“Junk” in the Preload
Among us DIY set we’ve been conditioned to keep our systems as clean as possible. I distinctly remember during the days of DOS where I would happily spend hours optimizing my autoexec.bat and config.sys files by changing the load order to maximize upper memory. (My personal best is 623K, by the way. What’s yours?)
With Windows 95, 98, and 2000, this changed to regularly cleaning my registry, deleting old programs, and finding those little utilities that would save me 10MB of disk space — when 10MB was a big deal. I even went so far as to change my file system from NTFS back to FAT32 in order to get a theoretical few percentage points of disk performance back. I wasted hours on unhiding Windows backup files and uncompressing them so that the conversion back would run successfully. Was it really worth it? I’m not quite so sure.
Then there is defragging. Though the utility on my ThinkPad tells me that I’m giving up valuable performance, I can’t bring myself to defrag nearly as much as I used to any more. On a modern PC, I just don’t see a performance improvement.
Today’s version of this optimization process is the removal of junk and spyware from your PC. And part of what many consider “junk” are the many programs that we vendors load into our preload before we ship it to you, our customers. Now let’s be honest. We load up this software because we receive money from the vendors to do so. You as a consumer are much more likely to buy the full or upgraded version of a program if you already have it preinstalled. This is worth real money to PC vendors. On the other hand, it works both ways. It is this revenue from the software that helps fuel the PC price war. You all directly benefit from this practice. Without it, PC prices would be more than a few dollars higher.
But many of us, myself included, hate the intrusion of what we perceive as junk on our PCs. I generally start with our preload and then customize it for me. Some things, like Adobe Acrobat Reader, I leave in because I’ll need them anyway. Other software had the potential to be useful to me, but failed because it was lacking key features. Google Desktop Search comes to mind. When I last evaluated it, it would not search and index Lotus Notes mail archives — just the main mail file. Someone will probably write in and tell me that the program no longer has that shortcoming, but it’s too late for me. They had their chance and they blew it. There are other programs as well — some by Lenovo and some provided by 3rd parties.
After spending all of this time removing software, I thoroughly defragment, update Windows, update device drivers, remove any excess temporary files, and install my apps like Notes and Office. At that point, I generally make a Rescue and Recovery backup of the entire system so that if I do have to go back to “bare metal,” I won’t have to go through all of that pain again. It’s pretty darn time consuming, but I’ve convinced myself that I have a better running system because of it.
Now there is an easier way. My friend and colleague, Dan Paquette turned me on to this neat little utility we just started making available on our systems. It is called ThinkVantage Base Software Administrator. It is designed for people in small business and those just like me who want to customize their preloads. Find it at at this link in the downloads section.
This wonderful little tool allows you to see our preload recovery area for both our desktops and our notebooks. You can then choose which programs, patches, and utilities you want to have installed, and which ones you don’t. The typical scenario would be to boot up your system for the first time, create a “manifest file” using this tool, and immediately thereafter do a factory recovery. However, when the system recovers, it recovers to YOUR specifications. The major advantages to doing it this way is you spend much less time as the recovery is automated, and since these programs are never installed, you don’t have any residual Registry junk from incomplete uninstalls.
This is a beautiful, beautiful thing, and we’re the only vendor to be able to give you this option.
There is one major caveat though. We just started putting support for this in our preload in our systems this past summer. Unless you have a very recent system from us, you won’t be able to use this tool. (Specifically the system must have our Rescue and Recovery version 3.1 or newer preinstalled.) However, if you do have one of these systems, give this a try. I can’t wait to try it on my next system.
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 2
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
February 20th, 2007 3:35 pm
So glad to know it’s not just me who’s that anal… umm, I mean, that much of a perfectionist. I have a Thinkpad that is getting close to five years old, and I still regularly use msconfig, Ccleaner and other programs to keep things running as smoothly as is possible on an old P4m machine. I initially got rid of things like the on-screen volume display just to speed things up a bit – and, believe it or not, it did.
Can’t wait to try this new utility – when Lenovo put a DX10 graphics card into the Z or T series, consider me signed-up.
February 20th, 2007 3:52 pm
Thanks for tackling a touchy subject with honesty. More control over pre-installed apps is huge. BUT, even if I do keep certain apps, ThinkPads spray them all over my disk. Why does my fresh T60 have: c:\drivers, c:\ibmtools, c:\imbwork, c:\icons, c:\swshare, c:\swtools, c:\valueadd, c:\pf\ibm, c:\pf\ibm thinkvantage, c:\pf\ibmtools, c:\pf\lenovo, c:\pf\sonic icons for lenovo (?!?)…
Please clean up the mess that is a “clean” ThinkPad install.
February 20th, 2007 6:44 pm
Yes, the base software administrator software is good but takes a bit much work for my liking – why not just include a tick-box system in the predesktop area for those not wishing to deploy (ie. that just have 1 or 2 systems). ThinkPad preloads are so messy now cause i get the impression everyone just alters the system that was created for XP to add the additonal functionality, you should have taken the Vista opportunity to create a new clean preload and preferrably have just one preload for all current thinkpad systems
February 20th, 2007 6:54 pm
Newer ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, and Lenovo PCs/notebooks with Rescue and Recovery 4 now have the option to exclude items such as the Corel, Google, Norton software, etc, when doing a recovery by unchecking the undesired features. This is very similar to the Base Software Administrator and from what I’ve seen on the new machines shipping with Vista, it works quite well to help cut down the clutter without having to install another piece of software.
February 21st, 2007 2:33 am
You guys are amazing. Just a cpla days back, the Thinkpad forums had a discussion on the very same topic, and suggested a very similar solution.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=37967
February 21st, 2007 5:05 am
Hi,
adding preloads is NOT a competitive advantage. While it may save a few $ pricetag. If this few $ would have been the deciding step you likely would not get a thinkpad.
What is a serious competitive disadvantage is the subjective slowing of the system, and the time you waste with fixing it
I was surpriced buy the relatively low performance of my T42 at the time until I realized, that the included AV was to blame….
February 21st, 2007 8:13 pm
[...] This is good news. Many users decry the OEM practice of loading up new computers with trial versions of software, an allotment of OEM specific utilities, and other detritus, that I and others have taken to calling CRAPWARE. On the Lenovo Blog, Inside The Box, comes word that Lenovo now offers a tool that can help users remove some of the unwanted clutter on their machines. [...]
February 22nd, 2007 8:21 pm
rory woods:
Agree, should group them under /usr/local/thinkpad
February 23rd, 2007 1:04 am
Windows Desktop Search has a Lotus Notes plugin.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/
search/wdsaddins.mspx
February 23rd, 2007 1:24 am
Advice from a HP bastard
:
Here’s how to make a clean (and I mean CLEAN, you have to add drivers by yourself) Windows XP install disc. Maybe old news for some though. The method works on any PC with XP installed and a complete i386 folder. Don’t forget to get the new serial, most important!
http://forum.notebookreview.co.....hp?t=91129
Just ignore my complaining posts, I did it the wrong way at first.
February 23rd, 2007 1:36 am
Oh and ignore the HP specific stuff, too.
February 23rd, 2007 2:16 pm
Well, since nobody else did it, I’ll state the obvious. Yes, the most recent version of Google Desktop (the enterprise version mind you):
http://desktop.google.com/en/enterprise
DOES support searching Lotus Notes Archives and local copies of your mail. I could not do my job without it. You just go to google and search for a specific PO number or something and it gives you the text of any email or sametime transcript where you mentioned it. There’s also a link for OPEN IN LOTUS NOTES, which does just that. It’s brilliant, I’d really give it another try.
February 23rd, 2007 3:53 pm
Patrick,
You may very well become my savior. I desperately need a better searching solution for Notes, I will try that soon
March 1st, 2007 12:51 am
you think you had junk on the initial. mine is better. i purchased my laptop about a week ago (new from costco). when i started it up, there was a user profile on it. the computer went active august 28, 2006 and that started my warranty. costco did not recieve them until dec 2006. my warranty is 1/2 over and i’ve only had it for a week.
March 5th, 2007 2:08 pm
I just bought an X41 in september just before the big price drop. (man that hurt).
Anyways, I’m very interested in using this utility, but my rescue/recovery version is 3.0… Nothing I can do aside from the same old ‘format and remove’ technique? Really is too bad as I would love the opportunity to customize my preload.
March 5th, 2007 3:46 pm
If one installs this utility, and then makes a set of recovery disks, will the new options be available when restoring a system from the CD’s?
March 6th, 2007 1:42 am
Thanks a lot for the link.
March 8th, 2007 3:40 am
Thank You for posting this great tool. One thing, though still a trade off of sorts like revenue vs. customer interest; is the speed at which the machine recovers. ImageX technology built around windows vista does seem to speed up the actual image restorization process, but what of the factory customization programs that the image team has created. On average across 15 different models of A, M, T, R, and Z systems that are currently shipping we averaged roughly 46 minutes for recovery. Some would say that 46 minutes is very fast, for OEMs like us that do need to remove some of the preload software prior to delivery, at customer request, it can take us a substantial ammount of time. I would love to see somehow integrating the after-customization into the image itself. To me this seems rather logical. Kick me a mail sometime at chris@omnielec.com, I would love to discuss this further.
March 9th, 2007 2:34 am
[...] Thursday, 08 March 2007 « Nikon RAW codec update posted | Main | Lenovo I LOVE Lenovo. Maybe it’s the fact that I LOVE my ThinkPad T60, or the fact that Lenovo folks havegreat blogs… or maybe even that all their little applications share the same start menu shortcut and grouping and icons. I can’t think of any other PC OEM that has employees that blog about their hardware. I find it especially cool. You can tell from their posts that they love their product and they are proud of what they do and who they work for. That makes me feel better about my ThinkPad. They are also honest about things like Crapware. [...]
March 9th, 2007 11:21 am
[...] Enter Lenovo. I only got to use a ThinkPad once in the past – back when they were still made by IBM. I was writing a custom wrapper for a customer’s VPN solution and they sent me one of their standard issue laptops with the corporate image on it. Structurally, it was very utilitarian, but in a good way. They keyboard had a nice feel to it. Rumor from folks I’ve talked to that are still at Microsoft is that Lenovo is finally on ITG’s approved vendor list now (probably more to do with it now being not-IBM then anything else). Even better, as Lenovo point out in their own blog, they offer their own utility for removing crapware. [...]
March 9th, 2007 6:33 pm
Does BSA work with R&R 3.01?
March 15th, 2007 1:55 pm
RnR really doesn’t have much to do with this. It’s the structure of the preload.
I’ve successfully used BSA on a system running 3.1 and 4.0. Keep in mind that BSA is supported on systems that shipped after July 06. Earlier systems did not have the right level/type of preload to support the tool. Though you could run the tool against them, the results would not be pretty.
April 3rd, 2007 3:36 pm
Does the BSA tool work with X60 Tablets that shipped with Vista Business? Every time I run the tool, it says “Unable to access service partition.”
April 6th, 2007 5:59 am
Think about it. Because of this crapware, you might be losing customers to Apple’s mac.
April 6th, 2007 4:47 pm
Just an FYI. The BSA does NOT currently work with Vista. Lenovo is aware of the problem and supposedly working on a patch to fix it.
April 10th, 2007 12:02 am
is that true about the x60 and vista? I an terribly disappointed at Lenovo tech support’s lack of knowledge regarding this or even acknowledgment of this software. I also get the ”cannot access service partition” error!
September 2nd, 2007 7:59 pm
[...] are just fantastic examples of corporate blogging. A great example is this rather candid post on Junk in Preloads. There isn’t much that’s really “new” in the post, but the amount of [...]
October 11th, 2007 8:58 am
Hi there. I have a small problem and maybe you guys can help me with this.
I got a set of Recovery media from Lenovo, it will run good on one model but on another model it will ask me for drivers. once i load the drivers and i want to recover from the thinkvantage button to factory defaul it throws my new drivers away. is there any way i can put my drivers into the recovery process so that it keeps my drivers for future recovery wthout me having to load it again.
Will appreciate any help i can get
thx
September 2nd, 2008 11:06 pm
I just got a T400, and the Base Software Administrator no longer works.
Any ideas?
Is there an update on the way?
Paraphrasing, it said that the version of rescue and recovery that I have installed could not be used.
September 19th, 2008 3:10 pm
Hello!
I have the same problem: a brand new Thinkpad T500. After installing the BSA, here’s what I get:
The version of the recovery program within this computer’s service partition does not support customizations.
You are able to create a new personalization file (which doesn’t help much…) but you can’t create a new manifest, which is where the good stuff is.
September 19th, 2008 3:13 pm
A followup: this system is running Rescue and Recovery 4 (4.21.11.0 dated 2008/05/24). It seems that this version of RnR has been out long enough for the tools to be updated to match, but I guess not.
September 5th, 2009 8:12 am
I need help, anyone. How do I know what is really junk residual files or something I need. I used a program that told me that I have 811 residual junk files. I don’t know if I should delete all or not??
Thank you I would appreciate any help you might have. I don’t want to delete something I need.