
The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible - dendory
http://dendory.net/blog.php?id=509ec629
======
ChuckMcM
I enjoyed this rant. The bottom line is that this 'experience' isn't about
you, its about who you can be sold too. That is because "you" are too cheap to
pay what "we" think should be paid for them. It is like a hotel which sells
you room for $100 a night if you agree to let them leave a web cam on 24/7 and
sell any useful 'snippets' it catches while you are there.

The bulk of the market doesn't buy "computers" they buy "televisions." Think
about that for a minute.

The bulk of the market are entertainment 'consumers' for which you can sell
access to their eyeballs for real money. Just like TV did before people got
digital recorders and started skipping all the ads. Not so with these new
fangled TVs, they don't care if you don't _look_ at their advertising they
want to know what you did look at, and when, and after what, and then what did
you do? Because all of that is much more valuable than putting up a tasty
picture of a cheeseburger in front of you, no, they can phone ahead to your
local market and tell them to stock up on cheeseburgers because you've been
researching them all day and are now at the point where you want to make a
purchase.

But the cool thing? It means that the current 'big' players are leaving the
market for computers behind. You can tell that by the fact that the computer
company no longer sells a product that a _developer_ would care to use. And
that means that there is room again at the bottom.

Time to start a 'developers' company that works very much on the same model
that Sun Microsystems started on, hardware designed from the ground up to be
developed on, open systems so that folks can easily work with it, and a team
dedicated to making sure integration and support is there so that folks like
you and I can say "Hey this audio doesn't work when you set the sampling rate
to 40Khz" and they can fix it and release that fix.

But for that company to exist, you have to pay for the products you use, and
to get to that point you have to not be able to get something 'good enough' by
hacking and slashing something else into shape.

~~~
biturd
I think there is a company that does what you suggest. I will probably get
down voted for saying it, but Apple. They put in the time to make a pretty
darned good user experience for first impressions.

There's no junk, no spyware, nothing to remove. Occasionally you might get a
software bundle, like Office, or Quicken, but literally just drop it in the
trash and you are done with it. Rarely would you have to find an uninstaller
or dig deep to remove something, and if you do, you generally brought it on
yourself and should know what you are doing.

But you pay extra for this, most of which people apparently don't want to do,
as I always hear "I could have bought computer xyz for 25% cheaper", as they
are finishing their 15 hours of cleanup.

~~~
kstenerud
Definitely NOT Apple. Despite their open source site, the most important bits
of the OS are closed, and so developers can't dig into the OS to figure out if
the bizarre behavior they're seeing is a bug in the OS or not. Worse, they
can't submit patches for things they do find. Instead, they have to go submit
a radar report, which can't be seen by anyone but themselves. It's so bad that
it has become common behavior to copy/paste the report to openradar and then
have other developers submit duplicate reports as a way to "upvote" a bug.
That is most definitely NOT developer friendly.

And then we have Xcode, the program that has inspired a twitter account
dedicated to its severe brokenness.

And let's not forget their terrible provisioning process that always breaks in
continuous integration systems, and the asinine limit of 100 test devices. Oh,
and their train wreck of a command line tool suite.

And then there's their absolutely bizarre behavior of replacing every internal
function name with <redacted>, and disabling stdout on iOS 6.

And then we have the "eat all memory" pager system in OSX that can chew
through 8 gigs like candy and bring your system to its knees should you ever
try to run more than 5 programs + Xcode.

If there were an iOS development environment + simulator for Ubuntu, I'd wipe
this laptop and switch over.

~~~
cubicle67
all this is true if we add "for XCode based development" as a qualifier to
"Definitely NOT Apple"

I use an ageing (4yo) 13" macbook as my primary development machine and it
works fine. I'm no where near geeky (or whatever term you use) to be even
thinking about fiddling with OS internals and I've never hit an OSX bug that
bothered me much

~~~
shurane
And you upgrade the OS on your Macbook regularly? Isn't there a lot of
software that drops support for older releases (10.5, 10.6)? Not to mention
newer Apple-tested software running slowly on older Macs? I remember Safari
and Mail.app just endlessly hanging and giving me the wheel of death on a 2008
iMac and Macbook Pro.

------
karpathy
I feel that this is one of the major reasons I find myself using tablets more
often.

The UX on PCs has turned to crap. All programs want to run in the background,
they all compete for my attention every 30 minutes, they all want to be
updated all the time and they all want to install some stupid toolbar into my
browser that you can't remove, or even if you do it will somehow come back.
Installing new programs has turned into a 10-minute minigame of "spot the
checkbox that screws up your computer deep in the Custom Install settings!".
Or sometimes I have to re-read a question in a randomly intruding dialog box 5
times just to figure out if I should answer Yes or No to their vague question
for them to just please leave my computer alone. It's extremely annoying. I
also can't remember the number of times I've cleaned up my msconfig startup.
The programs just magically insert themselves back somehow over time. It's
infuriating and exhausting.

I feel protected on my iPad from this torture.

~~~
ajross
There are other perspectives, though. I've been on a Linux desktop almost
exclusively for 19 years now. I continue to be amazed at the amount of spammy
crap I have to put up with on my phone and tablet (running CM10 and stock
4.0.2 respectively, so it's not like I'm beholden to a manufacturer). Seems
like every game wants to tell me about new features in the status bar every
day. All the online services want to connect me to all the others. Every day
or so some app has an "upgrade" available that inexplicably needs new
permissions authorized. And frankly it seems to be getting worse.

And my desktop distro just goes on, doing what it's supposed to do, year after
year.

~~~
w1ntermute
> And my desktop distro just goes on, doing what it's supposed to do, year
> after year.

What distro are you using? Because not all of them are free of this sort of
crap. For example, Canonical decided to pollute the universal search in Unity,
starting with Ubuntu 12.10, by adding in results from Amazon.

------
beloch
First of all, this guy's biggest mistake was failing to format his drive and
start with a clean Windows install. Installing windows requires far less
effort than cleansing a vendor's install of crapware. Users should _not_ have
to do this. I must fully agree that MS needs to start restricting what Vendors
like HP can install on the PC's they sell.

Second, I'm very curious to see how the Windows App store plays out. The #1
thing it needs to do to improve Windows as an OS is _distribute free
software_. There is a lot of excellent free software available for windows
like chrome, firefox, VLC, foobar2000, texmaker, Notepad++, uTorrent, etc..
Users have to go to different websites to download everything. This is such a
pain that people have come up with installers, like ninite, that aggregate
free software together into a single download. Ninite doesn't have everything
I use, but it can easily shave hours off of setting up a new Windows box!

One major advantage of an App store is that software distributed through it
can be policed for malware and viruses. If MS could get users to use their
store as much as possible there is the potential to improve security of the
OS. The only way MS can do this is to build their store up as a trusted and
comprehensive distribution center that is _all_ most users need. MS should
view it as a failure on their part whenever users are forced to go elsewhere
to get software, even software that competes with Microsoft products or which
duplicates core functionality of the OS. That's where Apple's App store
failed! In order to do this, MS needs to devote resources to lowering the
barrier to publication in their store. Don't get me wrong, I am dead-set
against Windows moving towards an entirely walled-garden iOS style ecosystem.
The ability to install software from outside the store should be preserved,
nor should it be limited in any way. However, I would welcome a central
distribution point for Windows software like what Linux has.

Debian's APT package management system is brilliant. Even 10 years ago it
would have made today's Apple App store look sad and pathetic. It is both
comprehensive and incredibly smart in how it makes software modular with clear
dependencies that are managed automatically for the user. This is the dream
that all application stores should aspire towards. Redmond and Cupertino, for
the love of your users, _please start your copiers_.

~~~
jiggy2011
As I mentioned elsewhere, doing a clean Windows install is difficult if the
only means of reinstallation you have is the bundled "recovery DVD" which puts
all of the shit right back on there.

With regards an APT for Windows, I don't see how that wouldn't be possible to
add to Windows as a third party thing. With a nice GUI and search and a
default catalog of quality mainly OSS software with no toolbars or BS and have
it also keep everything upto date.

That way you could just install it on all of your relatives who use Windows's
computers and tell them just to download everything from either that or the MS
app store.

~~~
antidoh
"doing a clean Windows install is difficult if the only means of
reinstallation you have is the bundled "recovery DVD" which puts all of the
shit right back on there."

That's not a clean install.

A clean install is buying a retail version of Windows and blasting it down on
your HD.

Recovery DVDs recover what the hardware vendor put there in the first place.

~~~
philwelch
So you have to buy Windows twice?

~~~
antidoh
Unfortunately yes. The version that comes with your computer is relatively
cheap, but you can't do much with it. The retail version gives you full
flexibility, and you can move it to a new computer.

Or you can buy a computer that doesn't come with Windows in the first place.

~~~
jeremyjh
That is incorrect. See eps's comment above. You can use your OEM key with a
Windows 7 ISO that you can get from MS.

------
givan
Not computer users, just the windows users.

I never understood the install wizards for windows software, in 99% of the
time you just click "next" until it stops asking for more "next".

And now they all sneak garbage adware with the check boxes enabled by default
because most people just click "next" anyway.

Also the whole download and install drivers/utilities etc after installation
is very time consuming because the OS has almost nothing bundled and what is
bundled is MS only like internet explorer, nothing you can choose in that
"next" wizard.

Windows is like a granny in the OS world, she needs to retire.

~~~
eli
This is nonsense fanboism. Modern versions of Windows are _extremely_ similar
to OS X from a usability perspective. OS X has plenty of counterintuitive
warts. Computers of any flavor are pretty hard to use.

> _I never understood the install wizards for windows software..._

I never understood why half the time when I download Mac software and double
click it, nothing seems to happen because it's a "disk image" (talk about an
outdated concept), which means I have to know to navigate to the Finder, find
the actual thing I want, and then remember to unmount the image when I'm done.

~~~
flogic
The problem isn't the process of installing. It's the damned trip line
installs along the way. If you install Adobe Reader, it shouldn't install
McAfee for you. If I install your software, you don't have the right to
install browser plugins. In terms of installers, Windows has developed a
culture of malware that really needs to go.

~~~
plaguuuuuu
Don't install insecure crapware like Adobe Reader. Chrome has an internal pdf
reader. I've personally also got Evince installed.

~~~
flogic
Likewise. I've managed to learn through the misfortune of others. That said
the way we find these things out is through the misfortune of others or
ourselves.

------
rcb
After almost 20 years of running Linux, FreeBSD (and even NextStep!) on x86
bare metal, I've for the time being gone back to Windows.

It's a fast dual-head box. One screen is all Windows (and I'm typing this from
IE 10), and the other is xmonad and emacs on Arch Linux on VirtualBox.

I'm also an Apple user (and AAPL shareholder), owning two (2010 and 2011
model) MBPs, and it is my opinion that Windows 8 is gorgeous and very, very
stable. Microsoft has finally simplified the desktop experience, with sane
security defaults, and in my opinion are very close if not at par with
Mountain Lion on ease of use and attention to detail.

Finally, the system's performance as a desktop machine is at least %25 better
than Unity/Gnome 3/KDE, and the overall fit and finish is years ahead of any
leading open source DE. It was the Desktop Linux experience that has
encouraged me to look elsewhere.

I'd encourage everyone to keep an open mind wrt MSFT. They're on the right
track. This is not the same company I grew up hating.

~~~
Shamanmuni
Sorry, but the skeptical in me says this comment reeks of advertising. I don't
know if it was your intention or not, but it feels like you try really hard to
establish "geek cred" and then make some grandiose claims about Windows 8. It
seems like you were comparing Windows 8 to a really non-standard Linux
environment and then out of nowhere you claim performance is at least 25%
better to three DE's which weren't in your dual-head box. Odd.

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof (some benchmarks, maybe), you
are not providing any of that.

~~~
qu4z-2
I think the Linux environment is probably more common than you think, among
devs anyway.

------
revelation
I had a good laugh at people recommending Ubuntu. I recently installed the
very latest Ubuntu on a VM, started the launcher, typed "terminal" ... and
looked in utter disbelief as it started showing me random movies and crap from
Amazon.

If that is your idea of a better operating system, try again.

~~~
drivebyacct2
I have a good laugh at people that dismiss an entire OS for a problem solved
with 10 seconds and 20 characters of effort.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Go read the article again. Now consider how inane what you just said is?

The whole point of the article is that these issues can be solved but that the
combination of all of them eventually make the platform bad.

Your "just turn it off" statement couldn't be more off-base for this
discussion if you tried.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Give me a break. `sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping` or as the other
replier comments, a single check-switch will disable this. It clearly is
NOTHING compared to the daily bullshit in Windows.

What a self righteous jerk. The article is about the regular bullshit that
Windows users go through. A single choice made to bolster revenue of an open
source project is vastly different than a system that simply hasn't been
innovated on for the past 20 years and just sucks in a lot of places.

If you can spend 20 seconds of effort and fix breaking issues like
installation standardization, or (un)installation cleanup, or package
management, or the new security system that manages to suck harder than
GateKeeper... then you can come back and talk down to me.

edit: even just drivers. Do you know how frustrating it is to be given a
laptop as a gift _from Microsoft_ only to find that the drivers are difficult
to locate, impossible to install without several Admin-level command line
statements and a reboot and several scary warnings, and that even after
installing them, several of them were just disasterously bad. Fedora,
everything works out of the box. Ubuntu, everything works out of the box.

~~~
qu4z-2
The difference is solely one of scale.

------
unimpressive
I remember reading that this is the reason[2] Steve Jobs wouldn't license the
Mac OS X operating system to other OEM vendors. As I understand it, a good
deal of this crap is caused by misaligned incentives. Software companies pay
OEMs to preload computers with their buggy, invasive, resource hogging
software. Thanks to the Microsoft Windows operating system having all sorts of
nooks and crannies to hide this sort of stuff in, like msconfig; the "PC",
with which Windows is synonymous, is seen as a painful platform full of
crashes and arcane bullshit.

Of course, the cure is presented in the form of locked down, proprietary
platforms which shelter users from software companies self inflicted wounds.
As times goes on; these platforms will slowly come to resemble their former
counterparts, but without the relief of being able to uninstall the crapware.

I think that priority one for people interested in the future of computing is
to fix the experience for the 99%.

EDIT: The answer isn't necessarily other open systems like Linux or Haiku, OEM
manufacturers can screw the default installs on those systems up just as well.

EDIT[2]: Part of the reason anyway.

~~~
mhurron
> the reason Steve Jobs wouldn't license the Mac OS X operating system to
> other OEM vendors

The reason Jobs didn't license out OS X is because the last time Apple did
that it almost killed the company. One of the first things Jobs did on
returning to Apple was end those agreements.

~~~
wpietri
Do you have a source for that?

My recollection was that Apple was in dire straits at the time anyhow, but
that the clone makers were substantially increasing MacOS shipments at a time
when Apple was threatened with irrelevancy.

I thought Jobs killed the clones because he wanted absolute control, which he
saw as necessary to pursue his goals for a high-end, seamless experience.

~~~
zemanel
good thing he didn't. one of the reasons i enjoy working on OSX is the
"mintness" i got accustomed from using Linux

~~~
unimpressive
No matter how hard I try I can't understand this comment. Are you implying
that Linux is a Mac OS X clone?

~~~
bpatrianakos
I think what he's trying to say is that on Mac you get a fresh OS every time.
It's never preloaded with crap. If you don't like the !ac you'll find a way to
tell me I'm wrong but there really isn't any third party crapware on the Mac.
You don't get security alerts every 2 seconds, and uninstalls really do just
uninstall apps. You know exactly what to expect when you buy a Mac and the
experience stays roughly the same throughout the lifetime of the machine. You
_can_ get crapware on a Mac but its pretty rare.

So basically you get a machine in mint condition. And yeah, it is like Linux
in that when you install the OS it's the OS and nothing more. You can talk
about freedom and locked down platforms all day long and I'll even agree but
thats neither here nor there. Point is, the Mac isn't screaming for your
attention, doesn't come preloaded with shit, and generally doesn't fuck with
you in the same way Linux doesnt do those things. There are exceptions to
every rule and god knows you have to cover them all here on HN but generally
speaking that's the way it is.

~~~
zemanel
Yep pretty much that and some. I find not only the install and out of the box
experience very good on both systems, but also usage.

As a long time Linux and Gnome user i got accustomed with an arguably better
experience in managing software and user experience :-)

------
commandar
I bought a Vizio thin and light partially because it came with what Vizio and
Microsoft dubbed "Windows Signature." Which is essentially marketing speak for
"Windows. Just Windows. No crapware preinstalled."

It was almost weird to be able to take a PC out of the box and be able to
immediately start using it.

Microsoft apparently worked pretty closely with Vizio on this, which suggests
that Microsoft _knows_ that the experience on most Windows PCs sucks.

~~~
eldavido
They do (have friends in the shell team @ MS). It's just really hard for them
to hit the right balance between compatibility, which is _super_ important to
their bread-and-butter enterprise customers, vs. providing a clean crap-free
experience to consumers.

For better or worse, the "consumer" user of Windows -- a person at home,
without an IT support desk, who purchased his computer himself at a store --
captured a lot of attention inside Microsoft for this release.

I'm not at all surprised to see more Apple-like behavior from them, e.g. (1)
restricting what Windows RT can run to the software available in the windows
app store, (2) completely breaking app compatibility for older (WinForms) apps
on WinRT, (3) getting way more draconian about hardware requirements for the
Phone (specification of button counts/sizes, etc.), (4) having a "Signature"
edition of windows.

MS has been fighting this battle for decades -- most blue screens were caused
by crappy hardware drivers; they knew this but couldn't fix the problem
without hugely breaking compatibility.

------
jiggy2011
This is one of the reasons I like running Linux, although this is really
mainly a feature of having a smaller userbase and being mainly OSS so it is
less of a target for this BS.

The only alternative for the mainstream seems to be the sandboxed type
approach of iOS/WinRT. Oh, some developers abuse browser toolbars? No browser
toolbars period! Background processes can make your system slower? No
background processes period! Software from random websites can be viruses? Buy
all of your software from us!

~~~
bo1024
Yeah, as a Linux user this article was just a list of reasons not to go back
to Windows.

It does seem ironic that the product you pay for is far more anti-consumer
than the free (in both senses) alternative. But I don't think that fact can be
denied.

~~~
zanny
It is inherently anti-consumer by being non-free software. Honestly, the FSF
did call this crap, for all those who call them insane. They are insane, but
they are sensibly insane.

------
ROFISH
Note this is an aside on USEFUL background apps, not spyware/crapware, since
it appears he disabled the update mechanisms in the last two paragraphs:

Most of those background service apps (Google Update, Apple Push, Adobe
Update) are because a tiny background app is necessary to preform certain
functions, and check for updates in the background, which is a good thing!

For example, 'iTunesAgent.exe' on Windows was to simply detect if you had
plugged an iPod in and auto pop-up iTunes. For usability, it makes sense;
because otherwise you would plugin an iPod and get nothing or a confusing
Windows 'dunno what to do with this drive' screen. And because of Windows'
architecture (for better or worse), it requires a background app to do this.

The same for many of the updaters. I would much rather be sure Flash and Java
are updated then go running without an important security update.

I still have yet to understand the "no background app, good or bad" manifesto.
Good background apps barely use any CPU time, they barely use any memory (and
Windows reports too much memory in the first place due to shared memory), and
preforms useful functions.

~~~
SquareWheel
In cases of useful background apps (and there are few), they should be run
from the Windows scheduler. They don't need to always be running.

Why do we need 30 individual software update checkers running anyway? Linux
solved this problem many years ago.

------
dendory
A few added things:

\- To those suggesting using Linux, I use Windows because I need to. I run
programs that require Windows, and don't really want to start messing with
Wine. Also, from seeing the recent Ubuntu stories here on HN, it really does
seem like the people behind Ubuntu and Gnome in particular are guilty of the
same thing with their "brand"

\- While Apple probably doesn't do this on MacOS they sure do try to get your
email to sign you up to "offers" when you download QuickTime.

~~~
ChuckMcM
It would be interesting to see the list (or at least types) of programs you
use that require Windows. I've got a CAD program that I've been using forever
that does (TurboCAD) and I'm more facile in Corel Draw than Inkscape (which is
horribly, horribly under-performing on the same hardware booted into Ubuntu
12.10).

~~~
randomchars
For many this list has just one item:

\- Adobe Photoshop

If you rely on it for work, than you can't just switch to Linux. GIMP is
closer to paint than to PS.

~~~
Peaker
People say Gimp has a different/worse UI, but roughly similar capabilities. Do
you have a citation/basis to claiming Gimp is so much weaker?

~~~
randomchars
I would argue that having a bad UI is a big enough problem.

I last used GIMP in 2010 so a few of these might be available now. Anyway
here's my list:

\- No support for raw images.

\- No 16 Bit and 32 Bit color mode.

\- No adjustment layers.

\- No support for Photoshop plugins.

\- Lack of LAB and CMYK color modes.

\- No 3D support.

\- No video support.

\- Integration with other Adobe tools (e.g: copy paths directly from
Illustrator).

\- Lack of usable transformation tools.

Also even though GIMP supports psd files, once you exceed a few hundred
megabytes, it gets really slow compared to PS on the same machine.

The only thing that's better in GIMP is the lasso tool. I hate it in PS, but
it's actually usable in GIMP.

If you factor out price (which you can and should if this is the tool that
makes you money) GIMP doesn't even come close.

------
ejreynolds
Agreed that the base installs are rubbish.

But clean install of Windows 7 or 8 + ninite.com. Windows generally has the
drivers you need out of box, or at least the NIC / wireless driver so Windows
update can find the rest for you, automatically. I can't remember the last
time I had to manually get a driver for something, with the single exception
of a USB to serial adapter I need for work.

~~~
amboar
In addition to ninite, pcdecrapifier[1] is also handy, even for cleaning
machines that aren't brand new. Doesn't look like it supports windows 8 yet
though.

[1] <http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/>

------
aristidb
And I fear this kind of crappy PC experience is a significant factor in why
many people move to primarily using tablets.

~~~
tsm
The problem with mobile devices is that when they are prefilled with OEM crap
(mine came with Motoblur, Blockbuster, and several other terrible media-
streaming apps), there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Windows may
have a terrible default experience, but at least it's fixable.

~~~
aristidb
OK, admittedly the fact that I stick to Google Nexus and Apple brand kind of
makes me oblivious to the existence of all that crapware. But as far as I can
tell, some people actually like what HTC and Samsung are doing with their
Android.

~~~
nsp
The customizations that people like on android phones are usually the skins -
touchwiz on htc phones and sense on samsung's. Many fewer people use/like the
Verizon-specific app store or V-cast or whatever their proprietary video
service is called these days, which are more directly equivalent to the
crapware referred to in the article.

~~~
tsm
Every time I try to launch the turn-by-turn GPS on my Verizon Droid2, I get
prompted to use vanilla Navigator or some Verizon crapware. Checking the box
to make one the default does nothing. This is absurd.

------
makeset
The pleasure of uninstalling with a Delete keystroke is reason enough to move
to MacOS. Say what you will against Apple, but I have been just plain peaceful
ever since I smashed my blue-screened Windows laptop on the wall and walked
out to buy a Mac years ago.

~~~
SquareWheel
Sounds like you'd enjoy Metro.

~~~
89a
if you can figure out how to uninstall things in it

------
EvanAnderson
My experience, as of late, is that HP is pretty bad when it comes to shipping
machines with pre-loaded crap. Dell and Lenovo business-oriented computers
ship fairly clean, but HP business-oriented machines ship with loads of
crapware. All consumer-oriented machines ship with crap.

------
S_A_P
I think this is symptomatic of the monopoly pcs once had. When the average
user had no alternative, then software and hardware vendors had carte blanche
to load up crap ware. I think it's funny how adobe is mentioned several times,
as acrobat is one of the most intrusive applications I've ever used. From the
install, you are asked to install a tool bar that you opt out from (opt in by
default), security updates happen frequently and the adobe updater is just
plain annoying.

------
wolfeidau
Working a small development shop I can tell you that if we buy an off the
shelf workstation it can take almost as much time to clear our the crap ware
and configure the drivers as it does to build a machine from parts, even
considering the work it takes to quote/order/pickup/assemble a system.

It is a very sad state of affairs when NONE of these vendors offer a service
to sell you one without crap ware..

This costs small business so much time it is a very bad joke!

------
haldean
For users that want to just use the internet like the author of this article,
I think that Chromebooks are quickly becoming a really great option. No
crapware, comes with what you need to get online and nothing more, tons of
battery life, tiny startup time. It fits the "I just want a dumb terminal for
the web" model perfectly.

------
megaman821
The real answer is stop buying those machines loaded with crap-ware. The
Microsoft Store sells various computers free from all the crap-ware. Also some
manufacturers are good about keeping the extra software to a minimum and even
offering a clean restore disk.

------
blaze33
I bought my current laptop last year. While wondering how annoying it would be
to set up a dual-boot and have a not-so-bloated windows install, I've had
enough:

I called Dell, telling them I'm not agreeing with their software license and
that I want to return them all the software. 5 minutes.

Got 180€ back for this.

Wiped the entire HDD. Ah man! That felt good. No more rants on crapware.

Installed Ubuntu.

Now I have a computer that does what I want it to do, not what I'm supposed to
want.

Sure I have to put up with other issues now but what a liberative experience.

------
purplelobster
And this is why I'd prefer to buy a laptop or tablet directly from Microsoft.
OEMs are doing an increasingly bad job, with everything from hardware to
software. The exception I can see is Lenovo, which is the only OEM I'd buy
anything from.

~~~
ygra
A fresh install of Windows is about 10 minutes from a USB thumb drive, which
is not much longer than unboxing the computer, I guess. At least that's how I
solved that problem usually ;)

------
jodrellblank
And the first reply is "use linux".

To a post about "usability problems people have to put up with because authors
care more for their ideas than user experience".

Linux. Famed for choosing choice over usability and ideology over usability
almost to the point of absurdity.

~~~
contextfree
Usability is, ultimately, relative to the user.

------
lifeformed
This is why I love buying my laptops from boutique shops. I was able to
provide them with my own Windows key, which saved around $100 off the laptop
price, and they installed a clean build of Windows, with nothing installed on
it except for drivers. It also came with a folder on the desktop with neatly
sorted driver installers (for future use), and also benchmark data that they
ran on the computer.

------
jerhewet
> The first step was getting rid of the usual pre-installed crap [...] It took
> me over an hour to go through all the uninstallers.

I was at least three sentences into a long "Uninstallers? Seriously?" rant
when I realized that _this_ is _exactly_ what the average poor bastard on the
street would do if they wanted to get rid of the crapware that infests a new
machine.

[long thoughtful pause]

Jesus. It really _is_ that big of a divide. I never (never, never, ever, ever)
boot up a new machine. I always nuke-n-pave it right out of the box. I don't
even give it any thought -- it's just the way it is.

[another long thoughtful pause]

Then again, this is a problem for _my_ generation, where one in one hundred
(maybe more) had half a clue when it came to personal computers.

I'd like to think the "run the uninstaller" route is also not an option for
kids in their 20's and 30's (get off my lawn!). I'd like to think the ratio is
closer to one in three or four, and installing a virgin copy of your OS of
choice on a new machine is just as much a habit for them as it is for me.

So I guess I'm left wondering if I'm reading a rant from the late 1990's.

~~~
coin
And why should one have to reinstall the OS on a brand new machine? I don't
need mod or install new firmware on my new car. I don't need to swap parts on
my new washer machine.

No, a PC, car, washer machine should just work, as purchased. The idea that a
new Windows PC can't be used out of the box just shows how broken the user
experience is.

~~~
likeclockwork
It's like when you buy a picture frame and it comes with a charming picture of
someone else's family in it.

------
kenjackson
Why doesn't the author just pay the non-subsidized price and get a clean
Signature machine from Microsoft?
[http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/pd/product...](http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/pd/productID.235559700)

I suspect that while he doesn't like the crapware, he doesn't mind the $75
subsidy. You really can't have it both ways.

~~~
maurits
So perhaps the real surprise is, is that despite the rather vocal apple/linux
crowd, there is still a very large user group for which the crapware-OEM
bundles are not big enough an issue to switch or to act up on. Be it for
technical or for economical reasons.

~~~
jiggy2011
I think it's just that many people aren't aware that there is an alternative.

I'm surprised the number of people who consider a browser that takes 30
seconds to start (on an i5) as normal. No wonder they are awed by an iPad when
they use one.

------
rcthompson
The argument I've heard in the past is that in exchange for the inconvenience
of crapware etc., the purchase price of hardware running Windows is
subsidized, and that without all the crapware, customers would pay more for
their computers. Are there any hard figures on this, or is it just a platitude
used by the people who put the crapware on PCs?

------
alister
> _Comodo firewall subscribed me to something called GeekBuddy, Adobe Reader
> trying to install McAfee, QuickTime trying to sign me up for offers_

Perhaps what we need is a meta-installer that runs standard installers but
ticks check boxes and sets or clears options that tell the app to not install
adware/toolbars/plug-ins, maximizes the privacy settings, turns off auto-
update, etc.

Whenever I install something, I already make notes about what I
ticked/set/cleared so I can do it quickly the next time I need to install the
same thing. Notes like this in an appropriate format--from thousands of users
--can serve as the config file for the meta-installer.

Since the meta-installer would run the applications' own installers, there
shouldn't be objections from commercial vendors since it wouldn't be
repackaging their products.

~~~
radiowave
To a large extent, what you're asking for already exists, and is free for
personal use. I've no affiliation; you may want to check out ninite.com

------
RyJones
Unfortunately, the profit in those laptops comes from the shovel ware, so
there's no incentive for OEMs to sell a pro-user experience.

~~~
rhplus
Microsoft got the message and their retail stores only sell computers as
"Microsoft Signature", i.e. no crapware.

<http://signature.microsoft.com/>

~~~
hxc
All PCs sold at Microsoft Store come with Microsoft Signature – a great way to
get the most out of Windows.

~~~
ilaksh
"a great way to get the most out of Windows"

Is that marketing speak for no crap/bloat/shovelware?

------
justincormack
Even Java for Windows tries to install a toolbar. The whole thing is out of
control.

------
expralitemonk
I went online shopping this weekend for a laptop for Mrs. expralitemonk. With
an open heart we considered Windows or Mac. On the Macbook web page I found:
specs for each model, estimated battery life, and the price. On one page! For
all models!
[http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo...](http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro)
Every Windows site I went to required multiple clicks just to get rudimentary
information. If you want my money, please make buying your product easy.

------
computerslol
Here's the interesting question.

Is it better to lock down user experience using a central software quality
assurance and distribution system (allowing an OS developer to enforce rules
to keep experiences powered by their OS consistent and easy, but massively
hampering homebrew), or allow developers (and by extension marketing people)
add whatever they want to software (leaving the market open for innovation,
and by necessity, this crap as well)?

Windows 8 represents both experiences, side by side. User adoption will give
us the answer.

Personally, I am happy to be part of the experiment.

------
funkwyrm
I know it is the deep dark valley of obvious, but this is why we use macs.

~~~
qu4z-2
I don't use macs because I have yet to see one with a nipple mouse/TrackPoint.
The hardware uniformity has upsides and downsides.

------
Auguste
The easiest way to deal with this crap is just to do a fresh install of
Windows when you buy a new PC, and download the drivers from the
manufacturer's website. That way you can be sure that it's as clean an install
as you can get.

Unfortunately, this is complicated by the fact that manufacturers don't ship
Windows discs. I haven't had the opportunity to try it yet, but perhaps
Windows 8's built-in restore feature will be the solution to this problem.

------
AmVess
This isn't Windows users. This is HP users. Big difference.

------
shanselman
Interesting no one commented on the change in title as this article found its
way to HN.

------
TheOsiris
Any pc/tab bought from the MS store won't have this problem. Also, if u take
it to the MS store they'll reimage it for free. Just my 2 cents.

------
omnisci
Uhh, reading this thread is disappointing.

Windows is not a bad OS, it has it's pluses and minus just like OSX. Sometimes
I love my windows box, other times I really like my iMac. To blame the OP's
issues on windows is short sited, it's like blaming android for touch wiz or
motorblur. These problems are with the 3rd party groups putting shit on top of
their products. This is why Mac is doing well. It isn't that the OS is
"better," it's just that you have go through 290-38080823 popups when you are
trying to check the email on your AOL account.

As others have pointed out, MS needs to step up to the plate and really force
vendors to release just a vanilla version of Windows. At the enterprise level
this saves time/money. Either that, or send machines without OSes installed
allowing the customer to put their own images directly on to the computer. MS
is losing customers specifically for this reason. That and their laptops
aren't "pretty". If MS followed the android lead (ie: nexus), they might be
able to recover some of their customer base.

------
csense
This is a great reason to switch to Linux Mint.

~~~
tosseraccount
Agreed. Just set up dual boot Linux/Windows. One great thing about Linux is
you can tell kids "download whatever you want". For those few times you need
Windows (TurboTax), you can boot it. Other than that the only good thing about
Windows is Excel which is much better than OpenOrifice or gnumeric. I'll grant
that the professional image editing software is better too, but Gimp is fine
when you get used to it. For surfing, listening to music, youtubeing, etc. ,
Linux seems a lot snappier.

~~~
pjmlp
> "download whatever you want"

Sure, because it is always nice to expose $HOME to the world.

------
codgercoder
Your real problem is that you think you own your computer (err, software
delivery appliance). I actually think PCs have become like MTV. MTV was a way
to get all the people who like music and video onto a channel, then deliver
all kinds of content (IE ads) that the advertisers think would be appropriate
for them.

------
neona
When he said "SmartFilter", I think he was referring to smartscreen, which is
kinda annoying, but can easily bypassed. IIRC, you have to click "Learn more"
and then "install anyway", which is a tad counter-intuitive, but one can still
run things without disabling smartscreen pretty easily.

------
njharman
Prediction: in 5years there will be a similar post about Ubuntu Desktop.

------
eldavido
Interesting case study here of revealed preferences (vs. "stated
preferences"). Forget what people say they want, consumers vote with their
dollars and have told OEMs that they prefer a "cheap" computer that has the
crap on it vs. a more expensive one.

A lot of Americans -- myself included -- automatically buy things because
they're "cheap". I wonder whether people in other places (countries? regions?)
behave this way, or if some cultures emphasize "less but better" over "more
but crappy"?

~~~
qu4z-2
Maybe it wasn't clear that the cheaper option had more crap on it. All that
Free Market/vote with your dollars stuff only works in the case of well-
informed consumers, and we all know that when it comes to computers, most
consumers are not.

------
motters
The first thing to understand is that this isn't a problem with contemporary
computing per se, it's a problem with Microsoft Windows and its software
ecosystem.

~~~
pjmlp
Any ecosystem that has OEMs:

\- Symbian

\- Android

\- Linux distributions on netbooks

\- ...

~~~
motters
Yes, this might be a problem with proprietary software more generally - that
it ultimately ends up trying to strongarm or "hard sell" the user rather than
merely trying to meet their requirements.

------
recursive
> Of course, Windows 8 doesn't let you do that. SmartFilter blocked every
> attempt

SmartFilter seems to be a McAfee product. This Windows user has never
encountered it.

------
wbizzle
The title of this article should really be changed to "The amount of crap
WINDOWS users have to put up with is incredible". I remember back 5-6 years
ago when I had to go through all of the above. But if the writer is tired of
these things, he should just pony up the dough and get a mac.

~~~
qu4z-2
But then he'd have to use a mac. He may have existing legacy software that he
needs to run, or may simply dislike the mac UX (I for one can't stand it,
although I like some of the underlying tech).

Besides, I'm finding it increasingly morally indefensible to purchase Apple
products.

------
keypusher
This is like going to McDonald's and expecting a gourmet burger. The author
bought an HP laptop, of course it's going to be full of useless crap.

------
thewileyone
3rd paragraph, 2nd sentence: "This is supposed to be a fairly clean HP laptop
... "

There's no such thing as a clean HP laptop ... or desktop ...

------
Sillyclown
If you are savvy enough to recognize crapware when you see it, you are savvy
enough to not buy a PC that has a brand (like HP).

------
macspoofing
Microsoft should do what Google does with Android and release a clean
'reference' system without all the 3rd party crap-ware.

~~~
sch1zo
you do know Microsoft sells plain Windows, do you?

~~~
sbuk
A reference _machine_...

~~~
sch1zo
Microsoft does that too. AFAIK their Signature Line is exactly that
[http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/list/parentCateg...](http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/list/parentCategoryID.44066900/categoryID.50787200)
_Our carefully selected PCs provide the cleanest Windows 8 experience on a new
PC with no junkware installed. The software and hardware work perfectly
together._

------
ixacto
This is why people like macs. Apple should block google ads in safari though,
that would really make things interesting.

------
mahgnous
First thing I do when I get a new computer is format the damn thing and put a
base copy of Windows only on it.

------
kelyjames
ninite.com is a massive time saver for me with installing software

------
Raphael
It sounds like you shouldn't use Comodo.

------
scott_meade
iPad FTW.

