Which of these pre-installed programs is safe to remove on my ASUS K52F?

As i'm trying to speed up my ASUS K52F i have:
upgraded RAM from 3GB to 8gb
and am looking into buying a SSD

But first i want to remove unnecessary pre-installed software/programs on the laptop,
see this print screen of my programs:



This is just after restoring the laptop to factory settings.
please advise on what i can safely remove without affecting performance / functionality?

i use my laptop for web browsing, itunes, movies, streaming youtube videos, MS word/excel, Notepad


thanks

 

^^^Oh my...
The only thing I've left is ATK package. Everything else I didn't bother to install, except for drivers of course.
This is a great read, a bit dated, but still will give you an idea of what is what:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/380681-asus-utility-bloatware-guide.html
I say make a clean install better. Another good link:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...lk-through-doing-clean-windows-7-install.html

 

I agree with killkenny1; fresh install would be easier. then you can pick and choose what Asus applications you want/need (if any).

Otherwise, you can do away with just about all of those Asus bloatware programs.

 

thanks for the reply and links,
problem is, im a total noob when it comes to computers, so all that technical stuff im reading just confuses me and leaves me blank,
unless there is an easier way to do a fresh install with no pre-installed programs on?


if i was to individually uninstall every program besides the ATK pacage, would the laptop still work?

could i then just install the few programs i use e.g. gogglechrome, itunes, notepad, MS Word/Excel ?

or am i missing something here?
i just assumed a lot of the programs in the list i pasted (in particlar the asus and intel ones), where essential for the laptop to run smoothly? or is none of it needed for the laptop to operate?

i thought my ASUS windows 7 CD that came with the laptop had all the pre-installed unwanted programs on it

would it work if i just got/downloaded a windows 7 64 bit OS/CD, and just run the setup.exe file? surely that would wipe everything else off the hdd as it installed the new win7 OS?

 

What you did is a recovery. A fresh install involves using the Windows Installation disc (or a bootable USB drive with the Windows installation) involves putting nothing but the operating system on; no software is included in the install whatsoever. Not even drivers!

Yes, but there are a few there that you need - even if you uninstall them, you'll need to re-install some (for example, your Flash Player and Plugin/Active X, Intel Graphics Driver, etc.) Rather than weeding through all that, it is definitely easier to do what's known as a format + reload - basically it just involves sticking a Windows Install disc or USB drive, booting off it, and using that install process to format the drive and re-install Windows.

Of course! You have a completely clean slate with a new install. You'll need to download all the Windows Updates as well, mind you.

Very little is. All you really need are the drivers; sometimes the software utilities are simply interfaces for you to control things, but they're not exactly "needed".

Hopefully this isn't information overload for you.

 

no thats great, thanks prostar,

which version of Win7 is best?

Is there any difference in burning Win 7 to a cd and just booting from an external HDD?

does the HDD have to be empty besides the OS ? this option seems better than wasting a cd

- i tried a 'custom' install but 2 drives are showing, so im guessing the other drive will be transferred to windows.old which i dont want,
is there a way around this? so i only have one drive with full memory capacity

 

This is entirely based on your needs. Win 7 Ultimate provides everything - but if you don't need certain amenities for business application, encryption, multimedia, etc, then you can stick with Home Premium. There is a basic version of Windos 7 as well that's very light on resources, but it's intended for netbooks and is extremely watered down.

There is some difference, from a technical standpoint. Using a disc just requires that you either purchase an original copy or download and burn the .iso to a DVD. The USB method requires you to take an extra step to get that .iso to the USB drive - but it's a simple matter of downloading the tool from Microsoft's website: Microsoft Store Online

I'm not sure I entirely understand what you mean by that second sentence. When you format the drive during your Windows install, it deletes all data; so your drive is essentially empty. When you install Windows - regardless of from a USB drive or DVD - the contents on either media are just being copied over to the hard drive.

Are you sure you have 2 drives? One of those partitions might be your recovery partition. You can keep your recovery, or format the drive accordingly so that it is all one partition.

If in fact you have two hard disk drives installed, then you'll need to choose one of the two for your OS. Let us know what your hardware setup is like and we can help you with any further questions regarding this!