Submitted by Apple’s new ‘Stuffed’ commercial pokes fun at preinstalled applications – better known as craplets – loaded up on new Windows PCs. Apple isn’t alone in the craplet disdain. Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg wrote columns on April 5 and April 12 about the craplet dilemma. Mossberg identified two problems: “One is the plethora of teaser software and advertisements for products that must be cleared and uninstalled to make way for your own stuff. The second is the confusing welter of security programs you have to master and update, even on a virgin machine.”
I always thought that commercial was somewhat ironic since my mac mini came with MS Office “test drive” and Iwork 30-day trial. Guess it depends on your definition of “crapware” (mine includes Office)
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A lot of their adverts of late have been slightly hypocritical or inaccurate. In fact I believe Thom even wrote an article about this specific issue not that long ago.
But then I guess Apple need to convince people that Windows isn’t the only desktop environment and certainly not the ‘best’ given it’s monopoly.
“A lot of their adverts of late have been slightly hypocritical or inaccurate.”
As opposed to what commercials?
“As opposed to what commercials?”
As opposed to most of their (Apple’s) other/previous commercials. Almost everyone I know (PC and Mac users alike) are sick of these new ones…they were cute for about a week.
Ballmer should run onto the set of the next Mac commercial shoot and start throwing chairs at John Hodgman!
Yes, OS X does come with the trial software…
I guess the bit I didn’t mind with the Mac is that this trial stuff didn’t start up when the machine did and was so easy to get rid off, but yes, the software was there…
I hate getting XP machines (still to get a Vista OEM) that has this stuff in the system tray, trial services and other background stuff chewing up my processor… I’d rather it wasn’t there except on a CD that I can choose to install later (which of course no one would ;-).
I tend to reinstall OS’s from scratch anyway, so it’s not so bad (even on OS X – they have all the printer defs and languages installed by default)…
…XP machines (still to get a Vista OEM) that has this stuff in the system tray, trial services and other background stuff chewing up my processor…
Exactly! I’ve seen store-bought XP machines with 50-60 processes on first boot. XP runs well with ~13, if that gives anyone an idea of how big a problem it really is. You can’t even compare that to OS X, where nothing extra is run by default and it’s only a matter of dragging MS Office to the trash to remove any crapware.
It’s interesting that the only piece of crapware on a new Mac is Office. Part of the Apple/Microsoft deal to maintain the port, I would think.
Edited 2007-04-18 14:30
Some of those tools are a requirement. For example, on Toshiba notebooks (I can confirm this because I work for Toshiba fixing notebooks), there is a tool called Power Management. Windows power management in XP is horrible, with very limited features. Toshiba produced a tool to maximise battery life by automatically (and software controllable) stepping CPU speed and optical drive spin speed etc. Without this tool, battery life drops dramatically. Instead of the quoted 4 hours battery, you’d be lucky to get 1. I guess if people really want their notebook to run at full speed even though it’s on batteries, they can.
A lot of people buy Toshiba notebooks, and either remove anything they think is unnecessary, or install a vanilla copy (i.e. not OEM). Immediately they complain about poor performance and battery life.
The problem is, the GUI for this program makes it look too gimicky and resource-eating. Why developers cannot use the standard Windows GUI for consistency (and to avoid confusion) I’ll never know. People remove it because it looks like just another useless program.
There are good and bad; the hard part is telling the user what they are, and why the bad ones are there in the first place.
If you don’t like the 30 day Office trial you drag and drop the folder into the trash and empty it.
If you don’t like the same for Windows you uninstall and go through hell to clean your system up.
iWorks is a drag n’ drop as well.
That’s the point. One is an instant diet solution and the other is a weight watchers program.
The crapware I always hated was the stuff that wasn’t any good if you bought the full version (OS X comes with some crappy games that are probably like this).
It’s pretty irritating, although a lot of it is very easy to remove in OS X. I’d, still, much prefer they just don’t install it!
Whenever I un-install stuff from XP, I run a cleaner like CCleaner right after:
– it throws out much extra rubbish that tries to linger.
The difference is that those trial apps doesn’t autostart and try to force themselves on you. Besides with macs you get a real Mac OS X installation CD, and not some restore CD, so you can do a clean install if you want to.
I think there is a big difference between having a few program trials of useful software that a consumer would likely buy anyway, as opposed to two dozen pieces of useless software that start automatically and almost nobody ever uses, not to mention all the advertisments.
As far as the iwork trial, i was glad it was on here so i could play with it to see if i liked it. Later i purchased it.
a free trial is not necesseraly a crapplet, they become crapplet’s when there are tons of them and they are useless to most people.
Personally, I’m sick and tired of hearing Apply fanboys rant on about Windows when OSX is almost as bloated and previous versions of MacOS were just as unstable.
Full credit to Apple for moving to a BSD kernel, but that aside Apple really aren’t much better than Microsoft (especially in terms of business practices)
Well, I’m sick and tired of Windows fanboys acting as though Windows is the end-all; be-all of operating systems. This attitude extends to OEM’s, hardware vendors, software vendors, and Internet service providers. If you mention you have an alternative operating system (let’s say Linux for example) then all of a sudden you’re a pariah to the vendor or provider in question. You’re on your own and completely unsupported. The truth of the matter is that Windows sucks. It has always sucked and it’s only due to Microsoft’s shady and monopolistic practices that it’s the dominant operating system. The existence of craplets to lead the sheep who use Windows to various goods and services only proves that Windows is intended for the small and narrow minded.
I hope you realise that those who work at internet service providers could possibly provide support but it is those who write the policies who disallow it.
I worked at a ISP for a few months, and I got into trouble several times because I dared to help a customer set up PPPoE using Roaring Penguin client.
Don’t blame the employees, blame those who make the policies for the said organisation.
Then the question is, why don’t you use Windows, your rant seems to prove that you are “small and narrow minded”
It is not MS’s fault that OEM’s won’t provide warrenty support for an OS they didn’t provide and are probably not trained in. (They most likely don’t discourage it, I’ll give you that) it is just crazy to expect OEM’s train their support staff in every friggin’ alternative OS in existance, and that includes the hundreds of Linux distros.
MS has tried to restrict the sales of PCs with alternative OS’s in the past, but this is no longer the case, so it is up to the OEMs to decide to provide alternative OS’s for your computer, that way, when they officially support an OS, you can expect the support rep to be trained on it. They will not EVER support every OS in existence, and will still expect you to revert to a supported OS for troubleshooting.
It is not MS’s fault that OEM’s won’t provide warrenty support for an OS they didn’t provide and are probably not trained in.
Erm… actually, it is. You see, part of the deal that OEMs get on bulk licenses is that they promise to sell a windows license with every single computer to go out the door (it works that way with hardware vendors too, which is why people guessed at an xscale/ipod deal when apple moved to x86). Making such an agreement can many times allow them a very large discount. Other times (as with the dell agreement over XP) they are just required to do it, no “you get a discount with this deal,” just “you have to.”
Sometimes companies like Dell will refund your money (read: they eat the license cost to be nice to you, though in the long run they still save loads to one license cost doesn’t make all that difference), but their deal with Microsoft still requires them to ship it and the license that would have gone with your computer is from then on considered in use.
So, it becomes Microsoft’s fault that the OEM did not ship something else. Now, of course OEMs will not train people to support something they don’t sell, that would be foolish and it would guarantee their help desk people would leave and get a real job… but that’s not really the issue. The issue in your post is that you believe Microsoft is not responsible for the unfriendly action. In many cases they are.
“rm… actually, it is. You see, part of the deal that OEMs get on bulk licenses is that they promise to sell a windows license with every single computer to go out the door (it works that way with hardware vendors too, which is why people guessed at an xscale/ipod deal when apple moved to x86). Making such an agreement can many times allow them a very large discount. Other times (as with the dell agreement over XP) they are just required to do it, no “you get a discount with this deal,” just “you have to.”
That part of the deal is now deprecated, and you can see it in Dell thinking about expanding thier Linux offerings and the linux offerings from HP. That clause was struck down 4 years ago or so, so the OEMs have had 4 years to sell LInux…..and haven’t
The existence of craplets to lead the sheep who use Windows to various goods and services
only proves that Windows is intended for the small and narrow minded.”
You just described 90+% of Humanity,dude!
– billions and billions of upright-walking idiots, incapable of Linux Terminal and apt-get,
and wanting(no..needing!) things eeaassy..as in Windoze-eeaassy!
The World’s 6.6 billion human occupants are simply not ready for sophisticated MAC OS X,
and certainly not for overly-complicated Linux!
The latter is for above-average intellects who also happen to be IT Professionals with Computer Science degrees!
If/when those lofty types ever want Linux to succeed, and do better than 1% of market share
-(that says a lot!)-
then they gonna have to dumb-it-down to sheep/Windoze level ..know whut a’m sayin?
I’ve read it three times…And…
“..know whut a’m sayin?”
I’m sorry, but I honestly have little to no idea…
I’ve read it three times…And…
“..know whut a’m sayin?”
I’m sorry, but I honestly have little to no idea…
I’m very sorry for you, here, let me break it down for you since you appear to be part of the 90% he was talking about.
90% of people are in the average intelligence range. The “average”, while median, is pitiful. They buy music because the RIAA tells them to, they watch movies because they see the ads, they use everything that came with their computer in the way that it already exists (QWERTY anyone? as if there weren’t 30 better layouts around) never even changing background color settings (or knowing they can), stop each other from doing something to make them watch a TV ad, and they buy cars because they can go from 0-60 in 3.8 seconds, capable of going 160 miles an hour (then buy the $120 performance tires to go 80mph down the freeway).
A further 5% of people are below “average” (not going to use a computer), which means only about 5% of people are really capable of understanding the whole “unix” thing. I spend a lot of time training people to use computers, the vast majority of them cannot learn anything other than point and click in any reasonable time. Now, this does not mean they cannot use Mac OS X, but it does mean they cannot use Darwin. They can use Windows but they cannot figure out what cmd is for, and they could certainly use KDE but would be lost by something as simple as the kontrol panel, never even daring to get into anything more complex.
This does not by any means mean that the 95% of the world is incapable of using GNU/Linux,Solaris,BSD,whatever, it means that they have other things on their minds (like buying big screen TVs to watch baseball or football (soccer, USfootball, whatever you want to read that as)).
“Average” people not only learn at a slower pace but like to keep their time occupied with other things, which means they don’t have the 15 minutes it takes to get a good grasp on unix directory structure and permissions. They don’t have it because that same 5-15 minutes it takes to learn it takes them 30-45 minutes, possibly more if they are not already familiar with standard computing ideas (introductory unix courses in colleges spend several sessions on these simple things, and that is after many other computing courses are finished).
Most people I deal with cannot even figure out what the “read only” attribute in windows might do.
So, I suppose the only question is: What did his post have to do with the above posting referring to windows being aimed at sheep? Yes, he made some comments about human nature, and he was, overall, correct.
What I wonder is, was he modded down for giving a topic-straying rant, or being people don’t like to be told that they are stupid?
Look folks, it doesn’t matter whether you like being referred to as sheep or not, it doesn’t matter whether you want to think of yourselves as “stupid” or “average” or “above average” or whatever else, there is always going to be someone who views you the same way you view the neighborhood retard. It doesn’t matter how intelligent you may be, you’ll always have at least one area where you become a mental midget.
What he was pointing out is that for 90% of people technology is that area. Frankly, for those people, science, mathematics, history, mechanical motion, cooking, or just about anything outside of their normal day-to-day activities is beyond their easy grasp.
Just because you don’t like to think about it doesn’t make it a lie, however, and while we was blunk he wasn’t really offensive (unless you are just sensitive to the idea)… so I don’t really see why he ended up at 0.
If you mention you have an alternative operating system..
That’s part of the problem right there–the very fact you and I can refer to anything not Microsoft Windows. It’s as if computer was synonymous with Windows…
–bornagainpenguin
Full credit to Apple for moving to a BSD kernel,…)
Mac OS X is based on the Mach kernel and is derived from the BSD implementation of Unix in NEXTSTEP. Darwin (open source base of OS X) is built around XNU, a hybrid kernel that combines the Mach 3 microkernel, various elements of FreeBSD 5 (including the process model, network stack, and virtual file system). Most software packages written for BSD or Linux can be recompiled to run on it.
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I’m aware of that – I just didn’t see the point in writing a paragraph to desribe a kernel when 3 letters and some common sense from OSNew readers works just as well
Edited 2007-04-18 12:27
Yeah XNU takes elements from FreeBSD 5, which is old.
Does Apple plan to replace XNU’s FreeBSD 5 components with FreeBSD 7’s ?
I’d expect them to add and modify from their own tree to FreeBSD and take back ideas from the current stable branch of FreeBSD where it makes sense.
Does that mean they will add 7.x branch specific options to OS X or give back options that won’t be seen until 7.x is stable, who knows?
Well the Kernel team knows but NDAs keep that rightfully under check.
I agree! – I pay close attn. to Apple’s weird adverts, to see just What Battle they’re attempting to portray, and it would seem to be Ye Olde Battle of circa late-1990’s, when Mac was at v.9.5.5, and Windoze sufferers were dealing with Win.98 – which was “okay” but not much more!
But this is 2007, Mac! and we Windoze “sufferers” are now running a VASTLY-improved Operating System -(it’s called XP?)- in machines running P4 processors, all juiced up on 1-2 GIGAbytes of RAM !!
Simply put, there are no problems,any more, not even the malware ‘problem’ that Mac and Linux users sooo love to ‘harp’ on!
For Windows users, malware is a fact of life (kinda like unprotected sex?)
and we simply deal with it, installing any number of the zillion anti-malware products out there(many of them free!)
and we get on with our lives while we play with Ubuntu or Mac on the side, as a hobby thang!
Apple needs to seriously rethink their purportedly deriding ads, coz they don’t connect…this advice from a guy who started Computers in late 1995, with an LC III using Mac OS 7.1, all the way up to 9.5.5 before switching over to The Dark Side! (scary,huh?)
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Incidentally, Ubuntu 7.04 is due out tomorrow, and I’m getting excited,
even though I’ll have to back everything up, wipe the HD
and install the new version(despite its idiot name)
You need to experience real users, the malware problem exists, more than ever. People’s P4’s with gigs of RAM have so much preloaded crap they crawl. I fix computers for a living, and I know you’re only talking about a subset of Windows users; those who know what they’re doing. I think it’s you who are living in the past; certainly not Apple.
God Bless the real users you refer to,
for I make a living doing house calls to their pre-loaded XP computers.
While working, I call them over and show them ‘all the malware’ I throw out,
just so’s they’d feel okay about paying me!
I also teach them a little about running XP clean,
I also install Firefox (throwing out all Big Blue E icons!).
I often install OpenOffice for those who need an office suite, thus saving them megabux
and they think the sun shines outa my…
When I leave, 2-3 hrs. later, their XP runs a lot more like mine!
and I go back every 3-6 months to do a fresh-up…when they pay me again!
God, how I love Microsoft!!
QUOTE: …this advice from a guy who started Computers in late 1995, with an LC III using Mac OS 7.1, all the way up to 9.5.5 before switching over to The Dark Side! (scary,huh?)
For such a hardcore old school Mac user you claim to be (or have been), its funny that you actually failed to notice Mac OS 9.5.5 never existed. Latest build was actually 9.2.2
not a huge issue.
I’ve had so much water under my bridge in that seven years that it hardly matters what version the older style Mac OS stopped at, but thank you for the correction, nonetheless.
I don’t think the norm is to have a Windows XP OEM computer with GIGAbytes of RAM. Most OEM systems had 512MB and still the majority of computers out there didn’t have that much.
I used to work in the ISP industry, there are still WinME systems out there. So we’re talking machines that were pII/pIII at most with 256MB or 384MB of RAM. It was a battle everyday when Tech Support came to me and asked WinME questions and upper management basically said that we don’t support what MS doesn’t support.
I’m glad I’m out of the telecomm/isp field…it sucks
Oh, and please tell those poor tech support people that Malware no longer exists, they’ll be so happy that they don’t have to deal with customers with computers bogged down anymore.
*EDIT*
I’m sorry…WinME isn’t apparently there anymore. According to Browser/OS stats at w3schools.com: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp, XP is the most used now. WinME isn’t even listed. Win98 is though…and that’s even older
Edited 2007-04-18 16:44 UTC
Those ads reach who they intend to reach, people tired of Windows issues and those tired of buying new machines every time a new version of Windoze comes out.
It’s funny that even the machines that are “Vista ready” can’t even run a full version of Vista! LOL!
Mossberg is right, who in the heck wants things like Microsoft Works? That crap! LOL!
Or Norton Antivirus, that everyone has but no one actually buys and updates. Then wonders why their machine got a virus. LOL!
“using Mac OS 7.1, all the way up to 9.5.5 before switching over to The Dark Side!”
Please go to an Apple store and play with OS X Tiger for 30 minutes because it is as different from OS 7-9 as it is from Windows.
I have been using Macs and Os X for 2 years now, after 10 years of using only Windows. Recently, I had a Vista experience when my dad bought a Gateway laptop with Vista. I do the first boot with him and it comes up running: Google desktop, McAffe antivirus trial, some thing called BigFix, and a bunch of other trials (AOL, Quicken, Money…). So I uninstalled all of that and then installed Quicken 2007 (2007!) and what happened? The system was hosed and wouldn’t boot. Very nice indeed, I think that covers 2-3 of those Apple vs. PC commercials you think are not relevant.
“I forgot something.”
hehe. Hilarious ad.
I disagree with Office being “crapware”. After all, Office is what oh so many people use daily, unlike some crappy shareware utility that does nothing and nobody would normally use it. And even then, removing it is a matter of deleting a folder! How hard is that? No “uninstall – are you sure? – somes file could not deleted -reboot?” nonsense. So it’s really a night and day difference regardless of crapware “definitions”.
My Vista machine is craplet free, as I installed the OS myself, but my new Cingular Blackjack is loaded with them. Almost half the menu items are links to buy something else from Cingular, and useful apps (like Media Player) are hidden in craplet folders like “Cingular Music”.
And deleting them is far more of a hassle than on a PC. There is no uninstall; I have to manually edit the start menu folder. That folder is write protected, so I had to change a registry setting. There is no included tool for editing the registry, so I had to install a new application to do that.
My wife is counting down the minutes until the iPhone’s release. It will be interesting to see how much crap comes loaded on that thing, and how much of a pain it will be to remove it.
That’s why you buy a phone and a separate PDA…
Very little extra crap came on my Axim, and it’ll outlast a couple of cell phones.
What I will say, first hand..I bought a new machine recently from Dell to replace a aging custom build. X2 4800+ , 2GB ram, etc..So this is no puny machine. To my surprise, the Dell OEM install was pretty bare. Only the dell support software, and mcaffee were installed with Vista Home Premium. I had already set on blowing out Vista and installing XP and linux, but I thought why not give it a try first have (for real) and take a honest look at how good it was.
Striking all preconceptions from mind, I booted it up determined to run this OS and give it a fair shake from a vet. That’s where it started and ended. First boot took a good 10-15minutes while it plugged away at unknown stuff. Once the machine was up and running, I poked around and started to wonder what the big deal was..Yeah it was pretty, but everything seems to work ok, then it hit me…
About 20mins into my session by cpu started to bounce around, finally landing on 38-46% both cores…and it stayed there. Check task manager and my system was using a whooping 668MB ram??? with 72 processes running.
Now come on guys, XP takes about 90-100MB flat install at maybe 20-25 processes. I don’t care what it looks like, or what new old tricks its learned, that’s just gross and insane. I left it for 1hr thinking it was doing some beagle like indexing, but it never changed.
Vista is a complete bust in my book. I see nothing in Vista they couldn’t have added as a upgrade for XP, even a paid upgrade would have been nice. Kinda like how the used to have the Plus! additions. Nothing will convince me that my idle system with no programs open and just AV running should eat those kinda of resources. Vista is all about money and leverage.
I will say it again, it’s not that I don’t like Windows; it’s a fine operating system, I just hate Microsoft and the way they do business.
Thank you for your honest and realistic assessment.
I use XP pro., find it quite nice and easy to use,
and intend to use it to Death!
– even beyond that time when MS no longer provides Support for it, coz it’s perfectly capable.
(Finally, MS came out with a good/halfway-decent OS that works)
Keep XP clean of the ‘dreaded’ malware,
and feed it lotsa RAM (1 Gb.min.) and the thing runs sweet.
Yeah that is about how I see things with Vista are. Your is prob one of the best reviews of Vista and it totally matches with what I experienced. What a joke Microsoft has become. No way am I upgrading from XP Pro!
“About 20mins into my session by cpu started to bounce around, finally landing on 38-46% both cores…and it stayed there. Check task manager and my system was using a whooping 668MB ram??? with 72 processes running.”
If your CPU’s are doing that, you have other issues. Vista uses nothing when it just sits idle. My dual core does not anyway. Sounds like you have things installed by the OEM that is doing all that. If you watch the memory, what you will see is that for the most part, the usage does not get higher. Things are pre-cached, and start faster because of it. YMMV of course, but this is my observations. I do have more memory then most at 4GB, and my memory usage never exceeds 26%. It is at 26% after boot, which takes about 20 seconds, and only increases to 28% when I run firefox or thunderbird.
“my system was using a whooping 668MB ram??? with 72 processes running. ”
Unused RAM is wasted RAM. Some of that RAM was probably used as caching/preloading for applications you /might/ decide to load. If you need that RAM for something else, it frees up immediately.
“I left it for 1hr thinking it was doing some beagle like indexing, but it never changed.”
Because obviously indexing can never take any longer than an hour, right? …No.
You only show the problem of people looking at system usage statistics without knowing what they really represent. If 1GB of RAM was not enough, the computer would be slow to load new applications. You don’t mention that it was. If it acts responsive and fast, why do you care how many processes it’s running? A process costs almost nothing if it isn’t taking CPU (and I guarantee that not more than 10 processes wanted the CPU at any point in time).
You remind me of those old programs that claim to “speed up” Windows. For example, they would send a Windows API call to free up some RAM, and Windows would de-allocate some RAM that it had allocated to applications “just in case they would want to use it”. Of course, as soon as an application wanted to use the RAM, it would re-allocate and (gasp!) the RAM was back to 80% use again! Oh no!
A similar case is deleting the “Prefetch” files as “cruft”. The prefetch files actually speed up your computer.
In summary, stop looking at system statistics you can no longer interpret accurately and talk about how fast the system actually is.
I was actually surprised when we started receiving the vista machines here at the office from HP. The only thing they had installed was adobe reader and windvd. Thats it. The XP machines had Google desktop and whole bunch of other crap that we remove as soon as we get them or we re-image the stupid thing. My guess is the lack of crap either means a huge discount form MS or they can’t figure out how to install all the crap on vista yet. Though honestly do you need Google desktop if you have windows live search already by default?
Though honestly do you need Google desktop if you have windows live search already by default?
Awesome. The power of using one’s OS dominance to squeeze out earlier products from other companies. Do you honestly need Firefox if you have IE by default? Do you need Real (laffo) if you have Windows Media Player by default?
Say what you will about Real or Netscape around the time of the browser wars, but that comment is exactly why companies like Real go after MS with antitrust suits.
Anyway, I’m not trying to contradict anything you’ve said. I just felt like highlighting that comment, as it’s so pertinent to so many recurring discussions around here.
Are you saying Microsoft should be prohibited from adding desktop search to its OS? Even though other OSes already have it? Microsoft has to add that feature to compete with those other OSes.
People can still install Google’s offering if they want it. In fact, Dell forces Google Desktop down its buyers’ throats.
“Dell forces Google Desktop down its buyers’ throats.”
Could you explain how this is any different from the buy button in Media Center, or upgrade to super swishy edition, or Microsoft’s own Anti-Virus offering. How about windows media center of *cough* Internet explorer. Even the European government couldn’t get those removed.
Thats ignoring all the other little offerings packaged with the OS. I wonder why Microsoft has patented a modular Os offering. You would think they were going to charge for all these things. I suspect they will still offer the crippleware version in their main OS though. I wouldn’t even think of mentioning default settings.
The funny thing is companies other than Microsoft have to actually *pay* to get their stuff as a default on the desktop. I’d almost begin to believe that the old argument of pre-installed is thing keeping Microsoft as a monopoly.
Sorry for the uppercase, this has been probably my single biggest pet peeve for the last few years. It’s gotten so ridiculously bad with systems from big OEMs that if I have to set one up, my absolute first step is to reformat the drive and do a clean install from an OEM CD.
4-5 years ago, you could get the crap uninstalled in 5-10 minutes. These days though, it’s literally been faster to reformat-reinstall in my experience.
And I don’t know how they manage to do it, but I’ve seen more really really strange Windows problems with OEM pre-installed than I can count, many of which I’ve never encountered otherwise. E.g., one laptop where Win Explorer refused to save any settings – it would appear to work, but then revert to the old settings every time the prefs window was closed and re-opened. Or more generally, unexplained disk use/disk thrashing on a brand new system, no matter how much crap was uninstalled/disabled in MSConfig.
Personally, I think this situation is one of the largest contributing factors to lowering perceptions of quality when it comes to computers from big OEMs.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s done some good for Apple sales, though.
I’ve never had an experience with that that couldn’t be solved by use of Add/Remove Programs.
The only thing that comes close is my DVD player… the driver that comes with it does not permit DVD video playback, but you can pay an additional $15 if you want a driver that suppots it.
The biggest plague with windows is the fact that every manufacturer stuffs MBs of crappy useless junk with their drivers either on CD or preinstalled or even with downloads.
There is *no* reason a driver should be a 30MBs zip while a single 5kB file does the job!
All the “added value” like stuff to assign launching your coffee brewer on the 4th mouse button is useless to most users because they don’t even know how to use it, and to the rest of them because they find it buggy and would prefer another one which, lucklessly doesn’t work with their mouse.
Ever had to dig a 300MB CD with flash animations or PDFs or scanning-app-that-also-knows-how-to-send-an-email-wow or whatever just to find the .INF you need to install the 2k scanner driver ?
Besides, in france it’s illegal, it’s called “linked sale”, even if you don’t pay for it, it is assumed the cost is hidden in the price you pay. Just like when you buy a new PC and you get windows without asking for it. But that’s another debate.
The problem with Windows craplets is that they constantly try to replace existing functionality. How many times have you had to uninstall the crappy wireless utility that comes on the machine that disables Wireless Zero Configuration? And the new battery manager, and the new CD burner, and the new audio controls, and so on….
Seriously Microsoft invent a term so they can control what software appears preinstalled with a Microsoft OS.
…and we run with it. I love Microsoft’s Marketing Department.
I’m actually tied between the lowering of prices of Microsoft OS pre-installed machines that contain *adverts* for alternative products to those of Microsoft, and Microsoft becoming a abusing their position of a Monopoly yet again.
What I do know is that right now if I was a large manufacturer of PC’s. I would be *at least* threatening to install OpenOffice and/or Firefox, on every PC so they can contain having control.
seriously though I modded you all down.
Don’t worry; I returned the favour.
I was at a local electronics retailer here in SoCal the other day (Circuit City) and just for fun I looked at a new HP computer with Vista preinstalled. The stock system, from a cold boot would idle at 700MB of RAM. This was on a system with only 1GB installed. There was so much stuff in the system tray it was ridiculous. Certainly wiping the computer and reinstalling it will fix it, but most people are not going to do that.
Actually that’s normal for a Vista machine. I get about the same ram usage and I only office, catalyst center and citrix in my system tray. It blew my mind when I first saw Vista’s ram usage.
Craplets are really annoying.
The real pain is that even when you uninstall the unwanted programs like Quicken, MS-Works Trial Edition etc. they are still hiding on your harddisk and fill up space.
The user has always to use a decent file manager (long live Total Commander) and delete all by hand.
Just last weekend I did this sort of cleanup on my new Compaq laptop and got rid of 5GB on Drive C:.
On WinXP Media Center Edition you even get 1.9GB of media files, isn’t it nice?
A few years back the customers would get full versions of MS-Word or MS-Works with a CD. Nowadays you get them preinstalled as Trial versions. If you wnat to use them for good you have to pay.
Gone are also the days where you would get a decent OS CD, you only get a hidden recovery partition (not even recovery CD’s/DVD’s).
If the customer didn’t add/change the partitions to store his data, and he has to reinstall the OS from a self made recovery DVD, all data is gone and all craplets are back.
That’s why my procedure after buying a new Laptop is:
1.) Create Recovery DVD’s with the provided program. (the data is on the hidden D: partition).
2.) Repartition the harddisk to add some logical drives where your data can be stored. This way if you have to reinstall from the recovering DVD’s your data is not lost. Keep in mind to make C: big enough for a full recovery install (with all craplets).
3.) Uninstall all unwanted programs with the MS tools.
4.) Now search and delete with a file manager all hiding craplets manually from your C: partition.
5.) Install all programs you need.
Last week I got the Vista DVD from HP (used the free upgrade service, now expired) but I’m reluctant to install it and getting even more craplets…
And on top of it it’s only a 32bit Vista version instead of a 64bit one for my 64bit-X2 CPU.
Edited 2007-04-18 16:22
It’s not even funny anymore seeing people still struggling with non-existent WEB sites their IE home page is defaulted to ( e.g. Compaq Presario laptops generation XL-1200) or when computer tries to connect to also nonexistent vendor update service (like Compaq’s BackWEB) as a result of “added value”.
Wild Tangent background service (considered trojan horse) can be added to the list as well as many many other crapware and I can keep filling it with the names like Symantec Fax which usually comes with MS Office suites or Symantec LiveUpdates which usually remains intact after uninstalling Norton antivirus or security “works”, software registration reminders leftovers in Startup Group an so on.
True,small adjustments and tweaks would resolve problem ( resetting browser home page , uninstalling program, deleting obsolete shortcuts in stat menu etc.) but the question is why should anyone do that in first place?
Preinstalled software as added value is not Windows specific and I don’t think Microsoft should be blamed
for what computer manufacturers are doing by adding new crap to hard-disk images. Windows as most dominant computing platform has alway been great distribution channel for anybody who has something to sell and,unfortunately, it will stay that way.
Consequently Apple commercial making fun of it is just plain miss although I can understand the point.
Besides being more than annoying most of “added value” programs are real pain to remove. I remember when my HP desktop came with 1.7 GiB space swallowed by
Intuit Quicken, MS Money 99, MS Works 4.5, HP System Wizard and tutorials, McAffee AV,EasyItnernetAccess ISP ,SmithMicro Faxing software and other applicatins I’ve never being tempted to use. And I never managed to find out what was still eating around 700 MB disk-space (since Windows 98 default installation shouldn’t fill more than 300Mb).
It took a year or so for me to learn how to wisely trim my PC and remove all that crapware since each time I tried to uninstall certain program one or more shared components (DLL libraries) were removed altogether rendering remaining programs unusable.
Oh, those were the days, when I wiped out original
HP Win98 disk image and upgraded to Windows 2000.
Edited 2007-04-18 16:55
This is part of the reason why MSFT was charging vendors less if they did not install third party software. They wanted Windows machines to be pristine when they arrive for a customer.
Now they can’t do anything about it, because Google, Real, McAfee, and friends will sue them immediately for anti-trust. All I hope is that these OEMs include a Windows disk that can be used to reinstall windows rather than a System Restore disk which will reinstall it all.
MS, without the ability to control how OEMs used sold its software, is facing a competitive hit–with people associating craplets with Microsoft.
Thus Microsoft’s competitive advantage is reduced.
How this benefits the consumer; I really have no idea. But, hey, it gives competitors like Apple a chance to poke fun. That is the point of antitrust laws, right?
Is because that’s where most of the profits come from for OEMs, since the hardware is so cheap these days. As long as I get an OS install disc without the craplets, I’d personally rather just deal with the craplets and install the OS clean out of the box. It’s either that, or the OEMs will have to do what Apple does – overcharge for the hardware.
Oh, and to all of the people who bitched over the years that MS had a lockdown on the desktop such that OEMs couldn’t install the applications they wanted, now that OEMs have more freedom over the apps they can include out of the box, I hope you’re happy with the results
Edited 2007-04-18 18:41
“Oh, and to all of the people who bitched over the years that MS had a lockdown on the desktop such that OEMs couldn’t install the applications they wanted, now that OEMs have more freedom over the apps they can include out of the box, I hope you’re happy with the results
“
And I bet Mossberg himself was one of those demanding that the DOJ force Microsoft to let OEMs install whatever they wanted. :p
(Not that they couldn’t already; Microsoft was merely offering discounts to OEMs that did not install craplets, but that is no longer allowed thanks to DOJ and those that pushed that case.)
Edited 2007-04-18 19:25
What do you mean overcharge for the hardware?
Same hardware for a new intel-mac-laptop is like $100 cheaper than the same hardware from HP?
I imagine both companies charge the same thing for hardware, and HP charges $100 more to cover crap like Works, the extra Vista fees, etc.
Bought a small Vaio last fall with XP and 1GB ram. After running it a few times (and only installing the Opera browser) I noticed it was somewhat slow. I checked the memory usage, and right after boot up it was eating over 500MB of ram. There were so many little programs running behind the scene it was ridiculous.
Ended up spending a few hours deleting stuff that Sony added and some of XP’s “features”, and finally got it down to about 150MB at bootup. Most users would have no idea how to clean out all this junk.
i’ve got windows xp pro sp2 down to 62MB at bootup
Edited 2007-04-18 22:21
That’s what makes an important difference between OS X and Windows: the trial software included with a new mac doesn’t slow down the whole system – it only costs an amount of HD space. In fact, OS X software in general doesn’t slow down the computer like it does in Windows (larger registry size, etc).
of Apple’s “trialware”: on my MacBook the folder doesn’t say “iWork Demo” or “iWork Trial” but just iWork. So I thought I had a full version of iWork (and Keynote), only to run them and find out they’re a limited time trial.
http://pcdecrapifier.com. Kicks crapware’s ass, takes names later.
If you install the os yourself, theres no problems. Its when you get a pc pre made that this is a serious issue.
I got a HP Pavilion dv9000. Great hardware, have absolultely none of the issues people have been having with the os (aside from not having final nvidia drivers yet). But it is absolutely insane how much crapware, ads, and branding HP sticks into their computer. On an install, virtually half the desktop is litterd with links to various ISPs and shopping sites. There is an “HP” toolbar with yahoo search embedded into the taskbar, demos of all kinds of software and games, and a good 15 HP “craplets” which i assume are intended to help you, but tend to just duplicate functionality you find in other places on the os, or provide absolutely useless features. It takes about 30 minutes to format and reinstall vista, but it takes another 20 minutes to uninstall all the garbage that comes pre-loaded (including reboots, which many of the “features” require)
42 process 33% of physical memory ~1GB.
But it makes my X2 4400 slow. Can’t believe they actually made Outlook updates worse. The only user on a Gig-E link to the server and it still pauses every time you select a new folder…
If I run Apple’s Mac OS X, and I do as-well-as Linux, I can choose what I wish to install.
As far as I am concerned no McSoft office or OS products will touch my personal computer. I’ve not personally used its crap since 2003.
When I install I generally choose lean installs and feel better supporting small programmers and their businesses rather than paying Willy for another Wind license.
I’m guessing after so many years of suffering, windows users have come to get used to the situation and they don’t complain anymore.
I read some funny comments about how Apple’s new commercials are ‘ironic’ since apple computers aren’t that different.
Give me a break.
I’ve seen so many new Windows systems that my friends bought. On first boot the system LOADED up all this useless crap and trying to get rid of it wasn’t that easy for a home user.
That is the point with Mac OS X which windows users don’t get. The mac is all about making it easy for every user. It doesn’t load up useless crap that might eat up your memory and only advertise stuff.
There’s some trial software there but its only to help you(if you want them just go ahead an register…. see you don’t even need to install anything)(Of course mac installs are just as easy as uninstalls; just DRAG AND DROP). The office apps are essential and only the 2 games can me considered useless. If you don’t want them just DRAG them to the trash. It THAT easy. The software never loaded by itself; it’s there IN CASE you need it.
That’s no the case with windows OEMs. They load up the system with apps which are a nuissance and make your computer experience harsh. The mac is completely the opposite and I find it sad that some people come here to stand up against this windows craplets. I guess they’re used to being tortured all these years.
Edited 2007-04-19 07:49
This is note a problem on Gateway machines. They have perfect solutions. They ship their machines with all of the Craplets pre-installed, but also include the original Vista Software with the machine. So you an install a fresh clean copy of Vista after you receive the PC with no craplets. Gateway gets their advertisement money, and the rest of us don’t have to deal with the crap. Whats also nice is the original Vista disc already has my product key entered in so installing Vista only takes 30 minutes, and I don’t have to search for my product key. The gateways also come stock with Linux compatible hardware so getting Linux to work on the machine is a snap. Seriously if you hate these problems, just get a Gateway.