Blogs The Most Annoying Crapware

The worst things to uninstall is anything HP and Norton.
How is it that a 100meg uninstall takes longer than installing 2.5gigs of Office 2007?

 

Because to uninstall you have to find the file which takes time and check dependency. To install the system only needs to find the folder which is quicker. It does depend on the program; Norton has files which are very intergrated into the system which is why it takes forever.

Word of warning, never interrupt a Norton uninstall, it wrecks your computer. Norton is the sh*ts.

 

I'm not just talking about a printer driver or a program. A 100meg file of user manuals takes longer than installing office. And while yes they may have to search for dependencies, it basically reverses the install ini file. It shouldn't take 45 minutes to install a printer, or 30 minutes to uninstall Norton, and yes I have seen it take that long.

The odd thing about Norton is that there is a tool on Norton's site that will uninstall any Norton product in about 30 seconds, it even seems to do a better job. It';s not hard to delete the application data folder, Prog. Files folder and run a quick search of the registry. Maybe check system32. No program should need 30 minutes to uninstall unless there is something wrong with the computer. I can do it manually in less time.

 

I've never used vLite for Vista, but nLite is a godsend for my netbook. It only has an 8gb SSD, so once XP chews up around 1-1.5gb of that, and my apps chew up another 2-3gb, it leaves me with nearly half of my usable disk space gone. I've managed to get an XP install down to less than 650mb by using nLite, and still have a perfectly usable OS at the end of it.

Even if I don't use the space saving features it's still a really useful tool for creating an un-attended installation; all the little tweaks and settings I adjust each and every time (such as the folder view options) can be preconfigured alongside the normal unattended stuff like license keys and user accounts.

Besides, even in the days before I knew about nLite or vLite, I'd always reinstall the OS on a new system. I don't like not knowing what's hiding in my OS, I like to know exactly what's running in the background. Hence why I started building my own machines around 10 years ago.

The comparison to an MP3 player without firmware is a bit flawed. It might be a good argument for 99% of home users, but I think it's fair to say that bit-tech readers are going to be in the 1%

 

Worst example of wasted disk space I've come across was Supreme Commander. Whoever wrote its installer clearly couldn't be bothered to include an option to select a language which meant having the campaign voiceovers (and corresponding videos) in Spanish, French and Italian installed in the sounds\Voice subfolder. Removing these saved a fairly substantial 1.2GB from an 8.6GB install size.

For registry abuse, top dog would be .NET Framework - while most applications and games add less then 50KB to the Registry, this plops in 1.2MB. Since MS don't provide an uninstaller for it that makes it a permanent addition, unless you used an uninstall utility to track the changes made.

The best tool to counter bloat (except the pre-installed stuff) I've found is an install monitor like Total Uninstall. It's depressing seeing how much junk application uninstallers routinely leave behind, but reviewing what has been added can be useful in removing unwanted "extras" like right-click menu additions. The downside is that Windows and other background programs make changes too, which have to be filtered out from the logs.

 

I didn't need to do that, I charge both my ipod touch and iphone in work without iTunes installed. I just plugged them in and Vista found the drivers and they started charging :shrug shoulders:

 

You shouldn't need any drivers at all.

It charges off the 5volt line on USB.
No signal is needed other than positive and negative. This is how 12v to usb chargers work as well as the Ipod mains adapter.

 

shouldn't need drivers but never-the-less it won't charge from a powered USB hub without the PC being on (same for the sony ericsson phones).