Should We Remove Bloatware on Office PCs
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't know if there is value in HP's utilities. I install their Proliant utilities on servers. I even go out of my way to download HP's version of ESXi rather than the vanilla version. Why should I feel any different about their desktop utilities? What's the difference?
There's a huge difference.
The HP version of ESXi includes all of the hardware drivers for the HP hardware that the normal ESXi version doesn't have. You'd have to install those drivers manually if you didn't do that. But beyond that there is nothing special about the HP version.
As for the those HP utilities that come pre installed on a desktop/laptop, not only do they include the drivers, they also often include the bloatware that was originally included on the system and tries to put it back after you uninstall when you run the next update cycle.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't know if there is value in HP's utilities. I install their Proliant utilities on servers. I even go out of my way to download HP's version of ESXi rather than the vanilla version. Why should I feel any different about their desktop utilities? What's the difference?
One is bloatware to get third party products in front of end users, the other are server utilities that end users never see that are effectively pure drivers. Totally different in design and purpose.
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@angrydok said:
Found a good screenshot example over here - check all tools with HP prefix
In regards to recovery partitions, the only problem I see – it could keep some OEM licenses (laptops usually do). Also this might be related to warranty, I’ve seen several legal where repartitioning or killing this partition automatically cancels your warranty.
You have? What vendors were those so I know who to add to the NEVER buy from them list.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
It's not that I think it isn't bad, it is that I think it is trivial to uninstall it. And that uninstalling it may be an easier process than doing a fresh Windows install from a volume licence image.
Not really, It takes maybe 30min (complete, until it's ready for the user) for our guys to image a computer from WDS.
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@Dashrender said:
As for the those HP utilities that come pre installed on a desktop/laptop, not only do they include the drivers, they also often include the bloatware that was originally included on the system and tries to put it back after you uninstall when you run the next update cycle.
I've found that HP includes tons and tons of "HP" utilities that do all kinds of things that I don't like in their bloatware and often are on the verge of impossible to uninstall. Especially their security utils that require reboot after reboot to even attempt removal.
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Our standard practice is to wipe/image any machine that comes in the doors with plans of being used somewhere. If it's new, that bloatware is outta there. I think more time has been wasted having this discussion than it takes to just do the smart, consistent thing, and make every machine standardized, without the crap that you either don't care about using or absolutely do not want on your machines.
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@Dashrender need to check before I call the names
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One thing that surprises me is that @Carnival-Boy is removing the bloatware manually in ten minutes. It easily takes me 30-60 minutes if I need to do that and I'm never confident that I got it all. There is often so much and so often requires a reboot after each package. How can I do it in ten minutes? Not that ten minutes isn't ten minutes too much, I find the imaging process to have zero additional overhead and effort but no bloatware to remove and no risk of removals breaking something or lingering crap that did not get removed or just got missed. So I will never have this problem again but.... I just don't see how it can be done so quickly, at least not on OEM images that I have seen. Especially when you need to remove the bloat partition too and reformat the drive!
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@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
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@art_of_shred said:
Our standard practice is to wipe/image any machine that comes in the doors with plans of being used somewhere. If it's new, that bloatware is outta there. I think more time has been wasted having this discussion than it takes to just do the smart, consistent thing, and make every machine standardized, without the crap that you either don't care about using or absolutely do not want on your machines.
That's so big... consistency. When you keep and/or remove bloatware you get inconsistent machines. Or even inconsistencies from one install to the next on the same machine. Since it takes easily demonstrably less effort even the first time for a single machine to avoid the vendor install disks (unless you don't do any install at all of the initial one as it comes which I would also never, ever do for other reasons) I just don't see why the bloatware would ever be handled at all. Drops below the home line, too.
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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.
