Delete and reinstall
Dec. 20th, 2005 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fishsupremeIt's amazing the amount of crap that computer manufacturers put on systems when you buy them now. It used to be you got the OS and some ISP software, and maybe a really ugly and inconvenient shell if you bought a disreputable brand (e.g. Packard Bell.)
But now it's gotten much worse. My Dell laptop included not only a ton of junk, but even borderline spyware (MyWay Search Assistant.) And there's a very interesting article on [H]ard|OCP wherein they bought Dell's new XPS 400 "gaming PC" and tried to play games on it.
Summary of the results: Constant popups from McAfee, Dell Support, and QuickBooks interrupting games. 86 megs of RAM occupied at startup by unnecessary software and services. The mousepad included with the machine was incompatible with the included optical mouse (it was reflective.)
They tried to play some games on it. Autorun was broken on all games so they had to manually run the installers. The Sims 2 wouldn't install. Quake IV would not start. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory locked up after the cutscenes. Some of their attempted benchmarks crashed the machine outright due to instability; those that did run scored the system lower than a sub-$500 Wal-Mart PC.
The cause of all this? All the crap Dell preinstalls on the system, of course. Reformatting the hard drive and doing a clean Windows install fixed all of the above problems -- games all worked properly, performance was as expected for a system of this caliber. There's nothing wrong with the hardware -- they just ruin it for you with crappy software before they mail it out.
They also make it very hard for you to get rid of the crappy software. Much of it cannot be uninstalled (I know, I tried on my laptop when I got it), and no Windows CD is provided. Instead, a hidden hard drive partition (which is destroyed if you repartition the hard drive or use an alternative OS like Linux) contains a special recovery image, which when used restores the system to its factory condition... complete will all the preinstalled crap.
It seems we've gotten to a point where making your own PC is worthwhile even if it's not any cheaper. Dell has successfully invented the concept of the value-subtracted reseller.
But now it's gotten much worse. My Dell laptop included not only a ton of junk, but even borderline spyware (MyWay Search Assistant.) And there's a very interesting article on [H]ard|OCP wherein they bought Dell's new XPS 400 "gaming PC" and tried to play games on it.
Summary of the results: Constant popups from McAfee, Dell Support, and QuickBooks interrupting games. 86 megs of RAM occupied at startup by unnecessary software and services. The mousepad included with the machine was incompatible with the included optical mouse (it was reflective.)
They tried to play some games on it. Autorun was broken on all games so they had to manually run the installers. The Sims 2 wouldn't install. Quake IV would not start. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory locked up after the cutscenes. Some of their attempted benchmarks crashed the machine outright due to instability; those that did run scored the system lower than a sub-$500 Wal-Mart PC.
The cause of all this? All the crap Dell preinstalls on the system, of course. Reformatting the hard drive and doing a clean Windows install fixed all of the above problems -- games all worked properly, performance was as expected for a system of this caliber. There's nothing wrong with the hardware -- they just ruin it for you with crappy software before they mail it out.
They also make it very hard for you to get rid of the crappy software. Much of it cannot be uninstalled (I know, I tried on my laptop when I got it), and no Windows CD is provided. Instead, a hidden hard drive partition (which is destroyed if you repartition the hard drive or use an alternative OS like Linux) contains a special recovery image, which when used restores the system to its factory condition... complete will all the preinstalled crap.
It seems we've gotten to a point where making your own PC is worthwhile even if it's not any cheaper. Dell has successfully invented the concept of the value-subtracted reseller.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 11:12 am (UTC)