Fatboy PCs need slimming down

I'm not a fan of "I'm an Apple and I'm a PC" ads but the latest ad, linked to by Gizmodo is spot on the money. Apple are so right on this.

"Programs that don't do very much unless you buy the whole thing or are just plain useless really slow me down".

This is so true. One of the first things we do when setting up a new PC is to remove the toolbars, trialware and all manner of tripe brand name Windows systems come with.

Ed Bott blogged that the stories of Vista being slow aren't based on fact. On his test system, he only found Vista to be 16% slower.

This is probably true, but it overlooks the problem of this bloatware infesting systems.

I setup a new Vista Toshiba laptop last week that took ages to load: This was all due to bundled software and fiddly installation routines.

Punters don't want to wait half an hour for a new computer to boot. Out of the box, a new system should be lightening fast: The customer should go "wow!" when they turn the thing on for the first time.

Micheal Dell might get paid $50 for every computer he sells with craplets on, but it's coming at a cost to his reputation.

I'll leave the last word to Gizmodo and Brian Lam who wrote the original post.

A message to those PR people, engineers, product managers, VPs and CEOs at Dell, HP, Sony, Lenovo, and our other favorite PC makers: Don't let the people in charge of putting these demos on your machines ruin your computers. Please, fight back, for our sake, and for the sake of your reputations.