Envy 14 Bloatware Removal

Hi, I'm about to get my Envy 14 and I was wondering how to get rid of all the bloatware. I'm not entirely computer savvy, so i've never done this before, so what exactly should I do to get rid of all the junk?

 

Control panel, uninstall programs, uninstall the stuff you dont want. I dont have my Envy yet so I cant say what to uninstall.


Or clean install Windows 7 with a Windows 7 disc or disc image

 

In addition, click on the start orb and type: msconfig
Go to the startup section and uncheck what you don't want to run. I turned off everything except:
1) ATI catalyst control center
2) Virus scan
3) the three intel programs

Everything else is off.

 

how do you know what all the programs are that are on there? not doubting you.. but when i look at them i have no idea what all that stuff is.. is there a way i can know?

 

Its not too bad. Expand the "command" tab and write or copy the .exe file name. If you google it there's a site that lists what pretty much every startup item is and what they do (as well as whether its safe to disable them). There's nothing in startup thats essential, you could turn off everything and the computer would run just fine. Also, if you turn them off and need to use them (like all the Adobe junk), it just loads the program from scratch which takes a couple extra seconds, rather then keeping them preloaded in memory and slowing down your system, constantly checking for updates, etc.

 

programs i'm going to delete using pcdecrapifier..
before i do i'll list them and maybe someone could say which each one is and what it does. also say whether or not i should delete.. i looked at the out of the box sticky but most of the programs on my new envy are not the ones listed there. here it goes..

this may also be a good list for other users such as myself who are unsure of what to delete as this seems to be a big discussion around here lately( iwill update original post after others have come along and stated what is good/isnt)

I will list everything that i suspect to be bloatware and hopefully someone can come along and state what the program is/does. and if it is infact bloatware.


Acrobat.com
Acrobat AIR
cinemaxnow media manager
cyberlink dvd suite? what would be a better alternative?
dvd menupack for hp mediasmart video
esu for windows?
energy star digital logo
fences
hp mediasmart stuff( not going to list all of this because it is all bloatware)
hp support assistant
movie theme pack for hp mediasmart video
power2go
stardock my colors

again if someone could state what these are and what they do that would be great.. also add anything to this that is for sure just crap that should be deleted. Also it would be nice if you could say what is a good alternative to the preinstalled programs.

thank you very much in advance, + rep for sure to anyone who can confirm what needs to be deleted for sure, ect.

edit- darn imeant to put this in the envy 14 forum, could someone please move it there?

 

Oh, thank you that is very useful information.

 

if anyone could answer the questions from this thread i, and i'm sure many others also, would greatly appreciate it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...loatware-list-what-delete-off-new-envy14.html

 

I would take those off for sure. Windows has things already for DVD playback. Not sure what Fences is. Acrobat AIR is in the middle

 

o alright, i'll get rid of all of this stuff besides fences.. i'm just curious if any of these programs will leave me missing something, something that i will have to download a new (better) program, or will everything already work with a different program i have ( example delete hp mediasmart, but i can still watch dvds on windows mediaplayer).. thanks man

 

The first page on the Envy 14 owner's lounge has all the information you need on doing that, including a guide

 

haha yea i know i have read that guide about 10x... only problem with is its from 2008, and basically none of the software is the same on my envy that is from that guide.(only the hp mediasmart stuff is the same) so really it helps with a lot of stuff, but not the stuff to uninstall.. thats why i was hoping for some help here.

 

The laptop was released not more than a month ago... actually 3 weeks ago. It wont be old stuff

 

if no one has said it yet..

i really do recommended revo uninstaller. its free and from the same makers a ccleaner. (and no i dont work for them lol)

but anyways, i just feel like it gets ALL the crap from an uninstall of a program.

 

You can always use Ccleaner for program uninstallation, if you don't want to use the windows uninstaller.

 

can anyone advise as to what programs we should run at startup and what ones arent necessary?

 

Instead of removing the bloatware on the computer, may I recommend flashing it with the "Minimized Image Recovery"? I just did this and I have a clean system with just the drivers and bare minimum HP software. All I had to do was go to the boot recovery screen (press ESC on start, then go to recovery, then click "Minimized Image Recovery"). It took an hour and Voila! A new computer thats practically a clean install, just with all the drivers.
What it does is wipe your computer, install a clean windows, then run all of the installers on top of each other. You wait for all these installs for about an hour then its done. Best new computer install ever.

 

Sounds like an excellent alternative to manually uninstalling all the bloatware. Has anybody else tried this out yet? Are there any cons to it?

 

Has anyone else tried this? And is it effective?

 

AFAIK it does not remove all of the bloatware, it removes all the trial stuf (norton, office trial. . etc). It does a nice job of removing all of the 3rd party stuff, but doesn't remove the HP stuff that most folks find annoying.

Having said the above, it's not a bad idea for folks a bit squeamish about doing a clean install and should increase performance.

If you truly want to remove all of the bloatware, you'd have to do a clean install.

But I understand folks looking for alternate solutions as there seems to be alot of folks having problems with a clean install.

 

The only HP software that is left is
Hp Support assistant (not the annoying hp support thing),
Hp Wireless Assistant (Arguably still useful),
Recovery Manager (Useful),
and Hp Mediasmart (The only bloatware)\

So far I have not seen any Hp software - I only see those when I look in the start menu.
Everything else is working as well, including the on screen audio controls (which a lot of people have problems with from a clean install).
When all of this was installing it looked like it flashed to a completely clean windows 7, then ran a select few driver and software installs.

 

Good to know thanks for the follow up. . .fyi (it's mainly the HP Mediasmart stuff that makes up most of the HP bloatware)

Glad it's working out hopefully others will see good results as well.

 

Okay, then I guess the question is this: those who have manually cleared out all of the bloatware, how long does it take to clear it all out? Would it be faster to do a minimal restore and then uninstall the little bloatware that's left, or would it be faster to simply uninstall the bloatware by hand?

 

Computers find it hard to truly "uninstall" applications. A computer that has only ever had 5 programs installed will always be faster than the same driver config, but that had 20 programs installed then 15 of the uninstalled.
Hope that makes sense - anotherwords, its better to start from a clean install, or in this case the minimized image recovery.
However, if you have already configured it you might as well just do everything by hand - its not worth reinstalling your own apps.

 

Thanks for this tip, I was kinda dreading doing a complete clean install. This seems much easier.

...now I just need to wait 2 weeks for my envy to be built

 

this... is it really that simple? wheres the catch? any drawbacks? why arnt more people doing this?

 

Half of my reason for clean install is to remove all the "residue" left even after uninstalling bloatware. I would consider doing the "minimal install" or whatever its called though and then removing from there. I just dont think a lot of the programs uninstall well.

 

Well, I don't think many people know about this. I just stumbled across it in the menu, then found almost nothing in google about it.

The only realy problem I've had so far is the Hp 3d DriveGuard (also known as HP Mobile Data Protection Sensor or ProtectSmart) did not work. When I opened it in the control panel it said my drive was not supported.

I've since gotten it to work somehow, but I'm not sure what exactly I did. It involved lots of uninstalling though I am now using the version 4.0.2.1 of "HP Mobile Data Protection Sensor" in device manager, and version 4.0.3.1 of HP 3D DriveGuard (The control panel aspect)
Both of these are the versions that should be in your \SwSetup\HPProtSHD\ folder.
I think what might do the trick is to uninstall the driver while checking the box to delete the driver files in device manager. Then uninstall the Hp 3d DriveGuard system from programs. Then install the one from the swsetup folder.

 

I was able to run the "Minimized Image Recovery" without a hitch. My HP 3D DriveGuard installed and is working.

The process takes about 1 hour to fully run, at the beginning it will ask you to run a backup, you can insert a dvd or an external drive and run the backup to make sure you're not losing anything you put on the computer (if it's brand new don't worry about this part). Then just run the MIR program from your BIOS (press "esc" key when you start your computer to get into bios) and you're good to go. It does remove alot of bloatware and seems to do it without a problem.

Thanks again for the head's up on this Mirus.

 

has anyone else done the ""Minimized Image Recovery"?

 

any update on this working?

 

If you just got a new computer, the best thing to do is try it. It has worked for me, it has worked for others, there is not much to lose. I would say its hands down better than the starting install, but others may argue that a clean install is better.
You can always revert to factory state from the recovery manager that you can boot to.
Also you still have the full swsetup folder, so you can install whatever software you want (like the stardock mycolors app)

 

I just tried the minimal install method and it doesn't seem to let you set the partitions . So after it was done (about 1hr) I just had one big partition for C and a "HP_Tools" partition of about 100MB. I may be in the minority but I like to have a C drive (for Windows and programs/games) and a D Drive (for media/video/music/documents/pictures) so that if anything craps out I can just reformat C and all my media files are not affected (theoretically). However, I tried to use the Windows Disk Manager to shrink the huge C partition (I am using a 500GB, 7200RPM HDD) but it'll only allow me to approximately split the HDD in half (266GB and the rest shrunk for D drive) probably due to some lame page/system file blocking it from shrinking further. I prefer around 160GB for C drive. Oh well, looks like I'll be doing a full-fledged clean install tonight .

 

I'm wondering if this method actually formats the drive before reinstalling it. If not then it is just rewriting over the old files.

 

It formats the drive

 

How are people doing a clean install? Do you have a windows 7 disk or are you simply using the recovery disk? If the Windows disk, did they send it to you with the computer. If the recovery disk, does it provide some kind of option for an install without the bloatware?

 

I am also confused about this one. How do you guys do a clean install if all we have are the Recovery DVDs we make. Any help would be appretiated

 

When you boot into recovery with the recovery dvds there will be an option to restore with a "minimized image recovery" and that will restore windows with almost all the bloatware gone. You just have to uninstall mediasmart if you want

 

I don't mind removing stuff manually; it takes a few minutes, not that big of a deal. Can we get a list of all the useless bloatware that can be taken out? What is Fences? Can it go?

 

Does the MIR work if i swap HDDs but use the recovery DVD? or does the recovery DVD tap into the hidden HP partition?

so i would make a recovery DVD uninstall the HDD that came with the Envy14 install my new HDD then pop the recovery DVD in and restore windows?