Microsoft to monitor OEM bloatware

[Ian]

In a surprising, but welcome move from Microsoft, they have announced they will be keeping an eye on the amount of bloatware OEM providers install on new computers. This should prevent lots of useless software from slowing down Windows, even before any user software is installed:

We all love to build our own PCs and besides the cost savings, we like the feeling of having a virgin install of an operating system rather than one that’s been “customized” with bloatware. We’ve seen it all before on our laptops, when Windows starts up and the system tray fills with things we never wanted in the first place.

If Microsoft (along with the rest of us) have its way with Windows 7, useless and slow startup programs will be kept at bay from pre-installs.

“We're all about putting the stopwatch on how quickly a customer gets to a usable experience,” said Mark Croft, the director of Microsoft’s OEM worldwide marketing, in a TechRadar story. “With OEM pre-installed software what you'll see is a little bit of streamlining going on in the initial experience for the customer.”

Read more at Toms Hardware.

 

[Thrax]

Looks like a continuation of the fairly secretive Windows Vista Velocity Program. Microsoft said they were going to continue with it on November 7 during WinHEC 2008, but it's good to see them following through.

Crapware sucks.

 

[Ian]

There's a handy tool for users of Dell PCs that have lots of unwanted pre-installed items - it's called the "Dell De-Crapifier", what a name

http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier/

 

[whoosh]

There's a handy tool for users of Dell PCs that have lots of unwanted pre-installed items - it's called the "Dell De-Crapifier", what a name

http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier/

Haha ! very good