Something I never guessed

[Christopher]

I got a Sony Vaio VGN-NS110E for Christmas. It defiantly surprised me but am glad I now have a laptop that I know will have a working screen every time I use it, and the battery.

I need to get used to the non labeled scrolling on the trackpad, I already de visitafied the themes so it looks a bit more and usuable. And I am in the process of removing all the unnecessary apps. Can anyone tell me what I don't need so I can remove it?

 

[IPNixon]

I'd personally wipe it and reinstall a fresh copy of Vista or XP, then get drivers manually. I generally don't bother with preloaded stuff like that. And if it came with restore discs, you can always go back and reinstall it using those discs.

 

[Cory5412]

Congrats on getting a workable mobile computer!

An OEM installation can be made to work if you want ot put the effort in, I'd spend a day or so trying then removing everything you're not sure about, then run ccleaner to get rid of extra registry stuff, run windows update and get a worthwhile antivirus (like AVG free) on there, run ccleaner again just for good measure, then image an "initial setup" out to DVDs or a hard disk with a product like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost.

Sony includes a lot of stuff on their machines, and if you try to reinstall with the Sony disks and fake it out into not installing everything, the machine asks for the disks to reinstall everything just about every time you reboot. Annoying, to say the least.

Reinstalling with a retail or generic OEM copy of Vista or XP is also an option if you can find all of the proper drivers for the machine.

 

[Gil]

It's amazing how much CRAP that PC manufacturers put on new computers. 99% of the time, it's totally useless, and takes up over a gigabyte in some instances.

 

[Christopher]

My Vaio didn't come with any discs, just software asking me to burn a copy. I guess its cheaper that way.

 

[Cory5412]

Yeah, even my ThinkPad was like that. The unfortunate thing is that the longer you wait to burn the disk, the more likely it becomes that the universe will require you to reinstall the OS for whatever reason. Though once you get them burned your install of Vista will be fast, reliable and safe, and your hard disk won't ever need to be replaced. [] ]'>

 

[II2II]

A friend of mine had a VAIO a few years back and we found a really simple way to avoid the restore CDs adding all of that crap while still getting the drivers installed. We just installed Linux on it.

The stuff that they install is awful. And I'm not talking about awful in a nice way. She had to buy extra RAM just to run Windows, not because Windows couldn't handle the amount of memory but because one of those bundled resident programs leaked memory. (We're talking about a couple of hours between reboots here.)

I'm not going to claim that Apple is an angel here though. They install a bunch of demoware themselves. But at least you can reinstall the OS to get rid of it (provided that you know what you're doing).

 

[Christopher]

Thats the one thing that annoyed me with my iMac G5 when I got it. I had to restore it about 6 months later for whatever reason and the games and appleworks that came with it were not on the disk, now why would not put that on there?

 

[Mike Richardson]

I'm not going to claim that Apple is an angel here though. They install a bunch of demoware themselves. But at least you can reinstall the OS to get rid of it (provided that you know what you're doing).

You don't even have to reinstall the OS. Just drag the demo programs to the trash and empty. Impossible on Windows.

I remember when my friend won a new Compaq laptop in a contest. It had Vista and so much crapware on it, it took about 5 minutes to boot with the inadequate amount of RAM provided. I offered to wipe it and install XP. It does install without drivers, but all you need is the ethernet driver and then you can go online and grab the rest. I had him set up in a few hours, booting in about a minute.

 

[Christopher]

I don't really want to go through that process hence why i was looking for what to remove and what not to, I'm defiantly waiting till I go out and get DVD's so I can get the restore disks burnt. I removed a few things, defiantly got rid of LiveOne Care for starters.

 

[coius]

you defiantly got rid of it? Why are you so against getting rid of it?

 

[Christopher]

Sorry it was late last night when I wrote that..

Finally got all the bloatware removed and it doesn't thrash the hard drive anymore.

 

[Charlieman]

I'd personally wipe it and reinstall a fresh copy of Vista or XP, then get drivers manually. I generally don't bother with preloaded stuff like that. And if it came with restore discs, you can always go back and reinstall it using those discs.

Whether to reinstall or to attempt a clean up is a difficult choice. If a PC has been used previously, a reinstall is more or less essential because you don't know what is lurking. For a reinstall on a new PC, assume that it will take a minimum of three or four hours for XP, less for Vista. A couple of hours will be required for the base OS and a couple of further hours for drivers and essential apps. The length of time is primarily dependent on how easy it is to navigate the manufacturer's website for drivers. For an Intel desktop motherboard, it takes just twenty minutes to download all of the latest drivers, but other manufacturers make it much more difficult.

Wiping out the crapware on a new PC takes a similar length of time, so it is my preferred solution for an out-of-box PC.

 

[benjgvps]

Having a computer that could turn of from a battery, a sturdy screen hinges and can run modern software is a dream. It is amazing how much I was missing out with a PowerBook 150 as a portable computer!