38 Pre-installed Programs You Should Remove from Your New Laptop
June 09, 2009 at 05:06:28 AM, by Gilberto J. Perera
Speed up your laptop by removing all the useless bloat it came with. Read about the worst offenders and how to get rid of them.
You just got home from a local Best Buy with your new HP laptop. You open the box, plug in the laptop, and boot it up. When it finally boots up, you notice that your desktop is littered with a dozen icons for all kinds of programs that come pre-installed. You then open the Add/Remove feature in the Control Panel and find a list that includes more programs than you can count and also notice that some of those programs on your desktop are not listed.
You will soon find out that some of the pre-installed programs that litter your desktop do not have uninstallers. This prevents users from removing software the easy way, however most of the time the software chttp://laptoplogic.com/article-adminan be removed by fiddling with the registry, but I advise against that unless you know what you’re doing. I recommend that you use a free tool like CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller, or Decrapifier to remove these programs.
The list below is arranged in no particular order and is limited to my exposure of this software with my Lenovo laptop, two HP computers (desktop and laptop), Dell laptop, and an Acer netbook. If you have any suggestions please post them below.
Note: Make sure that you backup your computer in case a problem arises and please make sure that you didn’t pay for any of these programs.
1. Cyberlink DVD Suite – An all-in-One DVD suite - trial or limited version
2. Cyberlink PowerDVD – DVD movie playback - trial or limited version
3. Cyberlink Power Director - Magical Video Editing Tools - trial or limited version
4. Norton360 – Security suite includes a firewall, antivirus program, and spam protection - trial version
5. Norton Internet Security – Firewall software - trial version
6. Norton Antivirus - Antivirus scanner - trial version
7. Microsoft Office – Office suite includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others – trial version
8. Microsoft Money - personal financial software, usually a trial
9. Roxio Creator – Create videos and slideshows from your videos and photographs - trial or limited version
10. Roxio Record Now - Create music CD’s burn mixed CD's in MP3, WAV & WMA formats – trial or limited version
11. Roxio CinePlayer - DVD movie playback - trial or limited version
12. Vonage – Voice over IP telephone service – trial software, uninstall unless you sign up for VoIP calling
13. AIM Messenger – Messaging program from AOL – bloated program
14. AOL Toolbar – Toolbar offered by AOL – Just another toolbar blocking your view while browsing
15. HP Notebook Accessories Product Tour – It’s a product tour, watch it and delete.
16. HP Total Care Advisor – Useless, delete
17. HP Help and Support – If you can’t boot up, how useful is Help and Support?
18. HP Easy Setup Core & Front End- Used when computer boots up to setup computer, you already set it up…delete.
##ADSENSE##
19. HP Wireless – Utility to manage wireless connections…Windows already has this.
20. HP ProtectTools Security Manager – Stick to Windows Defender, Firewall, and AVG antivirus, the latter being the only one that requires install.
21. Credential Manager for HP ProtectTools – Use Windows built-in tools to manage your credentials instead, one less program to worry about.
22. Drive Encryption for Hp ProtectTools - Use Windows built-in tools to manage your credentials instead, one less program to worry about.
23. McAfee Total Protection - Security suite includes a firewall, antivirus program, and spam protection - trial version
24. McAfee Internet Security - Firewall software - trial version
25. Wild Tangent Game Console – Computer game software that allows you to play hundreds of games with credits. You buy the credits online and redeem them per session. Unless you’re interested, delete – trial software
26. Nero Software – Nero like Roxio offers software for DVD/CD authoring and burning. Unless you have the full version installed without limitations, uninstall - trial or limited version
27. Intuit Quicken – Personal finance management – trial or limited version (limited version could be the online version, which isn’t too bad, but you have to rely on an internet connection to get to your finances.
28. Intuit QuickBooks – Accounting software for business, usually you will get Simple Start which is quite good, ut if you’re not running your own business, uninstall it.
29. Corel Paint Shop Pro Trial - Photo-editing software – trial or limited version.30. Google Toolbar – I’m at a crossroads with this because it is a great toolbar, but Firefox has such great add-ons that it makes it obsolete. Your call.
31. Dell PC Tuneup – Software that is ‘supposed’ to tune up your computer – stick to common sense and the small set of applications listed below.
32. Dell Easy Internet Setup – You will probably never use it
33. Apple iTunes – Unless you have an iPod or related product uninstall it.
34. ThinkVantage Access Connections - Utility to manage wireless connections…Windows already has this
35. Lenovo Network Magic - Utility to manage wireless connections…Windows already has this
36. eMachines Connect - Utility to manage wireless connections…Windows already has this
The items below are not exactly programs, but do take up space and resources so delete them is not bad idea.
37. Unwanted fonts – If you’re not a graphic designer or related occupation where fonts matter, you could probably do away with quite a few of these.
38. Sample Music, Videos, and Pictures located in the Users directory in Windows – Most likely you will never use these, except for the pictures that you may use as backgrounds.
Note: If you have trouble uninstalling Norton, follow the instructions on this website.
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Comments
Bene60 at 08:18, January 22, 2010
Congratulations! Excellent and useful article!
dor at 08:30, August 18, 2009
What program should I uninstall in windows programs?