dell crap on there laptops

Headshot

how do i delete some of there **** stuff on the laptop like Mc Afee
AOL ,dell network assistance

and how come i cant stop dell network assistance coming up every time i turn on the pc

petes

Have you went into "msconfig" and stopped the network assistant from starting. I'm pretty sure there is also an option within the assistant to stop it from starting each time you boot. For McAfee, best option is to reboot in safe mode and uninstall from there.

Just do a format. Its much more easy.

Saruman

Would it not be under add/remove programs for mcafee? Oh and i assume you have an alternative to put on? You are not planning on using it without an AV are you?

petes

Deleted User wrote:

Just do a format. Its much more easy.

I don't think it is. I don't format the dells that arrive in here. Takes about 20mins to take the ****e off them.

Headshot

petes wrote:

Have you went into "msconfig" and stopped the network assistant from starting. I'm pretty sure there is also an option within the assistant to stop it from starting each time you boot. For McAfee, best option is to reboot in safe mode and uninstall from there.

i went within dell network assistance and stopped it but no luck and once i have mcafee unstalled ill be installing another av

Headshot

Saruman wrote:

Would it not be under add/remove programs for mcafee ?

could i do that for all the ****e on the laptop

Saruman

A lot of it.. I mean just go in there.. look at the programs list and uninstall what you do not want!

MarkR

I did exactly what you're talking about last week. Can all be done though start menu / add remove programs.

Headshot

MarkR wrote:

I did exactly what you're talking about last week. Can all be done though start menu / add remove programs.

nice one

did it speed up the laptop alot

MarkR

Yep. Mccaffe and that dell network crap were really slowing it down on startup. Got avg pro put on instead, and uninstalled all the crap I'll never use.

Headshot

any draw backs to getting rid of dell network assistance

and all this wont effect my warrenty

petes

{(-_-)}HeadShoT** wrote:

any draw backs to getting rid of dell network assistance

and all this wont effect my warrenty

Nope.

Headshot

petes wrote:

Nope.

thanks petes,MarkR and Saruman for your advice

looking forward to getting the ****e off

TerrorFirmer

It's gotten really out of hand lately. A user with a basic Celeron M and 256mb ram can barely use their machine for the first few minutes there's so much unnecessary crap going on at once. Add/Remove programs is all you need though, a format would take too long and then you'd have to reinstall all your drivers etc, just hassle you don't need.

And if you think DELL are bad never get a Sony, when I first turned on mine there were - no joke - about 20 icons on the desktop for all this useless junk that took me about 40 minutes to uninstall it all.

Headshot

HavoK wrote:

It's gotten really out of hand lately. A user with a basic Celeron M and 256mb ram can barely use their machine for the first few minutes there's so much unnecessary crap going on at once. Add/Remove programs is all you need though, a format would take too long and then you'd have to reinstall all your drivers etc, just hassle you don't need.

And if you think DELL are bad never get a Sony, when I first turned on mine there were - no joke - about 20 icons on the desktop for all this useless junk that took me about 40 minutes to uninstall it all.

wow the companies must begetting tonnes of cash to put all that crap on there laptops/desktops

by the way whats the best free av out there which will protect when using a credit card online etc

cormie

I prefer the format myself, just knowing theres absolutely no trace of unnecessary shoite left, no desktop pictures, dell set information and aswell all the programs. A full format really isn't that much hassle, the time involved by the user for a format is actually only about 5 minutes to set the language, time and all that, it's the waiting for the jobs that takes long, although less than an hour, you'd have it done while you were watching a tv show. Then installing the drivers back might take about 20 minutes, if you have the driver CD's it's no problem though, just don't restart the machine after every install and you'll fly through it:)

Headshot

iv most of the stuff deleted except for mcafee

im just wondering is dell quickset any use ,should i delete it and is net waiting any use

and whats the best antivirus freeware out in the market today

That would be AVG.

Interesting aside: When I got partition magic up and running on one of my Dells, I found a couple of hidden partitions. Was not impressed.

Ruu_Old

AVG or Anti-Vir for freeware anti-virus and Add/Remove as has been mentioned, will do just fine for getting rid of the Dell rubbish, have done it a number of times.

walshki

Personally I did a format when I got my laptop last week and I'm delighted with the difference in performance compared to when I first got it. I used the guide at this link http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=67545 which I found very useful. The drivers was the tricky part because even though I copied those that were on the laptop when it came and then put them back on after the reformat I still had to download a couple so I'd admit its not for everyone (then again I'm far from the most technically advanced person on this forum).

There's also a thread on optimising the performance by using msconfig etc at this link http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=67545

Even if you don't reformat a little bit of work on the startup on msconfig is worth it. A lot of crap runs in the background that you have no need for (don't ask me for a list decide for yourself). One example is qttask which is quicktime. When I disabled this on my desktop it made a big difference (although I could still launch QT if I wanted) so I didn't lose anything.

petes

Deleted User wrote:

That would be AVG.

Interesting aside: When I got partition magic up and running on one of my Dells, I found a couple of hidden partitions. Was not impressed.

Would one of them been the system restore partition?

Capt'n Midnight

I haven't tried this but keep bumping into it - used to be called the Dell Decrapifier
http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier/

The user can select exactly what is uninstalled from the list below

* QuickBooks Trial
* NetZero Installers
* Earthlink Setup Files
* Corel Photo Album 6
* Tiscali Internet
* Wanadoo Europe Installer
* Get High Speed Internet!
* Internet Service Offers Launcher
* Dell Search Assistant
* Norton Ghost 10.0
* Symantec Live Update
* MS Plus Photo Story 2LE
* MS Plus Digital Media Installer
* McAffee
* Norton Internet Security
* Google Desktop
* AOL US
* AOL UK
* MusicMatch Jukebox
* MusicMatch Music Services
* Wild Tangent Games
* Norton AntiVirus 2005
* Norton Security Center
* Norton AntiSpam
* PC-cillin Internet Security 12
* Run Registry Entries
* Desktop Icons
* Corel WordPerfect
* Roxio RecordNow
* Sonic DLA
* Sonic Update Manager
* Sonic RecordNow Audio
* Sonic RecordNow Copy
* Roxio MyDVD LE
* Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003
* Quicken 2006

thebman

Uninstall the crap form the add/remove programs and run a reg cleaner (if you know what you are doing, I recommend Hi Jack This!) and check out Msconfig and turn off any unwanted applications starting up that aren't required.

Also clean out your prefetch folder in C:\windows\prefetch which tells windows what files to cache on startup which slows the system down. Don't delete the .ini file in this directory.

That should clean out most of the crap I think or just reinstall XP. Not all of the above is neccessary but it won't hurt.

cormie

Jebus, just had a look at my MSCONFIG thingy. I've about 100 services listed. About 40 stopped and 60 running. How do I know which ones I need as there's no explantion, just names which don't mean anything to me!

There's also about 20 items in the startup tab.

Does this mean there's a load of shoite I don't actually use running when I start up? I'm a bit too afraid to go near anything.:o

subway

20 items on stratup means 20 things run on startup
it may be unneeded buit may be very necesary too.
intel gma has about 4 processes on startup,
av can have 5 or more
bluetooth is another 3 and so on...

in the services tab, there should be a button to "hide microsoft services"
tick that and you should be left with about 15 services.
use google to identify what they are and disable if neccesary

with the startup tab you may be able to id programs based on the path it shows,
if notjust google for each of the program names and disbable as neccesary.

Headshot

on avg theres no fire wall

will i have to get a seperate firewall?

cormie

subway wrote:

20 items on stratup means 20 things run on startup
it may be unneeded buit may be very necesary too.
intel gma has about 4 processes on startup,
av can have 5 or more
bluetooth is another 3 and so on...

in the services tab, there should be a button to "hide microsoft services"
tick that and you should be left with about 15 services.
use google to identify what they are and disable if neccesary

with the startup tab you may be able to id programs based on the path it shows,
if notjust google for each of the program names and disbable as neccesary.

Cool thanks for that, yeah I knew 20 items means 20 run at start up;):p

Are all the microsoft ones deffo necessary? When I clicked hide, about 15 were left. So all of the 80 or so MS ones are completely necessary?

Blub2k4

Why would you want to remove the Mcafee that will run for months until the sub runs out for free software?
It's not such a large footprint, or am I spoiled with 1.5gb ram on my Dell?

Headshot

why i want to get rid of it
is because it slows down the laptop

iv 2gb ram but when i turn on th laptop i have to wait for mcafee to start up :rolleyes: then i can play my games etc

subway

cormie wrote:

Cool thanks for that, yeah I knew 20 items means 20 run at start up;):p

Are all the microsoft ones deffo necessary? When I clicked hide, about 15 were left. So all of the 80 or so MS ones are completely necessary?

generally theyre all part of the OS,
the only additonla ones running may be windows firewall, windows search messenger, office source engine and things like that.
but the good thing about them is that they can be stopped from their own locations.

to blub2k4,
many people would want to install mcafee for 1 reason - its bloated ****e.
its not as reliable as other antivirus and takes more work to do it.

Headshot

subway wrote:

to blub2k4,
many people would want to install mcafee for 1 reason - its bloated ****e.
its not as reliable as other antivirus and takes more work to do it.

i got rid of mcafee and installed avg
my systems runs way faster now

peepingtom

i have macafee installed on my new dell laptop .... runs perfectly well with it ... however i downloaded avg on my other notebook, and it was garbage .... every time i received a mail or sent one, some stupid big ass notice with my email address repeated over and over kept popping up .... this even happened when i wasnt sending mail ..... unistalled it straight away

imo you are better off just uninstalling all the crap dell put on that you dont want ... starting from scratch by formatting as some have suggested seems a little extreme

cormie

peepingtom wrote:

i have macafee installed on my new dell laptop .... runs perfectly well with it ... however i downloaded avg on my other notebook, and it was garbage .... every time i received a mail or sent one, some stupid big ass notice with my email address repeated over and over kept popping up .... this even happened when i wasnt sending mail ..... unistalled it straight away

imo you are better off just uninstalling all the crap dell put on that you dont want ... starting from scratch by formatting as some have suggested seems a little extreme

You can turn that off, thankfully:)

thebman

Avast is the best free AV IMO. Windows firewall should be enabled default on a new machine.

I'd worry more about startup items than services. Only really the Anti-Virus and firewall etc.. and some other services like iTunes/iPod ones are in that list.

In Startup, you should look at the command tab and look at the directory it is using (some won't have these, ignore them is the safest bet).

It should be somewhat obvious which ones you can turn off from reading the command tab directory. For example, I have Adobe Acrobat Reader disabled so it doesn't start up on system start up. I also have Quicktime disabled.

walshki

There's also a thread on optimising the performance by using msconfig etc at this link http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=67545

Re the above the correct link is
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=5787
In particular there's a link in there to
http://www.windowsstartup.com/wso/search.php
Which tells you what different startup items do. E.g. I put in DataLayer and was told this was
'Nokia PC Suite 5 - "A collection of powerful tools that you can use to manage your phone features and data." What does it do and is it required?'

I have no need for that on startup so I disabled it.

You can do the same with services running in the background by clicking start run and typing services.msc

Check what each service is for at
http://snakefoot.fateback.com/tweak/winnt/services.html
and disable if you're sure you don't want it.

TempestSabre

peepingtom wrote:

i have macafee installed on my new dell laptop .... runs perfectly well with it ... however i downloaded avg on my other notebook, and it was garbage .... every time i received a mail or sent one, some stupid big ass notice with my email address repeated over and over kept popping up .... this even happened when i wasnt sending mail ..... unistalled it straight away

imo you are better off just uninstalling all the crap dell put on that you dont want ... starting from scratch by formatting as some have suggested seems a little extreme

I've never had that problem with AVG in all the years I've been using it. I wonder why there was a big ass message though.

cormie

TempestSabre wrote:

I've never had that problem with AVG in all the years I've been using it. I wonder why there was a big ass message though.

It's from the email scanner. If you don't have outlook/thunderbird etc, maybe that's why you haven't seen it? I had the message turned off before, then updated to the new AVG and had to turn it off again.

TempestSabre

cormie wrote:

It's from the email scanner. If you don't have outlook/thunderbird etc, maybe that's why you haven't seen it? I had the message turned off before, then updated to the new AVG and had to turn it off again.

Ah thats why. So its user config issue.

peepingtom

cormie wrote:

It's from the email scanner. If you don't have outlook/thunderbird etc, maybe that's why you haven't seen it? I had the message turned off before, then updated to the new AVG and had to turn it off again.

yeah using thunderbird ... how do you turn of off cormie? ... i swear i looked but couldnt work it out

cormie

To be honest, I'm not too sure. I think you launch the control centre, then click properties of email scanner, then click properties in the window it opens and make sure show information window is not ticked. I think;)