A consumer buys a new-n-shiny Windows computer, all expecting it to be running fast-n-smooth, and what he sees instead every time he boots are plenty of popup’s and reminders, irritating him no end !

Most usually accept them as a part of Windows, cursing the OS for being so darn’ irritating and slow ! New users who buy such a computer are usually inundated with plenty of popup’s every time they switch it On. The user also does not expect to see so many toolbars or buttons or icons. In all this, the Windows Welcome Center too gets lost. Quite expecting their experience to a be a pleasant one, they are left with a bad taste in the mouth, when they find their Vista machine running slow.

What is Crapware

The reason for this, as many already know are the uninvited guests which arrive along with Windows. These are called as Crapware or Craplets or Junkware or Demonware ! Crapware are nothing but unwanted software which arrive bundled along with your Windows installation. In most cases they are trialware. Publishers for such software pay the hardware companies to push them onto new machines, in the hope that that the purchaser will at some point decide to buy them. And statistics have shown than conversions from such trial-ware are around 30% !

And the manufacturers too don’t want to turn away this free money. Au contraire manufacturers claim that this helps them keep the costs lower! In fact, a few months back Sony had actually decided to charge money from the customers for ‘Not installing’ or for ‘Removing’ Bloatware ! But they later had to backtrack in face of the huge public outcry.

These craplets can bedevil your machine, hog resources and slow down you start up time as well as make it run slow. And the worst part is almost all of them for some strange reason want to start with Windows, and you can at most times see their icons resting in the notification area.

Moreover, in most cases, since the user does not get a valid Windows CD with their PC he is unable to do a fresh install. Exercising the option to restore back to the factory image, simply restore the system back to the crapified state.

These programs are not bad in themselves, and include known and useful products like Norton, McAfee, Corel, Roxio, AOL or other such Internet Service providers, Quick books Financial Center, Napster, Memeo Auto Backup, Picasa 2, Wild Tangent Games, Symantec LiveUpdate. Even stripped down trial version of Microsoft Office are bundled onto a new machine! These are leading brands and widely used for various purposes.

If you know what to look at, the task is simple. From your notification area or system tray you will get an idea of programs starting up. Alternatively you can browse to your C:\Program Files folder and see the software which have been installed. Or type Ms-config, hit enter and click on the Startup tab. You can get an idea about the startups here. Identify the one’s you want to remove and uninstall them one after the other through the Uninstall a program applet of the Control Panel.

If you are unsure, I suggest you download and use a 670 KB freeware program called PC DeCrapifier. As the name suggests, it removes the crap from your PC ! There is no installation. If you have anti-virus software installed, it may complain about this program because it is written with a scripting language. These warnings can be safely ignored. It will identify what it thinks are Crap ware. You may then pick and choose what you want to remove. It will not begin removing anything without prompting you first.

Having done this, I recommend that you use a good Registry Cleaner to clear you Windows installation of residual registry entries as most uninstalls are not complete. CCleaner is a good and safe freeware I’d suggest.

You don’t see all this happening on a Mac machine, do you!? The Mac hardware and the software are well integrated with each other and shipped. But in the case of Windows Vista, Microsoft sells the licenses to the manufacturers, who loaded it on the machines along with the trial ware. Money is offered to the computers manufacturers by the software publishers, but the cost paid for by the Vista end user in terms of bad performance!

Microsoft needs to take note of this fast ! Yeah, yeah, I know Microsoft is aware of this and have they have also said that there is little they can do about it, but they have to realize that in the end, it is Microsoft itself that gets the … err … cake in its face.

There is even a video mocking Windows Vista for coming pre-loaded with all sorts of crap from the OEM’s and being bloated. How did things ever come to this !?

Its a mighty fine idea of having a snazzy new ad campaign and spending $500 million on it. But maybe Microsoft would want to consider diverting a bit of this money to the manufacturers instead, since they appear reluctant to let go of even this pocket change. It would be money well spent !

Microsoft wouldn’t then have to resort to tricking customers into liking Windows Vista, with Mojave sort of experiments.

A Windows user would be happier with a virgin install of Windows on his PC instead ! Or maybe the time has come for the consumer to put his foot down and refuse to buy the demonized versions of Windows.