General Chat / Dells & Spyware

Okay so I just got a Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop as a graduation gift. At first I was like "Ahh Dell bad" but by one look at it I can tell already that it's not a piece of shit like all the Dells at my high school were. But I remember hearing something about Dell pre-installing a piece of spyware called MyWay and making it impossible to take off. Anyone have any advice on what to do about that?

Reformat the harddrive before you use it.

Lots of shit comes pre-installed on Dells and the best way is just to reformat everything while its fresh & new.

Reformat the harddrive before you use it.

Lots of shit comes pre-installed on Dells and the best way is just to reformat everything while its fresh & new.

That's what I did, and as long as you do this and don't go too cheap, Dells are actually really nice computers. The Dells at schools are usually the cheaper ones and sacrafice RAM, HD, and good CPU's.

Technically spybot, and most commercial antispywares will remove it..
I wouldnt reformat, as Dell is now charging money for all their system disks..those douschebags...

$10 for a Windows XP CD (an actual installation disc) is well worth not having Dell crap all over your laptop.

True, but the point still stands...Dell is pissing me off...

Any computer that is preinstalled needs to be wiped IMO. Always take care you get an official XP cd and not some recovery disc (although that's a bit hard for laptops though). That and a separate drivers disc.
Be aware that windows updates also installs some check that sends m$ a signal if your XP is legal or not and it does that on a regular basis. Still is spyware if you me. A good firewall is enough to stop it though as long as you have to give permission manually.

First thing I'd do with any computer is wipe it clean, reformat the drive, and reinstall the OS. Then run Windows Update until there's nothing new. Then install Spybot, Ad-Aware, and AVG. Then reinstall your apps.

The amount of garbage that comes on most computers these days is ridiculous.

Reformat the harddrive before you use it.

Lots of shit comes pre-installed on Dells and the best way is just to reformat everything while its fresh & new.

thats why i did, been running fresh an clean ever since, only had one issue since but that was due to a virus, im amazed at how stable this thing has been, owns my hp.

Okay, well, no spyware, but there's a fucking shitload of other crap on that thing. Luckily it all seems harmless, just cluttering up space. It's got a 100GB hard drive though so that doesn't worry me. I guess I might wipe the hard drive but it'll probably be easier just to delete everything from there. No rush, though, I've got to figure out this wireless network thing first. Sometimes I wish I wasn't computer illiterate.

i need to sell mine. :\

I've got to figure out this wireless network thing first.  Sometimes I wish I wasn't computer illiterate.

Keep your fingers crossed that it works the first time. I had to buy a freakin' wifi card, because the integrated wifi didn't want to work with my router. It was an asus laptop though.

Er yeah it's not working right now. But my mom's laptop isn't connecting either so it's more likely a router problem I think?

It could be a router problem. A lot of times, the problem is that the router isn't the same brand as the wi-fi card in the PC. This can cause connection problems between them. If they're both the same brand, then contact Dell customer service and let them know of the problem.

If they're anything like my phone company, they'll call in support from whoever they need to get it from regarding the issues with the wireless network.

Okay well a simple unplug and replug of the router fixed it. Sweet.

I didn't reformat the computer though. Should've. I'll just delete the 6 gigs of useless shit on here manually I guess.

Go through the uninstall process, that will remove the majority of the crap that you want to get ride of. Just deleting file can create issues every once in a while.

I paid the $10 for the XP CD and the bastards never sent. after two weeks of talking to Indians telling me to create my own back-up disk from the hard drive (which contained the bundled software), I gave up and deleted what I could, and pirated what wasn't installed.

I have no problem with the computer. just their shitty tech support.

I gave up and deleted what I could, and pirated what wasn't installed.

that's how it is around here, too.

Well, thank god I bought mine through my Dad's bussiness. Because of this, I was able to get special support * I get to talk to Texans(or really damn good fakes_). Unfortunately, I figured this out about two months after my first couple of problems..

Although, I did buy mine before starting installing the MyWay bullshit...

I paid the $10 for the XP CD and the bastards never sent. after two weeks of talking to Indians telling me to create my own back-up disk from the hard drive (which contained the bundled software), I gave up and deleted what I could, and pirated what wasn't installed.

I have no problem with the computer. just their shitty tech support.

Bruckner will kill you for saying that.

Anyway, there was no Myway on this comp, so maybe they stopped or its only on certain computers. Hopefully I won't have any tech problems because I'd rather not have to talk to Rangajasha Babaganoush in New Delhi.