Why all the irritating and unwanted pre-installed programs on new laptops?

If I must spend close to $2000 of my hard-earned, then the laptop ought to arrive exactly as I ordered it. But I've been researching and comparing and I keep coming up with great laptops that are constipated with an overload of pre-installed programs.


Sellers force their buyers to bend over and take it up the hard drive - it is just plain wrong. To buy a new laptop is like paying for toe-jam: the ones I look at have tons of superfluous pre-installed programs - computer 'toe-jam' - that I neither want nor need.


Am I the only frustrated consumer out there? HELP!!

Why all the irritating and unwanted pre-installed programs on new laptops?
Yep, it sucks doesn't it? However you can always reformat the hard drives and put your own Windows on instead of their license. They make you use their disc so all the preinstalled software comes with it as well. I have multiple licenses so that's not a problem for me, for the majority of people it is though.





You could also look into building your own laptop. They're called Barebooks and there are guides to building custom laptops. Usually they're a bit more expensive but the upside is you can put whatever you'd want on it.
Reply:Nope, not only frustrated one. It's all about selling. Sell you the laptop, then try to sell you more after the fact. That's why I build all my desktops from scratch.
Reply:Well, look at it from this angle: this pre-installed stuff is essentially advertising and essentially subsidises some of the laptops overall costs, potentially reducing your cost. Now then, simply go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and kill off all that crap you dont need.
Reply:Simply $$$$$.





Dell actually called me up wondering why I never activated any of the online crap that came with my new system. Why?





Here's why.


When I got my new Dell I didn't turn it on until I imaged the 60gb drive and stored the image on DVD. Then turned on just long enough to activate my waranty. The next thing I did pull out my XP Pro disk out installed a clean copy of XP on newly formated 100gb drive. I never knew what software came pre-installed. If I ever need repair I'll slap the original drive back in with original contents restored from DVD. I use the original drive in an external enclosure so isn't collecting dust.
Reply:i hate aol downloads, etc, but most of these programs you can easily take off.
Reply:Bill Gates, Andrew Grove from Intel and Jerry Sanders from AMD are having a conference.





Suddenly Bill Gates starts to talk to his watch... Grove and Sanders are surprised.





"Thats the new telephone feature from Microsoft at Work it comes with Windows96" describes Bill Gates.





Five minutes later Andy Groves interrupts the conference. "Sorry, it's a call" and starts to talk very silent. "That's the newest Intel-Product. A satellite-telephone in my tooth."





Just a few seconds lets out a loud fart: "Give me some paper ! I'm receiving a fax !
Reply:The programs that you consider unwanted, others consider a selling feature. Rather than griping, just buy the laptop you need, and uninstall the programs you don't want.


Just because you don't want those programs, doesn't mean there aren't thousands upon thousands of people that buy the laptops BASED on the installed programs.


Pardon the pun Mrs RAG, but it sounds like you are on yourself!


(LOL)