Should We Remove Bloatware on Office PCs
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I never considered @scottalanmiller suggestion of a just a base install of the OS via an image before. Definitely an idea that gets to you a pure clean state much faster and guaranteed clean (save vendor bad drivers) that you can be assured of after uninstalling bloatware.
It also solves the partition problem at the same time.
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@Dashrender said:
It also solves the partition problem at the same time.
You have to manually remove that or the image goes only into the partition available.
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Before the newest (retail) sales model.. I would always toast and load my computers. But that was when you had a CD / DVD to work from to install the OEM OS.
Now that they are moving more and more to not including any type of media,.. you still end up with the bloatware on a 'new install' because it's part of the recovery system.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It also solves the partition problem at the same time.
You have to manually remove that or the image goes only into the partition available.
This depends on your imaging solution - Clonezilla for example removes all of the partitions automatically in my experience.
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@gjacobse said:
Before the newest (retail) sales model.. I would always toast and load my computers. But that was when you had a CD / DVD to work from to install the OEM OS.
Now that they are moving more and more to not including any type of media,.. you still end up with the bloatware on a 'new install' because it's part of the recovery system.
So there are two options here - buy Microsoft Signature Edition PCs. these are machines MS buys and strips all the crap off of and then sells to you at the same price as the OEM would (full retail).
Option two, assuming Windows 10 (and probably 8.1 as well) you can these days download the ISO from MS and create your own media to reinstall your machine from.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Bloatware would be, to me, anything that is installed that is not needed or desired
So would you include IE as bloatware?
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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?
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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.
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@gjacobse said:
Before the newest (retail) sales model.. I would always toast and load my computers. But that was when you had a CD / DVD to work from to install the OEM OS.
Now that they are moving more and more to not including any type of media,.. you still end up with the bloatware on a 'new install' because it's part of the recovery system.
That's WHY they've done that. Makes it harder for people to remove without reimaging rights.
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@Carnival-Boy definitely
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Bloatware would be, to me, anything that is installed that is not needed or desired
So would you include IE as bloatware?
IE is an integral part of the OS. The OS doesn't work without it. That would be a really silly thing to see as bloatware or put on par with Minesweeper.
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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
