From my perspective, setting up a brand new PC should be about as simple as taking it out of the box, connecting the cables, and installing whatever software programs you plan to run – but nothing could be further from the truth. These days most new computers come from the factory with trial-ware, adware and tons of other “stuff” clogging up the hard drive, which usually makes the system run as slow as a turtle that’s taking an afternoon nap.
I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon and evening getting a new HP notebook ready for use by its new owner, and the process was almost as time-consuming and tedious as performing open heart surgery and balancing the national budget at the same time.
First, I waded through and discarded a long list of trialware and adware that was wasting over half of the available hard drive space. It’s no wonder that PC’s are so inexpensive these days since virtually every major software company on the planet pays the computer manufacturers big bucks to preload their hard drives with trial versions of their programs. And in my opinion, the worst of the worst are the pre-loaded trial versions of ”security suites”.
All too often a pre-loaded anti-virus app will expire, leaving the owner completely and unwittingly unprotected from the horde of threats than come in via the Internet on a daily basis. Many novice PC users simply have no clue about the importance of keeping their anti-virus subscription paid up and their threat definition files up-to-date. They naively think that if their computer is running an anti-virus app, they must be protected. Obviously, this is not the case. The first thing to be removed from this new notebook was the pre-loaded trial version of Norton Internet Security (I replaced it with the free, newly-released Microsoft Security Essentials).
After all the garbage had been cleaned up, I paid a visit to the Windows Update site to download and install all the updates that were ready and waiting for this brand new PC (that was running a brand new installation of Windows). Even with my lightning-fast cable Internet connection and a speedy new CPU, it took about an hour and a half to download and install all the updates – and that didn’t include the ones labeled “Optional”!
To cap off the evening, I spent another hour or so creating a set of Restore DVD’s just in case Windows should need to be reinstalled at some point in the future (that never happens, right?). Well, you would think that the PC manufacturers must think so since they no longer include Restore CD’s or DVD’s with their new computer systems. They leave it to you to create a set of your own with a utility that comes bundled with Windows, and if you fail to do so and end up needing them later, they make you pay for a set of “replacement” discs to fill in for the set you never received in the first place.
After the final step in this long ordeal (er, I mean procedure) was finished, my friend’s new notebook ran like a Cheetah with its tail on fire. Well satisfied with the results of my labor, I hit the sack for some well-deserved rest. It’s too bad I spent the night dreaming about all those re-boots.