I admit to trying to start a heated discussion on this thread.

What is it with brand name computer manufacturers who send out their editing computers with the software embedded on their hard drives forcing you, the customer, to have to make your own recovery disks? And I absolutely hate the fact that when you re-install the software (for whatever reason), it loads all of the useless crap that runs in the background, causing the customer to have to go down the list and remove what you don't need. And, custom installs? Forget it. The software won't allow it.

My next computer will be custom built and the only software loaded will come from the component manufacturers themselves.

Agree? Disagree? Is anyone else as angry as me?

Guess I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Do you have an Avid system or something? Since I use Macs none of this has ever been an issue. I don't have any personal experience, but it seems the situation would be very similar if you bought a Dell (or whatever) PC and installed Vegas or Premiere. Maybe you can be a little more specific as to what you have and why it frustrates you?

Yeah Hugh, not sure I follow you. I mean, I bought an "E Machine" for my dad, (82 years old) and it comes with all sorts of stuff 'pre-installed' like AOL and such. I booted it up for him, taught him how to use it, and left it to him. Months later, he managed to scramble it up pretty good. I instructed him over the phone, to load the rebuild disk, and re-start it. Sure enough, it returned the system to just the way it was when he bought it. Sure, he had to reload some games... but he felt so much better knowing that if he got in a real fix, he could just return to the 'starting point'.

I suspect that this is what brand name manufactureres are attempting. A no-hassle way to provide 'repair service' to people who buy their machines.
I think its just a real convinience to people, who aren't adept at opening up a bios, and changing settings and such.

My thoughts.

I don't use a turnkey system. I use a PC platform with a Windows XP O/S and what Richard mentioned is exactly what I am talking about: The AOL, the automatic connections to the company website where you bought the thing and a whole bunch of other programs (virus protection, DVD player, music match, etc) that just seem to slow you down and get in the way. Stuff that keeps the company brand on your back.

I guess what I'm saying is, why not just send the Windows disk, the Intel disk, the graphics adapter disk, the sound card disk, and keep all the other crap separate so you don't have to re-install.

I bought a Sony Vaio laptop and you would not believe the absolute extra crap that gets loaded on that thing automatically when you re-install the software. I hate it. What if I wanted to just wipe the hard drive clean, go out and buy a new Windows XP disk and load the drivers for all the other stuff from their respective websites? I could do that but I have to lay out extra bread for the Windows disk.

Rats.

I guess what I'm saying is, why not just send the Windows disk, the Intel disk, the graphics adapter disk, the sound card disk, and keep all the other crap separate so you don't have to re-install.
Heh, heh... I'm assuming this is more of a "rhetorical question"... are you really wondering why they try to sell you stuff? <g>

Actually you should be happy about this great victory over "evil Microsoft." Remember the big court case? One of the hot issues was the fact that Microsoft wouldn't let individual companies pre-install their own software on the desktop. MSFT wanted complete control over the "Windows Experience," and they played hardball by threatening not to license their software to any vendor who violated their terms. Well, they lost, and now you have the benefit of all this great pre-installed stuff...

If this really bugs you, last time I looked at PC's, Dell would sell you a machine with no OS at all, or Linux, or any flavor of MSFT. That would let you "roll your own." Or of course you could buy a Mac... ;-)

Mac?! Mac? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I'm a PC guy through and through.

pffffft no way man, i been building my own systems since the old pentium 2 when MMX was the bees knees and one thing i despise is all that OEM crap thats thrown in..
any machne that comes my way (for rebuild as im bit of a techy) i usually just reformat and start again..

its like buying a car... you want the car, but you dont want the back windscreen to be plastered with decals/stickers now do u?? No.. you wont find a car with all that crap on it... What makes this any different??

I bought one HP ZD8000 laptop last month. It came with a lot of loaded softwares most of those I will never use. I tried un-installing a few but sometimes I get a threatening pop up message saying that un-installing this software may cause some other program to not function properly. I feel like I am stuck with these unnecessary softwares running on my laptop and occupying part of the hard disk memory.

what i find most reprehensible about the pre-installed big-box vendors is that you don't get the operating system disks... you pay for it, but all you get is the full backup that puts in all of the aforementioned garbage.

not a big deal if you know what you are doing, but for the average joe it can be a hassle... assuming that they understand the impact that background processes can have on a running computer, that is.

obviously you can get custom white-box pc's from reputable local vendors, that don't have the garbage installed, so trying to make this a mac vs. pc issue is absurd... the white box pc industry is huge, btw, far bigger than the measly 5%(?) desktop operating share that apple has.

what i have found with the big-box vendors is that it's actually quicker to completely re-install their backup disks than it is for me to install a new winxp o.s. from scratch... that is assuming that i'll have to disable all the big-box garbage, as well as download new firewalls and virus solutions to both pc's.

From what I've read, you should be able to contact the computer manufacturer and ask them for the full Windows XP CD and get it, most times no questions asked. After all, you paid for it. If the PC manufacturer won't cooperate, you might be able to get one from Microsoft. You may need to be persistent.

I think they are indeed obliged to get you such a disc. I won't buy a computer
without the installation CD of Windows. I instruct everyone I know to do the
same. If they don't want to give you the CD I'm not going to buy there.