Should We Remove Bloatware on Office PCs
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Even in my loosest approach to PC builds, I am looking at a standard, known copy of the OS that is exactly the same each and every time. I know that I am getting a look at the disk layout and making it consistent and efficient, every time. I am overwriting the whole disk to make sure the vendor or someone along the supply chain has not interjected something there. It is a clean, known, identical build time after time across makers, models, revisions, etc.
Sorry for the delay in posting, I wrote this but then was on a call and did not post it.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't know what you mean by snowflake,
Term for each individual being managed as an individual, unique instance.
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2015/01/on-devops-and-snowflakes/
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Like I said, I think the only "sponsor" HP currently use is Norton. Granted, I'm working on the presumption that the Norton uninstaller is clean and doesn't leave anything behind. Maybe it isn't?
That one, specifically, is known for being unclean and problematic. I've had many an hour spent fixing machines that "had Norton removed."
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I also can't recall ordering the same computer 2 months apart and find different pre-loaded images. But maybe that's happened and I haven't noticed.
If a change were to happen it would be at any time. Could be years ago, days apart, two shipped at the same time. If a change is made in the run, there would just be one box made one way and all others after that made another. Not sure how common it is with software, with hardware it is more obvious (since most companies image and would never know or care if the software changed there is almost no one to take note) since the hardware affects everyone.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
Like I said, I think the only "sponsor" HP currently use is Norton. Granted, I'm working on the presumption that the Norton uninstaller is clean and doesn't leave anything behind. Maybe it isn't?
That one, specifically, is known for being unclean and problematic. I've had many an hour spent fixing machines that "had Norton removed."
The NTG team once spent FOUR DAYS doing a combination of trying to restore, then rebuild, and finally migrate a server...all because of a SEP uninstall.
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@thanksajdotcom said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
Like I said, I think the only "sponsor" HP currently use is Norton. Granted, I'm working on the presumption that the Norton uninstaller is clean and doesn't leave anything behind. Maybe it isn't?
That one, specifically, is known for being unclean and problematic. I've had many an hour spent fixing machines that "had Norton removed."
The NTG team once spent FOUR DAYS doing a combination of trying to restore, then rebuild, and finally migrate a server...all because of a SEP uninstall.
Needless to say, it was a nightmare, and not our fault...
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@angrydok said:
I find annoying anything that was not installed by me (probably except free MS Office on windows machines).
The free MS Office is a pain in the ass if you have your own version of office to install.
If you leave that installed and your user clicks on an access document, it will f'n install it.
Then when you uninstall, it breaks your installed version and you have to then perform a repair.
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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
20 Min without an image? Do you not get windows updates caught of before giving to a user? Do you not install any additional software and test it?
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Twenty minutes is very fast, I could not possibly get updates run, drivers install and apps installed that quickly. Even with a script.
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@Jason said:
@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
20 Min without an image? Do you not get windows updates caught of before giving to a user? Do you not install any additional software and test it?
20 mins is plenty of time to hand out an unpatched, vulnerable system... if that is how you like to do things.
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I'll time it next time I do one and post the exact timings. Windows updates get installed when the PC is shut down, and possibly that adds a few minutes, I don't generally monitor that.
But even with an image, you still need to install all the updates since you took the image, so it's no quicker right?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'll time it next time I do one and post the exact timings. Windows updates get installed when the PC is shut down, and possibly that adds a few minutes, I don't generally monitor that.
But even with an image, you still need to install all the updates since you took the image, so it's no quicker right?
You can also work to maintain an image.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'll time it next time I do one and post the exact timings. Windows updates get installed when the PC is shut down, and possibly that adds a few minutes, I don't generally monitor that.
But even with an image, you still need to install all the updates since you took the image, so it's no quicker right?
Images are updated regularly so there are very few new ones. We don't won't technicians deploying in patched systems so we handle that.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
But even with an image, you still need to install all the updates since you took the image, so it's no quicker right?
Correct, that should be a break even in general. Unless you are doing a "build your own image" then you can build in some or all of the patches (at least up to the image build time.) So if we leave the "low effort" realm you can do things to speed that up a lot. But when comparing vanilla OEM disc to vanilla MS VL OS disc the patching and updates should be a break even.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
But even with an image, you still need to install all the updates since you took the image, so it's no quicker right?
Correct, that should be a break even in general. Unless you are doing a "build your own image" then you can build in some or all of the patches (at least up to the image build time.) So if we leave the "low effort" realm you can do things to speed that up a lot. But when comparing vanilla OEM disc to vanilla MS VL OS disc the patching and updates should be a break even.
Wouldn't call it a break even. If you do it on the image you spend the time on a VM doing it once for them. If you do it yourself without an image you have to do it on all of them after you get the computers.
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If you do it on the image you spend the time on a VM doing it once for them.
On a VM? Not sure exactly what you mean.
What would be great on this thread would be for someone to list the steps that I should follow to setup 10 PCs - ie creating the image, installing the image onto the other PCs, sysprep, which software I should use for the imaging, updating drivers etc etc - the whole process from start to finish. With rough time frames on how long each step should take. Because I'll confess, I've never actually done it! I paid a guy to do it once and he made a complete mess of it and it took him ages (too bad I was paying by the hour), which has undoubtedly clouded my judgement.
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@Jason said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
But even with an image, you still need to install all the updates since you took the image, so it's no quicker right?
Correct, that should be a break even in general. Unless you are doing a "build your own image" then you can build in some or all of the patches (at least up to the image build time.) So if we leave the "low effort" realm you can do things to speed that up a lot. But when comparing vanilla OEM disc to vanilla MS VL OS disc the patching and updates should be a break even.
Wouldn't call it a break even. If you do it on the image you spend the time on a VM doing it once for them. If you do it yourself without an image you have to do it on all of them after you get the computers.
What I meant is that if you don't add the patches into the VL image, you would still be break even. Of course with any scale you are obviously correct, the value of building patches into the image is huge.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
What would be great on this thread would be for someone to list the steps that I should follow to setup 10 PCs - ie creating the image, installing the image onto the other PCs, sysprep, which software I should use for the imaging, updating drivers etc etc - the whole process from start to finish.
A couple sample "how to" threads of different techniques or approaches for this would be great.
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This is assuming we're supporting offices that buy from a big box store, full of bloatware then...
I always uninstall. But, if given the option for offices, I keep a clone of the (hopefully) like-PCs on hand and that clone is of a fresh base install. 45 minutes and done.
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As to the "should we" portion... here is an example of where it really, really matters and where just "uninstalling" things won't catch all of the bad stuff....
