Holy netbook junkware!

[Maximilian]

My girlfriends bday present just arrived, a new asus eeepc 1011PX and i figured i would remove the usual bits of junk that come bundled with new computers, theres about 40 fecking things that shouldnt be there I started to remove them and then noticed the hdd was partitioned into two parts for no particular reason (asus expressgate maybe) and decided f this.. clean install.

Who thought bundling all that crap would be a good idea? PC's always come with junk but damn, this was a lot! I wanted to avoid a clean install on an Atom because i thought it would take forever, it actually took me longer to uninstall the 3 or 4 bits of junkware before i gave up on that than it did to clean install windows

F U OEM's you all suck. Anyways rant over.

[ketchup79]

Examples? Never bought an Asus, but the last Lenovo I bought wasn't too bad.

[Maximilian]

I shouldve taken a screen shot of the add/remove programs window...

Off the top of my head i remember:

- Asus super hybrid engine
- Bing toolbar (makes you install this on startup)
- Eee docking utility
- Capshook
- Trend something anti virus (junk IMO when there is MSE for free)

Thats just the few things i managed to uninstall before i said screw this and gave up. There was a truckload more, many not even related to asus, i dont remember what they were but i remember the side scroller in the add/remove programs window being tiny because there was so much shit installed.

[podspi]

Sounds like my old HP Mini. I swear, nobody at HP could have even given the machine a test run, the "maintenance" software not only ran a disk defrag while on battery, the dialog box with the cancel button used more pixels than the screen had. I had so much rage that day...

[billyb0b]

Remove it all.

[Golgatha]

Rant warranted. OEM OS installs all suck. Full format needed out of the box every time. Everyone knows this. Android tablets are even worse. You have to root or wipe them to get the uninstallers to run because the OEM installs everything into the protected OS folder.

[Zap]

Originally Posted by Maximilian

- Asus super hybrid engine

You'll probably want to download and install the latest version of this. It is why Asus netbooks have better battery life than other brands. Also, on some models it even allows overclocking for a bit extra oomph when you need it.

[ninaholic37]

I agree, the first thing I do whenever I buy a netbook is remove all the bloatware. Now my Acer D270 boots up from cold boot in around 5 seconds and the only thing on my desktop is Firefox.

Pretty sure that the Asus Eee 1011PX is not new! The Asus Eee X101CH netbook has a fanless design, Matte display, and has the newer N2600 chip (they sell this model here at Staples for $249, looks pretty slick).

[kevinsbane]

Originally Posted by Golgatha

Rant warranted. OEM OS installs all suck. Full format needed out of the box every time. Everyone knows this. Android tablets are even worse. You have to root or wipe them to get the uninstallers to run because the OEM installs everything into the protected OS folder.

The Lenovo Thinkpad OEM images are actually very reasonable. They come with minimal bloatware, although they do install their own versions of the wifi connection utilities and their own synaptic mouse drivers.

In fact, Thinkpads actually run somewhat worse on a fresh reinstall as opposed to the factory image; there's something with the factory image that enables a boost to battery life.

[Maximilian]

Originally Posted by Zap

You'll probably want to download and install the latest version of this. It is why Asus netbooks have better battery life than other brands. Also, on some models it even allows overclocking for a bit extra oomph when you need it.

Ah cool. Ill put that back on then.

Originally Posted by ninaholic37

Pretty sure that the Asus Eee 1011PX is not new! The Asus Eee X101CH netbook has a fanless design, Matte display, and has the newer N2600 chip (they sell this model here at Staples for $249, looks pretty slick).

Yeah i know, i got it real cheap though at £130 delivered. Girlfriend wouldn't know the difference between an N2600 and a pineapple so this will do her.

[b0mbrman]

Originally Posted by Zap

You'll probably want to download and install the latest version of this. It is why Asus netbooks have better battery life than other brands. Also, on some models it even allows overclocking for a bit extra oomph when you need it.

Silly question, but could the software be used on other laptops?

[Golgatha]

Originally Posted by kevinsbane

The Lenovo Thinkpad OEM images are actually very reasonable. They come with minimal bloatware, although they do install their own versions of the wifi connection utilities and their own synaptic mouse drivers.

In fact, Thinkpads actually run somewhat worse on a fresh reinstall as opposed to the factory image; there's something with the factory image that enables a boost to battery life.

Ok, you got me there. I had a T42 notebook and the default install was pretty decent.

[jrocks84]

Not as bad as Toshiba. One of my friend's laptops came with literally pages of bloatware!

[IGemini]

Yeah, cleaned out a 1001PX as well.

Eee Docking and the AV are probably the biggest resource hogs. (They install Bing now, too? Ugh.) There's a couple that are good to keep though like the HybridEngine and Capshook, especially if your girlfriend is that clueless. Those netbooks don't really have any Caps/Numlock indicators beyond that, it might avoid some things like: "Some of my letters keep typing numbers!" I could be wrong though.

[Mark R]

The worst experience I've had was with an Acer that I bought as a gift for my mum.

I left everything bundled, because time was short, and just installed the relevant apps (like office).

Anyway, she's constantly getting problems - explorer crashing, Wifi connection dropping, photos getting corrupted, etc.

It took ages for me to work out that all the problems were conflicts between windows and the bundled crapware! Something in the crapware tried to alter the behavior of windows photo preview, with the result that it would crash periodically, or corrupt the file if you tried to rotate the image.

Something else in the crapware would automatically drop the wifi connection and try to join an unsecure network, if one was becomes available (even if the unsecure network had been blocked in the window control panel).

Once I realised what the problem was, I removed all the crapware - it took ages, and some of the uninstallation had to be done manually. But once I did that, all the major glitches went away.

[ketchup79]

That reminds me, I never understood 3rd party wifi connection software. Even my Thinkpad came with it, and it was making things a pain until I got rid of it. Why do they devote resources to doing something that windows does so well?

[Nohr]

A friend got a Dell Inspiron laptop a couple weeks ago. It had 85-95 processes at startup... It's sad that the average person will just use their new computer as-is with all that shit on it.

[wirednuts]

asus super hybrid engine is titties. update and use it!

[krimsonstudios]

There really needs to be some regulations in pc manufacturing that denote that the disc for the appropriate version of Windows + license information (keys if needed) be supplied with the computer. You should be able to get your laptop home, and if desired, be able to install a fresh OS without any of the extra's provided by the manufacturer.Of course, without regulations no supplier will ever do this. They make commissions off that bloatware / trialware hence why these low budget laptops / netbooks always come filled to the brim.