Which store fills your laptop up with the least junk installed?

I heard Best Buy has quite a lot. What are some others that don't do as much or any at all. If worse comes to worse we can run that decrappifier program. But we would like to find a place where we can just get a computer with no pre installed stuff at all.

 

Best Buy is awful, but mostly for their own "updater" they use that makes you sit there while it downloads updates to the stinking updater and then updates to installed stuff..updates that are still far out of date. And you aren't able to stop it, because then it stops the Windows install itself.

After that, the blame falls on the brand of the system, because they'll install a good 95% of crap before it ever leaves the factory. I don't think it's possible for a brand name, store bought system to be had without the standard crapware. You're probably just going to have to have it built to spec by someone or do it yourself.

 

So use decrappifier then? If we have to get it store bought? How easy is that to use?

 

just wipe the hard when you take it out of the box, that's what do
and then do a fresh install of windows or whatever OS you want
just make sure you have all the drivers you need

 

+1

I'm typing on a Best Buy computer. I reimaged it. Runs like a dream.

 

My friend wants to just have a computer with Windows 7 pre installed. Shes not interested in installing OSs since its too much work according to her. Is best buy good with customer service so she can get extra help when she needs it.

 

Out of Fry's or Best Buy which place has the best customer service? Also would they most likely come with a recovery disk, my friend bought her computer she has now from Circuit City and that one came with a recovery disk, does it depend on the computer brand that makes it for if they come with a recovery disk or not?

 

I think that fewer and fewer computers are shipped with a recovery disk already burned for you. If a computer doesn't come with a recovery disk, you can either order one from the manufacturer or you can burn one from your computer following these instructions (really, really, crazy simple to do)
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Create-a-system-repair-disc

And if your friend just wants Windows 7 installed but she ends up with a computer with lots of extra junk, it is REALLY easy to reimage it. Once you have (or have burned) the recovery CD, you put it in your drive, you reboot and watch the startup menu, press whatever key it tells you to in order to access the BIOS or startup options. Choose to boot from the CD. Then follow the directions for reinstalling Windows 7.

But if your friend still thinks that's too much work, then I think her best option is to talk to the sales people and explain what she wants, ask them how she can get it, buy from the place that gives her the answer she wants to hear.

 

What if the new computer doesn't include an actual Windows installation disk, and instead only includes a recovery partition, as I believe most of them do nowadays because this saves the manufacturer the trouble and costs of including the disk? This recovery partition, afaik, only restores the pc to the original manufactured state - iow, with all the extra crap installed along with Windows. If this is the case, then a Windows disk, at least oem, will have to be purchased, unless one can be ordered free from the pc manufacturer.

 

The first thing I do with any computer is reinstall Windows fresh and install only the drivers I need to get things working.

 

Same here!

TH

 

Right, most of us like to do that, so I take it you two have a disk with an available license to re-install Windows on your new machines, or they came with an actual Windows disk?

 

I downloaded Windows (legally! it's available online...) and just put my key into it after the reformat.

 

I'm a Microsoft Technet Subscriber so it's no big deal! But yes the Disc's came with my system!

TH

 

Oh, okay, that would work too, but will the key included with the new pc work with a normal Windows installation disk? *EDIT* it looks l;ike it will based on your response?

 

If it's the same Windows version it'll work fine.

 

Like I said in the post above yours yes, you usually have to burn a recovery CD. I just did some research (in microsoft.com) and I believe that the recovery partition only contains the basic OS. The whole purpose of the partition is to be small & lightweight. So "original manufactured state" is stripped down.

 

That's awesome then, I never knew that

Right, i saw that, but I figured the recovery partition would also include all the crap included in the original installation.

 

Yeah, there are a limited number of activations per key though so you can't go installing one license on a hundred computers. But if you need to reformat, yeah, no problem there.

 

Okay, that makes sense, it's probably oem, I guess, so re-installs and changing hardware is limited, but even so, it's nice to know a "normal" installation of Windows can be put in place of the "garbage" installation rather effortlessly. Very cool

 

The recovery partition will include everything that was orignally installed - it is just the same as using recovery DVDs for computers which use DVDs for revoery rather than a recovery partition.

The only way to get a clean install is to reformat and install Windows from a proper Windows DVD.

 

I searched around for confirmation of this (trust but verify, right?), and it appears that yes, the only way to get a true clean installation is to use an installation DVD. The recovery partition & DVDs will echo what's on the computer when you first get it.

Originally I thought that the recovery partition was pretty clean because I reimaged my Best Buy laptop (that I bought last year) using it. I had to delete a dumb game file, but there really wasn't that much crap installed by Best Buy.

 

Most if not all the software preinstalled will have been installed by the manufacturer and not the retailer. While it can be annoying, the computer manufacturer actually gets paid for some of it, which enables them to sell their computers a bit cheaper.