removing crap/bloatware

[imported_sgtbe]

After many nights of pondering over what to do after my 5 year old prostar D47U laptop took a giant dump on me I decided to purchace a new laptop. I had a budget, less then $900. and wanted another 17inch, so shopped around. First looking at Dell, HP/Compaq (which I don't really like) and then to Alienware (way too expensive) and other I could never afford.
I came upon the Toshiba P305-S8832, which looks pretty descent, but the extra chud in new computers is just retarded. See what I mean:
Toshiba Software and Utilities

TOSHIBA Value Added Package

Electronic User?s Guide

Bluetooth Stack for Windows by Toshiba

TOSHIBA ConfigFree®

TOSHIBA Assist

TOSHIBA DVD Player

TOSHIBA Disc Creator

TOSHIBA Extended Tiles for Windows Mobility Center

TOSHIBA Speech System

TOSHIBA Face Recognition

Third-party Software

TOSHIBA Game Console, designed by WildTangent®

Microsoft® Works 9

Sun® Java? 2 Runtime Environment

Adobe® Acrobat® Reader

Google? Desktop

Google? Toolbar

Google? Picasa?

Ulead® DVD MovieFactory® 5 for TOSHIBA

PowerCinema for TOSHIBA

Trial Software

Microsoft Office Trial Home and Student 2007 Edition (60-day trial)

Norton 360? All-In-One Security

Napster® Music download subscription service

memeo AutoBackUp

Special Offers

Microsoft Office Live

shutterfly® digital photo print provider

eMusic Music Download Subscription Service

Vongo, Starz Entertainment Movie Download Service

Intuit® Quickbooks® Financial Center

Skype?

PhotoWorks® digital photo print provider

Computrace® LoJack® for Laptops

Vonage? eMusic? Skype I would probably use, but from a concensus what would you remove? What freeware/shareware would you add? Personally I'm not a fan of Norton so propably get away from that. Also here is a link to it, any thoughts? My last look at a lappy is my prostar which I was able to pick and choose what I wanted.

And one more thing! What to do with the old laptop? I just replaced the hd, added a gig of memory, and have a new wireless card! Is there an option to where I can use it for a multimedia type player or something else? The screen went tits up.
Any advice would be nice! Thanks

 

[DarkRogue]

Holy.. lol

What I ended up doing with my T60 was to just reformat it.
I made a custom XP-OEM install DVD with all my laptop's drivers, and a select few apps that I figured would be useful and I would actually use (this required testing every single app on the machine before I wiped it.) After that, I nuked the HD, installed my custom, CLEAN XP on it, and that was that.

As for the old laptop - you could try to get it repaired, could be a failed backlight or something. Otherwise, you could always hook it up to an external monitor and use it that way. It loses its portability, but you won't have to junk it.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: sgtbe
After many nights of pondering over what to do after my 5 year old prostar D47U laptop took a giant dump on me I decided to purchace a new laptop. I had a budget, less then $900. and wanted another 17inch, so shopped around. First looking at Dell, HP/Compaq (which I don't really like) and then to Alienware (way too expensive) and other I could never afford.
I came upon the Toshiba P305-S8832, which looks pretty descent, but the extra chud in new computers is just retarded. See what I mean:
Toshiba Software and Utilities

TOSHIBA Value Added Package

Electronic User?s Guide

Bluetooth Stack for Windows by Toshiba

TOSHIBA ConfigFree®

TOSHIBA Assist

TOSHIBA DVD Player

TOSHIBA Disc Creator

TOSHIBA Extended Tiles for Windows Mobility Center

TOSHIBA Speech System

TOSHIBA Face Recognition

Third-party Software

TOSHIBA Game Console, designed by WildTangent®

Microsoft® Works 9

Sun® Java? 2 Runtime Environment

Adobe® Acrobat® Reader
--- Replace with FoxIt
Google? Desktop

Google? Toolbar

Google? Picasa?

Ulead® DVD MovieFactory® 5 for TOSHIBA

PowerCinema for TOSHIBA

Trial Software

Microsoft Office Trial Home and Student 2007 Edition (60-day trial)

Norton 360? All-In-One Security

Napster® Music download subscription service

memeo AutoBackUp

Special Offers

Microsoft Office Live

shutterfly® digital photo print provider

eMusic Music Download Subscription Service

Vongo, Starz Entertainment Movie Download Service

Intuit® Quickbooks® Financial Center

Skype?

PhotoWorks® digital photo print provider

Computrace® LoJack® for Laptops

Vonage? eMusic? Skype I would probably use, but from a concensus what would you remove? What freeware/shareware would you add? Personally I'm not a fan of Norton so propably get away from that. Also here is a link to it, any thoughts? My last look at a lappy is my prostar which I was able to pick and choose what I wanted.

And one more thing! What to do with the old laptop? I just replaced the hd, added a gig of memory, and have a new wireless card! Is there an option to where I can use it for a multimedia type player or something else? The screen went tits up.
Any advice would be nice! Thanks

I underlined what I'd get rid of, bolded what you should definitely keep, and left unchanged if I didn't know what it did or might consider keeping (exploring what it did first).

 

[imported_sgtbe]

DarkRogue, Brainonska511
Thanks for the input. As for the old laptop I was thinking of hooking it up to a monitor as you suggested and letting my son use it for music, games, you know 6 year old stuff, maybe nick.com. Thanks for the suggestion on the crapware too.

sgtbe

 

[IlllI]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511
I underlined what I'd get rid of, bolded what you should definitely keep, and left unchanged if I didn't know what it did or might consider keeping (exploring what it did first).

some of the things you have bolded are also underlined

i think you meant keep what *isnt* underlined or bolded ?

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: clandren

Originally posted by: Brainonska511
I underlined what I'd get rid of, bolded what you should definitely keep, and left unchanged if I didn't know what it did or might consider keeping (exploring what it did first).

some of the things you have bolded are also underlined

i think you meant keep what *isnt* underlined or bolded ?

I didn't bold and underline things together. Anything that is bolded and underlined together, was from the original post (they are category headers).

So keep what I bolded in comparison to the original post. Remove what is underlined. Anything not underlined/bolded, find out what it does and then make up your mind on your own.

 

[IlllI]

I didn't bold and underline things together. Anything that is bolded and underlined together, was from the original post (they are category headers).

So keep what I bolded in comparison to the original post. Remove what is underlined. Anything not underlined/bolded, find out what it does and then make up your mind on your own.

lawd thats confusing lol

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: clandren

I didn't bold and underline things together. Anything that is bolded and underlined together, was from the original post (they are category headers).

So keep what I bolded in comparison to the original post. Remove what is underlined. Anything not underlined/bolded, find out what it does and then make up your mind on your own.

lawd thats confusing lol

I guess, but I was feeling kind of lazy.

 

[alkemyst]

if you are going to reformat, you may want to consider blasting the 'utility' partition. If you have the software IMHO the utility partition is a waste.

 

[imported_sgtbe]

alkemyst,
I'm not too hip on the utility partition, I know my other laptop had it, but it seemed to just take up space. Is that safe to delete?

 

[DarkRogue]

The utility/backup/hidden/restore/whatever-other-fancy-name-they-come-up-with partition is usually useless UNLESS you need to restore your laptop to original factory condition.
As you're knowingly nuking the HD to remove the bloatware anyway, you shouldn't need it. Just look through it, back up whatever programs or utilities you might want to keep from the factory install (although most of that you can download..) and nuke it, making sure to keep your own copy of XP or other custom restore media you have tucked away safely in case you need it.

If the restore partition, or your HD has an I386 directory from Toshiba, it may be wise to back that up, as that's the OEM installation files, and may come in handy some time.
For me, at least, I fished up the unattend file from it and managed to slipstream that into an XP image I was making along with SP3 and various other fixes, and that allowed me to reinstall XP on my laptop using IBM's pre-activated key.