Windows 10 Bloatware…its Mostly an OEM Thing

Published by John on October 20, 2016 Under Computer Repair

If you have ever purchased a new computer or laptop from a manufacturer like Dell or HP, you probably noticed that there are a lot of programs installed by default. It is common to have games, Netflix, Dropbox, and other apps already installed when you buy a new computer. These aren’t put on the computer as part of Microsoft Windows, but rather added by the OEM(Original Equipment Manufacturer,) often as an additional way for them to make money.

While some of the apps that computer manufacturers add are actually useful, such as apps that attempt to disable your hard-drive if the computer drops to prevent damage or tools for maintaining their energy star rating, most are bloatware that the manufacturer gets paid to add to each computer, like free trials of Mcafee Antivirus or Dropbox. Others are added by the manufacturer to help sell their other services.

Starting with Windows 10, Microsoft is guilty of this too, as even a clean install of Windows 10 comes with trials for Office, Skype, and other Apps, but most of the bloatware comes from OEM’s. One of the problems with Microsoft Window 10 bloatware is that it sometimes can’t be removed at all, or at least not easily as there is no unsintall option for a lot of Microsoft Apps.

For the consumer, this ends up being a bad thing, because out of the box, your computer comes preloaded with apps that slow the computer down, have privacy concerns, and are often never even used by the end user…hence the name bloatware for these sorts of programs.

For most techs, the first step when you get a new computer is either removing all the extra apps or doing a clean install of Windows. There are even programs that are available that help speed up the process, so that you don’t have to uninstall everything from the control panel.

Aside from possibly a few smaller manufacturers, the only way to get a computer without bloatware is to buy a business class machine or possibly goto the Microsoft store, although you will still get some Windows 10 Microsoft bloat* if you go that route, it is far less than what you get from buying a computer off the shelf at a big box store like Best Buy or Walmart.

* I think most annoyingly, the addition of APPs/Tiles periodically as Microsoft promotes different applications, games, and other items. I believe you can, at least partially, turn this off in settings.

Windows 10 Bloatware

Bloatware has been an issue for years going back to Windows XP, 2000 and before. I had some hopes that with Windows 10, this would be less of a problem.

Part of this misplaced hope was that starting with Windows 8, system recovery was built into the Settings section and so you can do a refresh by going to the Update & Security -> Recovery settings menu and then doing a Reset. This works much better than System Restore does, which rarely seems to actually fix system issues.

In the past starting with Windows Vista(or possibly Windows 7,) you could restart the computer and goto Windows Recovery Manager to preform a factory reset, the actual re-loading of windows was still usually preformed by software provided/customized by the OEM. As a result, doing a system recovery resulted in installing an OEM image that includes all the bloatware that came with the computer.

Given that Windows 10(and of course Windows 8) had recovery built into the main Operating System, I was hoping that it would let an end user easily do a clean install, removing all the bloat that gets added by OEM’s. Unfortunately, this is still not the case when you use the Reset this PC option. If you read the phrasing, it says:

And the several times I have done it, it has done just that…the apps that came with the PC, like all the HP or Dell Bloatware, gets reinstalled. So, you are still stuck removing the OEM Bloat, along with the Microsoft Bloat(when possible.) I would hazard a guess that this isn’t something that Microsoft wants to do, but rather something they have to do to keep Dell, HP, Lenovo, and other computer manufacturers happy.

So, bloatware is still alive and kicking in Windows 10 and doesn’t seem to go anywhere. If anything, Microsoft appears to have embraced it to push Skype, Office, and the integration of phones and other devices into their new operating system.

Dell vs HP, Who Has More Bloatware

From my personal experience, I would have to say that HP usually has more bloatware than Dell. This is of course anecdotal, but as an example, I am currently getting two brand new computers provisioned for business clients that had hardware failures on their old computer and opted to upgrade, rather than repair. One went with a new HP laptop and the other a new Dell desktop. The Dell had significantly less bloat on it than the HP, although I still had to uninstall a number of unneeded programs from both.

It is interesting as you see the same bloat on both as well, like trials for the rather ineffective and inefficient Mcafee antivirus.

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