Bloatware avoidable on ASUS notebooks?

I'm considering buying an ASUS M50sv soon, most likely from one of the fine venders who maintain a presence on these boards. I notice that some of them offer alternative OS choices which they'll install on request, in my case I'd want Vista Ultimate. Do any of them in partcular give a "clean" Windows install, or will they still be loaded up with excess garbage that will force me to rebuild out of the gate anyway?

A side question...anyone have 64-bit Vista on this notebook? Any gotchas?

 

you get an oem copy from xoticpc and powernotebooks. no garbage. i bought vista64 recently. i've been using it more than xp lately. i wouldn't highly recommend it but i can say give it a whirl if you're interested in 64 bit os'es. i haven't had any major problems. just finding this and that and tweaking this and that. it's pleasant on the eyes, with aero or no aero. it's a microsoft product. that should be gotcha enough.

 

You can ask most reputable Asus vendors to do a clean install and only install the drivers IF you purchase an OS from them. So, to answer your questions, yes, they will

 

Thanks guys. That was the answer I was hoping for. I've heard that the standard ASUS install is pretty badly loaded with junk. I'll likely purchase Vista Ultimate from one of them if indeed they'll provide me with a nice clean driver-only install. I'll call the first on my list next week and ask.

 

Actually I've found large part of ASUS bloatware not just very helpful but fun to use. Splendid and Pictureframe in particular

 

Wait..... heard from where, and compared to what??

Look a Sony or HP if you want to see what a overinflated install with too much trialware etc looks like. Asus is actually minimal in comparison - sure there is a little, but *nothing* like their competitors.

 

Just the impression that I've gotten from various forums. I've never actually worked on a stock Asus, so I have no personal experience. I'm used to Dells, and they're not too bad (notebooks anyway) these days.

You're 100% correct about HP's though. I do some tech support for a large real estate firm, and part of what I have to do is assist the individual realtors with their personal laptops...configuring company software for them and such. About half of them are HP's, and those things are loaded to the brim with garbage. They might be nice enough notebooks with a clean install, but they're pigs the way they ship. The users of course are oblivious.

 

can't you just go through and delete all of the bloatware crap once you get the computer, run a registry cleaner and you should be good right?

 

Well, sure. Or I could just reinstall the OS myself.

The point was, if one vendor will ship me a clean install and another only a bloated one, then obviously I choose the first vendor. I was just asking whether one of those vendors existed.

 

I understand. I was just thinking that if it was going to cost you money to have them send you a bloatware free computer, or you could just delete the stuff yourself for free... it would seem to be a better deal to do it yourself.

Of course I have not tried doing it, so I dont know for sure. my current HP (which is 4 years old) didnt have to much stuff on it when I bought it.

 

In my case, I'd be shelling out additional for an OS anyway, since I need Ultimate. (I connect to Active Directory, and Premium can't do that.)

Yeah, I'd not go to the expense if I was sticking with Premium.