Getting Rid of Dell Bloatware. 1833

Clark,

First, I'll address the items you mention. Then, I'll detail what I did to remove bloatware. I just received a Dell Inspiron 6400 and have successfully cleaned up all the bloat.

I don't like these instructions...they may put your system in a compromised state (depending on what software you *want* to run).

The Startup folder contains shortcuts to programs. These shortcuts are executed automatically on system startup. In concept, deleting this is a good idea because it will prevent unwanted programs from executing. In practice, it is a bad idea to delete this folder (particularly in the prescribed manner). First, you may be deleting shortcuts that might actually be useful, depending on how you will use the machine. Second, there are multiple 'Startup' folders, one for each user account. Deleting one does not butture that all others are deleted, so some programs may still be executed (particularly if using other accounts).

A better solution is to (a) Rename all Startup folders (say, to "Startupold") (b) Set all the renamed Startup folders to be 'hidden'. This prevents them from appearing on the Start Menu, reducing clutter (and this works even if you allow viewing of hidden files)

Again, good idea in theory, but there are better options. First, this involves editing the system registry can be dangerous. This particular change itself isn't a problem, unless the user makes a mistake! With notebooks (and touchpads in particular), I find that accidental clicks are more prevalent.

type "msconfig". From here you can deselect all programs that are set to start automatically (without editing the registry)

Fair enough. You're never getting these programs back, though (not that you really want them anyway), but they leave a lot of excess garbage on your machine. Sometimes there can be problems with uninstallation.

***************************************************** This is how I removed the bloatware

(0) Ordered the Dell OS CD (a $10 option when you build your system) Note: Dell will often send this CD out on request for no charge if-when users have problems. However, I didn't want the hbuttle-delay buttociated with this, so I paid the $10)

(1) First thing I did when I received the PC was to clone the OS drive. Because I don't have any external storage or advanced cloning software, I parbreastioned my OS drive into two separate drives (using Parbreastion Magic). Then I used a DOS-based version of Ghost to back up my OS to the 'new' parbreastion.

(2) Download all the latest drivers for your system from Dell (or from the vendor). Dell's support in this area is actually quite good...I had no trouble getting the latest drivers for my system from the Dell website. And they're 'better' than the provided Dell Recovery CD drivers. Save the drivers to CD (or memory key, etc.)

(3) Using the Dell OS restore CD, re-install Windows to the primary parbreastion. Install drivers from (2).

(4) Perform a drive image of the freshly-installed system, so that you don't have to go through the Windows install ever again (it also helps if your system ever gets unstable)

That's pretty much it...granted, because the system was unfamiliar to me it took me a few iterations. The beauty of it is that I can restore my original Dell-installed image at any time withing a few minutes if required.

As for results, the PC started up and shut down noticeably faster, and without any of the Dell crapware. When I first got the system, no fewer than 75 processes were running at system startup, and about 350 MB of RAM was being consumed. The disk space was at about 8 GB.

After the 'clean' install, only 30-35 processes are running (mostly required system processes), and memory usage is a more reasonable 200 MB. The entire installation looks to be about 35% of the Dell counterpart.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the new system.

Cheers, Dave