New HP notebook: ReInstall OS or PCDecrapify?

I am about to pickup a new hp notebook and had a few questions. As we all know these things come with a ton of bloatware. This leaves me with 2 real options. Re-install the OS or use PCDecrapifier.

Now some questions concerning the first option. Any disk that comes with the notebook will most likely still contain the bloatware; so my idea was to borrow a friends Windows7 disk (same version) and re-install OS on a fresh partition. From my previous experience with HP, they usually leave a recovery partition and I would probably back this up just in case and then delete it as well. Regarding system drivers I could just go to the HP site and download the drivers for the specific model. This seems like it should work to me; does anyone see anyway this wouldn't?

The other option was using PCDecrapifier which would probably be much easier. My only concern was its effectiveness in completely removing the bloat. As we all know, uninstallers aren't perfect and many times leave remnant files and registry keys. I could use something like Revo Uninstaller to try and remove these, but in the end it still might not be as perfect as a fresh OS install would be.

Does anyone have any recommendations, questions, or concerns regarding this. Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Clean install. It's better cause it's cleaner... obviously.

 

Clean install no question. There's even a guide for it in the HP subforum.

 

Thanks, I checked in there earlier and somehow overlooked the stickys .

 

please define bloatware and specify what is on your machine that would fit the definition.

no sense jumping off the cliff until you know the reason why.

 

On HP's.... pretty much EVERYTHING. HP's are the worst I've ever dealt with regarding bloatware.

 

If you want 100% of your machine's potential do a clean install.Don't settle for less.

 

still no definition, just chatter........

 

Really? Name me one mainstream, consumer oriented notebook manufacturer that doesn't load their notebooks to the gills with crapware and trials. Even ASUS is doing it these days, though not to the extent that HP and Acer do.

Just a few of them...

HP Total Care Advisor
juno offer
juno preloader
Pandora internet offer
Slingbox watch tv anywhere
Windows live messenger download
cyberlink dvd suite
Quicken
Hp Games by WildTangent
Sling Media
muvee revea;
HP ACTIVE SUPPORT library
HP Customer Experience Enhancement
HP help and support
HP media support dvd
HP media smart music/photo/video
HP media smart smartmenu
HP media smart tv
HP media smart web cam
HP quick launch button
power2go
power director
ebay Air App

 

Personally on my old laptop a clean install was always slower than the recovery... that was in XP days.

Since then I've just stuck to a recovery disc on my Vaio (with Vista) and manually uninstalling all I do not need - which works quite well.
Then CCleaner - pick out the entries in the registry that I recognize to belong to removed software and done.

Works for me, does the job

I'd generally keep my hands of any "optimization software" that doesn't tell you what it does or how it does it. Or doesn't give you full control over it's actions.

 

It's still chatter. No one is disputing that the default factory install on a lot of machines is often cluttered with what some people may view as unneeded or undesired programs.

The use of undefined buzzwords needs to be stamped out.

Bloatware, crapware, etc, etc, it's all personal and group-think opinion. I've not seen a recent analysis of the apps listed in post # 9 of this thread with hard, technical reasons **why** they are 'crap' and undesirable.