A friend calls and asks if he can get XP on his Vista HP Pavilion laptop. I asked him why he wanted to go back to XP. He was very unhappy with changed tray icon for Windows Explorer. He missed the old folder icon. I told him messing with Vista on his installed HD would void his warranty with HP. He asked if I could help him with his laptop. (He is somewhat computer challenged) After we got it set up we timed the boot time from power on to a working desktop. Two minutes and 45 seconds with many HP programs popping up upon start-up. No wonder he was so unhappy. HP put a ton of basic crap on his machine. The HP health monitor was a in your face start up screen that was no more of a copy of the Vista health monitor. Removed that sucker. He was complaining about the screen always going grey all the time when trying to do basic things. Good old UAC! Turned it off and killed the underlying service (LUAFV). The next HP piece of crap was the HP Quick Start. Horrible interface coupled with the fact it did not work. Place a DVD in the tray and Quick Start launches, churns for a bit and then reports that there is no disk in tray and pops the tray open. Close it back up and it reports the same thing... total crap. Uninstalled from system. Now WMP pops up when DVD is inserted and plays like it is supposed to.

Rebooted and now his laptop boots to a working desktop (including login) in 45 seconds. He was quite happy to have a faster machine. Vista was now going to be workable. He still complained of the changed icon but he could live with that.  He fought his machine for 3 months because HP tried to do a one--up on Vista. Big mistake!

Why has MS not addressed this practice? I'm guessing here, but I don't think HP is alone in this practice. All the "trial" software should have a button that ends the annoying pop-ups and completely uninstalls the software if you are not interested in buying. The end user should not have to fight with his/her machine!

 

Couldn't agree with you more. Dell do have a removal tool (free) or allow you to ask not to install it at the factory (costs, see below) which is quite nice. Not much MS can do about it don't think. The main reason companies put this stuff on is cause they get paid lots to do it (probably £5 per machine sold or something, which quickly builds up). With Dell charging to have it gone at the factory (IIRC), they somehow need to get back the money that they wouldn't get. Well, all big businesses need their own mountain of cash :/

I must point out, however, this practice is absoilutely nothing unique to Vista...manfuacturers have been doing this since....Windows 98, and probably even further back...most PCs have this tendancy. This is why so many enthuasiasts clean install their brand new machines the first time they get them, or just build their own.

In some ways, particularly with notebooks, MS has attempted to address this with the Windows Mobility Center, but it still isn't followed entirely by OEMs nor is it all it could be

That is precisely why I always wipe and reload any OS when I buy any notebook or desktop. Too much unnecessary junk given by Dell, HP, Fujitsu, etc. Frankly, I wish all the companies would allow you to order the PC's, Notebooks, etc... without all that extra junk. Instead, give us a CD or DVD with all that extra crap so we can choose to use or not to use. Also, it would be great if the CD or DVD had all of the uninstaller programs already included. Its really annoying to have all that junk in a hard drive and you really didn't want it in the first place.

Hey, Paul, since you know all these guys at Dell/HP/Lenovo/Fujitsu/Acer, why don't you use your media notoriety and website to help us out here? Us notebook owners really would like those extra programs on a disk and not pre-loaded. I know you write about it a lot, but another article or two on the subject on how PC manufactuers put so much junk on programs and that many customers don't really want that. Especially those customers who are computer savvy and just want the damn OS. That would be really great.

 I think that there is something MS can do about this:

A back to factory state option which will:

• Remove any single program or service which doesn't come preinstalled with Windows
  
• Completely reset the registry

This option would enable to easily remove all this "***" from OEM PC and laptops.

Note that this option could be used also in other cases.

I as well, fully agree!

Not only is HP doing this to the consumer, however it is also getting worse with business machines. I have a tablet (tc4400) that came loaded with what must have been more than a dozen add on apps. What is killing the machines for business are that most of these “add ons” are branded HP apps, however the worst issue with this AOs is related to how some of the security drivers (bio-finger swipe) are tied in with HP security apps. These should be separate for example if we wish to use different security app to interface with the device it will either have “in use” issues or have the overhead of an app I don’t wish to use, running the background.

Something needs to be done, I can understand trying to make a buck, however there should be better options for not having these AOs loaded to begin with, while removal tools may seem to be an option in some cases, who wants to have remains of these apps lying around on the drive, tied in with drivers, or mucking up the registry?

One good point I can state is that aside from the tied in apps, at least I am able to choose which apps get reinstalled when I rebuild on day one of ownership. Some are not optional if you want full functionality, however the insult still remains that we (possibly more so with higher end consumers) have become accustom to rebuilding these New systems to get what we want… Which hopefully in the future we will eventually get without having to rebuild!

Paul -- Great Job on the site and keep up the good work!