[Swordmaker]

Macs still boot faster than Windows 7... especially if Windows 7 is loaded down with Crapware PING!

Mac Snow Leopard v. Windows 7 Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[webheart]

Crapware! LOL!

I always uninstall all the stupid stuff before I use the computer. It’s not that difficult. Apple still doesn’t run the games I want to play, pure and simple. Boot time is not enough to get me to switch. Plus, the hardware cost of Apple is exorbitant.

[chris37]

This is why one builds one’s own computer at sites like pricewatch.com or newegg.com. Here you choose exactly what components you want and what software comes on the pc if any.

Buying a sony or a dell or any name brand pc is a store is an absolute waste of money. You will pay next year’s prices for last year’s gear, and you will get loads and loads of useless software that will never be employed.

[r9etb]

So.... for some reason that’s Microsoft’s fault?

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

The elephant in the room is that the crapware is what subsidizes those low low prices on low-end machines that the Windows fanbois are always citing as evidence that Macs are overpriced.

Check out one of the bargain PCs at Walmart or Costco. They're absolutely festooned with crapware. You'll spend hours cleansing your system of it, and despite what other posters have contended, it's not always easy, and every package seems to have a different uninstall procedure. The process is confusing by design, as the crapware vendors have every reason to make it difficult for you to keep their stuff on your PC.

Then comes the real fun, which can extend for years. My wife's retired Sony laptop (the one she used pre-Mac and which needed cleansing of contagion every six weeks despite running performance-sapping anti-virus and firewall utilities) came with McAfee anti-virus. I'd had previous issues getting McAfee uninstalled on other machines, basically that stuff would not uninstall cleanly, and its leftover clots and detritus would cause lingering problems. So when her six-month trial period was up, I shrugged and agreed to purchase McAfee's license. Gave 'em my Amex card number. That was years ago. As I mentioned, she's stopped using that computer, and although my Amex card number has changed twice I recently encountered a mysterious $39.95 charge on my billing statement. Sure enough, McAfee had managed to get around my twice-changed card number to slip another renewal fee onto my card. I howled to Amex, and they reversed the charge. But I guess McAfee got away with it last year too. And they'd probably point to some clause in the fine print of the EULAs that no one ever reads that authorized them to do so.

Crapware. The gift that keeps on giving. And those who extol the apparent bargains you can get on Windows machines never ever consider its built-in subsidy, or the software hell that can result.

[Revolting cat!]

My XP Dell at work takes 10 minutes to boot, but that’s beacause of all the crapware that the IT dept has loaded on it. Another old Dell under my desk, running Linux that it has to decompress when booting, takes under two minutes to boot.

At home I build my own and load my own crapware on it.

[mysterio]

1. Click "Start"; click "run."

2. Type "msconfig" and hit enter.

3. Uncheck all of the stupid BS under startup.

4. Save a grand or more by not having to buy an Apple.

[Billthedrill]

Oh, man, don't start me. Bought a new Acer 1410 with Vista Home Premium, that had (1) Microsoft Office (the entire install) trial version, natch; (2) Several dozen games each of which had to be individually uninstalled, and yes, they were trialware; (3) SQL Server 2005 - on a netbook? I swear I'm not making it up; (4) a disk encryption program that immediately wanted to update; (5) a McAfee AV suite that shoved everything aside while it updated first its engine and then its signature file; (5) communication trialware; (6) both Acer and Microsoft registration functions; (7) at least three other packages I deleted before looking.

When I first plugged this little guy in the disk light went on solid for 45 minutes. Unbelievable. Not only did the disk encryption trialware fight with McAfee for CPU cycles, the Office and OS updates kicked in. All 80 of them. It was all set to autorun the first time you plugged the thing into the Internet. Hideous, horrible first impression.

Slicked it, jammed in 4GB of RAM, installed Win7 64-bit cleanly. The thing took off like a rocket.

Totally avoidable. They distribute a patched OS and no trialware and it never would have happened. It's a fantastic little box that was made to look bad by stupid marketeers.

Next step - solid state hard drive. Yowzuh. Stick one of those in anything you got - Mac, Linux box, Winbox, laptop or desktop - and watch it fly. Those boot times in the article? Fuggedabouddid.

[CodeToad]

Let’s see what bigots we can be...I know, let’s load up a computer with “crapware” then blame slow speeds on the operating system!

Windows 7 hauls ass. It is fast, even faster than Windows XP.