, you don't have a printed key anymore. So you are restricted to using brand-specific discs that activate based on the BIOS. It's a huge pain in retail.
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@thanksajdotcom said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh yes, managing OEM keys, we forget that in the calculation of time and effort. With modern machines making keys so hard to get, how do you handle being able to do OEM installs? It has been a decade since I needed to track OEM keys and match them to machines, but doesn't that alone cause even bigger headaches today than it did in the early 2000s?
It's annoying. Since Windows 8, you don't have a printed key anymore. So you are restricted to using brand-specific discs that activate based on the BIOS. It's a huge pain in retail.
Ah, so that would actually make it easier in some cases, like @Carnival-Boy's, I assume, rather than worse.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh yes, managing OEM keys, we forget that in the calculation of time and effort. With modern machines making keys so hard to get, how do you handle being able to do OEM installs? It has been a decade since I needed to track OEM keys and match them to machines, but doesn't that alone cause even bigger headaches today than it did in the early 2000s?
It's annoying. Since Windows 8, you don't have a printed key anymore. So you are restricted to using brand-specific discs that activate based on the BIOS. It's a huge pain in retail.
Ah, so that would actually make it easier in some cases, like @Carnival-Boy's, I assume, rather than worse.
The problem becomes that you can't use a generic ISO without purchasing a new key. I've tried a few utilities that can "extract" the key from the BIOS but I've yet to find a disc/key combo that works that way. I've always had to fall back to ordering discs from the manufacturer.
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@thanksajdotcom I don't believe that he is using a generic one.
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Since the whole thing with the key being embedded in the BIOS starting with Windows 8, especially in businesses, VL makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE! You can use your own image, a vanilla copy of Windows, and it's just easier to manage!
