How To Get The Most Out Of Your New PC
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Over the weekend Wal-Mart had a fairly good system at a reasonable price, that many have indicated that they purchased. [See here.] In reading some of the comments it appears that most are satisfied with their new purchase. One person even indicated that he dumped Vista off the system and loaded Windows XP Pro and the system sprang to life. But that’s another story.
There were two things I noticed about this new laptop system from Toshiba. First as mentioned in the comments the unit came with crapware aka bloatware that companies continue to use on their systems. Why? Because they are paid by companies to install this trial ware, demo’s, what ever, which helps offset the cost of the system. Let’s face it. At $398 the profit margins get pretty thin. The second thing I noticed, was that according to the manual for the Satellite A205-5800, which according to one reader, is the same as the Wally World model, you had to make your own recovery DVD’s.
The crapware aka bloadtware aka junker software can be removed fairly easily by using one of two methods. First there is a program which is free called PC Decrapifier which will remove most of the gunk. You can get a copy here. Read the FAQ and confirm what you wish the program to do. Another program some folks recommend is CCleaner which also has a uninstaller section, is free and can be found here. With CCleaner you need to manually select which programs you wish to get rid of. After dumping the programs, you can than run CCleaner to clean up the registry. Either way, your system should run smoother.
In order to cut down on costs, some computers no longer come with operating system nor driver/program disks. You MAY have to create your own DVD’s if this is the case. Check the owners manual to determine if your computer is one of those models. The steps to creating the disks are fairly self explanatory.
What else do you personally do when you get a new computer? Let us know.
Comments welcome.
3 Comments
Bruce
July 21st, 2008
at 5:56pm
I just took delivery on a new HP dv9700t laptop this past Thursday. Not only is it my first taste of Vista, but it is the first HP I have purchased in eight years.
Just as you suggested, I used CCleaner and Decrapifier to remove all of the unwanted HP newbie hand-holding gunk that opened when the computer was booted and various other un-needed / unwanted trialware. I used the Norton removal tool to take out the unwanted (and un-asked for) Norton Internet Security Suite 2008, and I was still stunned at all the left behind Norton references that CCleaner found. It took three passes to get it all!
I replaced the Norton with a purchased copy of BitDefender anti-virus (which I’m really loving after putting up with the slowdown of Norton on my Windows XP Asus A2W) and (for now) running with the Vista firewall (I’m also behind a hardware firewall).
So far, I am super pleased with the machine. I have to say that I’m liking Vista at this point. Everything has been rock stable and seems to be running along at a fast pace. I also bought a license to MS Office 2007 and used my key to activate the already installed software. I’ve used Office since Windows version 2.0 and I gotta say that I truly like the changes - much more intuitive in my opinion.
I truly feel that if more people were careful to either order a computer like my wife’s Vostro with no crapware installed, or removed the gunk from machines like my HP, they would find the Vista experience a little more to their liking - well, that and plenty of RAM, a video card with 256 MB, or higher, of dedicated memory and a decent processor….
Bruce
July 21st, 2008
at 5:59pm
I meant to say I have used Word since version 2.0 and Office since Office 97. Had to get that in before the flame throwers fired up!
Ron Schenone
July 21st, 2008
at 6:26pm
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for the comments and for sharing your experience. It is appreciated.