Patchwork Psychology

Well, at least Microsoft knows that they have a tradition of suck. They are apparently again worried about their reputation of complications after birth. If they want to blame it on the OEM garbage software, so be it (I don’t disagree that it’s GARBAGE!), but I know the truth. I’ve used Vista Ultimate for almost two months now (I got it when it came out on MSDN), and it’s been plenty unstable. I did a clean install, and I don’t think it needs any craplets to make it any more brittle.

So…I guess I see their point. With all of the instability that the OS sports out-of-the-box, they really don’t need a 30-day trial of McAfee trapsing through the kernel.

The topic of “OEM ‘Craplets’” gets me particularly fired up, though. My employer buys plenty of Dell machines, and as a sysadmin, I end up servicing the machines in one way or another; whether I do the initial setup of antivirus software or a repair installation six months later, I end up having to touch the thing. It steems me to have to uninstall 15 packages because Dell wanted to get some buck by making a deal with some douchebag software companies whose software won’t sell unless it comes as a pre-installed trial and is impossible to uninstall. Seriously, I get practice at fending off this junk almost daily and these recreant hoodwinks still find ways to drag me through the briar thicket. There was a reply to this article that uses some vernacular that might do it a bit more justice than I:

That’s the best description of those craptacular add-ons from OEM suppliers I’ve seen yet. Circusware, hehe. I remember the first time installing a retail copy of Windows on a home built PC. Startling in how clean it was. No trial anti-virus or AOL logos (okay, it was a while ago).

I thought it was interesting that Michael Dell asked how much people would pay to get a clean copy of the OS without all the bundled crapware. You can read it in this article: Zdnet blog [zdnet.com]

I would’ve asked how much it was worth to him to get me to stop building my own PC’s and buy another Dell? The arrogance of the position that I would have to pay extra to get rid of crap I didn’t want in the first place really chaps my undies. Screw you, Mikey. You can take your cheap ass hardware and OEM circusware, along with your call center techs who don’t speak English as a native language, and stick it all right up your ass. Don’t act like you have a right to my business. If you want my money, earn it you arrogant bitch.

– HangingChad, Slashdot Member

There’s plenty more venom than this from every person who knows that their PC manufacturer is laughing all the way to the bank. Bastards.

slashdot.com: Microsoft Worried OEM ‘Craplets’ Will Harm Vista
Microsoft bemoaning OEMs putting junk trialware on Vista; users bemoaning both.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/11/0321256

Personally, I’ve no reason to switch from XP on my workstation yet and I doubt I will until Microsoft EOLs it.