PC Buyers Want ‘Crapware’ Removed

When large businesses buy new PCs, they often wipe the hard drives clean and install a fresh copy of Windows, along with the other software they want workers to have. Some consumers, frustrated with all of the trial software, desktop icons and other stuff that comes loaded on their machines, are doing the same thing.

However, what works for businesses isn’t always so easy for individuals. Many computers don’t actually come with a clean copy of the operating system. Instead, many ship with a “recovery partition” or a recovery disc that restores the system back to the way it shipped–with all that extra software.

“I’m willing to accept that it comes with junk and I’m willing to clean it up,” said Bill Shanner, a self-described “senior-citizen engineer” who has seven laptops and at least a half dozen desktops. “The thing that aggravates me is having to buy a second copy of an operating system. If you pay for something, you ought to get what you pay for.”

Some PC makers, like Gateway and Dell, say they do offer consumers a disc with just Windows, allowing them to do a clean install of the operating system, should they choose to do so. Others, like Hewlett-Packard and Sony, use a “system restore” option. HP said it does so to help facilitate product support.

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