Posted on 04/12/2007 7:36:38 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Last week, when I condemned the flood of crippled trial software, ads and offers that come loaded on new Windows Vista computers, readers reacted strongly. I received roughly 700 emails, all but a handful agreeing with me. The column was the most popular article that day on WSJ.com and was cited on numerous other Web sites.
Clearly, many people are furious about these unwanted programs and icons, which are sometimes called craplets. Many would like to smite them without going through the laborious process of uninstalling them manually, one at a time. Some readers suggested strategies. The following are some options.
One ray of hope is a free program called PC Decrapifier. It can be downloaded at pcdecrapifier.com. This software automates the process of uninstalling craplets. It was written originally to clean up Dell computers, but its author says it will work on other brands, too. Before PC Decrapifier runs, it allows you to remove from its proposed deletion list any programs it considers junk, but which you might prefer to retain.
(Excerpt) Read more at ptech.wsj.com ...
You're free to blow your money any way you like. I'm quite happy with my $499 Dell. Never had a problem with it. My parent's $900 iMac has been lemon from the getgo. 8 weeks for a warranty repair of the hardrive. I could do the job myself in 10 minutes.
But don't let reality keep you from demeaning those who disagrees with you.
Not sure where you went that it took 8 weeks to warranty repair an iMac. The one lemon we got out of the 70 that my one client bought was repaired in less than a day at the local Apple store.
Now, if you took it to Best Buy or CompUSA, then there’s a problem. They’re notoriously slow about that.
You keep on believing that those $499 Dells are as good a computer. I have thirty out of a shipment of a hundred that Dell is going to be taking back.
Was bought at Best Buy. It had to be shipped to Apple.
I'll repeat myself. Never had a problem with my $499 Dell. I actually own two.
Then it *was* a Best Buy screwup.
Apple turns around repairs on current or near-current models in 3 days or less. Laptop repairs are carried out overnight on mailins.
Best Buy wouldn't touch it. It had to be shipped to Apple.
Sorry, but I'm going have to call BS on this. Are you seriously saying that Dell has a 30% failure rate on computers out of the box?
Come on...Dell would be out of business in a month if that was the case.
Funny you use $1,000 as the difference between a Mac and a Dell. I once estimated that I spent about $1,000 worth of my time dealing with Dell “tech support” concerning my laptop that kept freezing. I used a realistic estimate of the value of my time and the number of hours I wasted. Well, I gave up on Dell and we’re now a Mac only family and I literally haven’t needed one minute of tech support. My Macs run as well today as they did out of the box. I haven’t comparison shopped Dell and Apple lately since I’ll never buy another Dell but even if they are $1k apart in price to me that means they cost the same.
you could always build a hackintosh.
99% of my computer problems I can fix myself without tech support. That's probably the real difference between PC users and Mac users. I'm not afraid to dig into a computer, whereas Mac users, like my parents, just want a machine that works, every time, regardless of the price. And they don't want to have to trouble shoot and fix it. PCs require more upkeep, mostly because the parts from any supplier fit and will work, mostly. And there are lots of low end suppliers of PC components. Macs are much more tightly controlled. One of my previous homemade machines had a modem go out that caused a blue screen. I started unplugging components until I found the one causing the problem, and then went out and bought another $5 modem. Took about 5 hours but the repair price fit my budget.
Your post just proves that those who troll Mac/computer threads simply to trash Apple are too lazy to actually know what they are talking about.
But that's ok - stay in your blind Windows world. Hopefully you get at least a fraction of the enjoyment out of your Windows box that I get from my Macs....
Actually - it is at least partially MS’s fault - they do not make it as convenient as it should be to delete/uninstall the junk.
But then again - I guess I am spoiled - to delete/uninstall, I simply drag what I want gone to the trash and empty the trash - no registry to modify, no miss nor muss. Although I tend to right click and select “move to trash” nowdays...
How much is your time worth? I am not afraid to dig into a computer. I write low level assembly language, write code for game consoles and PCs.
I know the value of my time, and so does my employer. One reason I have convinced management that all future dev machines will be Mac Pros and not HPs or Dells.
My MacBook Pro is the envy of the development staff, who wish we could turn around all of the dev PCs to Macs right NOW. The environment is just so much more productive, it’s not just HW costs that should be factored, but the OS and associated SW.
Never been happier in the 25 years I’ve been working on computers.
A $599 Mac Mini is far more computer than a $599 Dell. And there is a reason Dell can sell a “complete” PC with a monitor, keyboard, mouse and such for that or less - you get what you pay for.
I know a whole bunch of people, not to mention schools, that have been dumb enough to buy those rock-bottom priced Dells. They have spent nearly as much as the PC purchase in trying to get them doing what they were actually purchased to do. That and many have had to ship them back, repeatedly.
Actually - I 100% believe the post. Our school purchased 12 Dell desktops this past Summer - 7 had to go back - 6 for a KNOWN motherboard issue that Dell chose to ignore and just quietly fix as customers returned them, the other for a bad power supply right out of the box.
Even better - three of the machines that went back to Dell came back with smaller hard drives than they were originaly received with - and one of those STILL had a bad motherboard.
I use to think Dell was a reasonable alternative for those who just insist on using Windows. Not any more.
Walt Mossberg actually states specifically in the article:
"Finally, an excellent way to avoid or minimize the craplet problem is to simply buy an Apple Macintosh computer."
I've built my own computers for 20 years. At the time I bought my two Dell machines (the first that I didn't build myself since 1988) three years ago I spent $499 for the computers and an equivalent Mac was $1500. Apple switching to Intel as the CPU provider has brought the cost of their machines down significantly.
It's funny how the Mac people go ballistic when one poster suggests that one of their justifications for their higher price is bogus. I can uninstall any software from the "Add/Remove Programs" control panel in minutes. No problem. If you want to pay more money for your computer, you go ahead. I've never had a problem with my computers, so can't understand why you accept that I'm happy for the money that I've saved.
Exactly what "something" might you want for a Mac that requires purchasing it from Apple? A new hard drive? Not hardly. Memory? Nope. Upgraded optical drive? Not required again. Graphics cards? There are several dozen different graphics cards that can work with the MacPro level machines. Apple offers a low end card, a mid range card, and a high end card. Those choices should cover most users.
I don't think the poster to whom I was replying actually read the whole article.
The last time I bought a PC from one of the manufacturers I decided to fire it up to see how bad it was. Within 5 minutes I had a XP CD in the drive and was rebooting.
That crap they bundle onto the computers is pure garbage. It’s SPAM of the worst kind. I’ve been to friends and family’s home where they have just bought computers. Often I find good high end computers with so much garbage on them they are running SLOW they are so bogged down. I’m a little surprised the manufacturers do it to the extent that they do, because the computers are running like total crap with this stuff after a week or so and it makes them look bad.
Exactly - and Dell certainly doesn’t seem to have worked many the bugs out of their AMD/nVidia combo machines (like the E521, to pull an example out of the air).
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