PC Decrapifier?

Virtually every OEM will always preload a system with a bunch of unwanted stuff. And some of this bloat also is tagged along with whatever drivers that need to be included onto the system too.

The only way to really avoid this is to self-build the PC from scratch, and carefully install only device drivers and not any "software suites" included with them.

You could always buy an off the shelf machine then use a generic retail OS to reinstall minus all the bloatware (not sure about activation though). You get a nice bloat free install which might be quicker than trying to eradicate the junk that comes pre-installed these days by hand.

You can actually utilize windows 7 key codes to activate and install a Windows 10 install, I think that goes for 8 and 8.1 as well but dont have first hand experience with that. Like others have said, make a USB or DVD Windows install, buy an off the shelf Dell or HP, or whatever and just install a fresh base Windows installation. Or take the 10-15 minutes to go through and uninstall the crapware yourself, does not take long to identify what is crap and what is actually needed. My dad's Dell XPS had like 20 different DELL branded utilities and trials and BS that Reeeeeally were not even close to being needed.

Sorry to double post but are you in the US? Refurb older generation machines are a great bang for the buck and a breeze to order through online retailers like TigerDirect or Newegg. EDIT: Here is a great example from newegg just from a quick search, oops 3rd gen i7 not 4th, 16gb DDR3, 3tb HDD, 512gb SSD and a 1GB Nvidia Quadro 2000 for under $700 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?I … N82E16883285748

Easy to do with an OEM PC.. especially since Windows 10 is going to come on anything new.

Just use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool, available here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
and use a USB stick for the media.

Then boot from that and let Windows do a clean install.

Then go to the mfg's page and download and install any drivers you need.

The other super easy option is to go into Settings -> Recovery -> Reset This PC
Then tell it to do a full reset (don't keep anything). That should give you a clean reinstall without any bloatware unless the OEM has monkeyed with the reset procedure.

Absolutely no reason to have to build your own PC if you want a clean install of Windows.

gca wrote:

You could always buy an off the shelf machine then use a generic retail OS to reinstall minus all the bloatware (not sure about activation though).

If you install the factory version of Windows, it should activate with the SLIC keys without intervention.

gdjacobs wrote:

gca wrote:

You could always buy an off the shelf machine then use a generic retail OS to reinstall minus all the bloatware (not sure about activation though).

If you install the factory version of Windows, it should activate with the SLIC keys without intervention.

No need to have an OEM copy with Windows 10 as the activation is tied to a hardware based key through some magical algorithm wizardry.

You just need to boot the original system once and connect to the internet to activate it before reinstalling from scratch.

If you have Windows 10, you can just reinstall with the download directly from MS.

And if you tie that computer to your MS account, supposedly you can transfer that activation to a different computer. I haven't tried that yet though.

Could always go with System76 and then buy a Windows license yourself. They make some great hardware.

leileilol wrote:

PC Decrapifier?

That's one that keeps coming up, will look into it - thanks!

A clean installation is the best option.

2nd this, always do a fresh install.

And a clean install on a new computer with an SSD will take a whole 15-25 minutes if that.

Yeah time wise a reinstall is no biggie, compared to win98 and etc.

wait what, he's not installing windows 98?!

oeuvre wrote:

wait what, he's not installing windows 98?!

Naw, was thinking WFW 3.11, gotta stay with the times man!

pfft
i run CP/M on my i7 6700K rig