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Just about to setup a brand new laptop for my daughter (previous one has just died after 5 years service with a teenager so don't think it owes us anything) and vaguely considering doing a clean windows install. It's a Lenovo i5 with 8Gb RAM AND SSD. I did this with my son's laptop three months after purchase (HP i3 with 4 Gb, HDD) because it was almost unusable it was that slow due to bloatware. Clean windows install and SSD was night and day difference.
What does STW think, fresh install now or see how it goes first?
Does it need a bump?
You can do a Windows reset from within Windows. I've never done it, but it takes you back to a fresh install. Maybe worth a go.
Yeah I'd go for a clean install. It possibly also has a recovery partition, from which it can install windows from. Assuming you can get a bootable windows usb then you can repartition the disk and claim some space back.
I probably wouldn't bother TBH.
This ^^^ TBH, I'd uninstall the obvious crap from the control panel, but wouldn't worry about a re-install. Yes it was definitely worth it on your sons laptop, as you replaced a HDD with an SSD, but you won't see that improvement with a Laptop that already has an SSD installed.
It's easy enough to do. And with USB3 and SSDs doesn't take very long to do.
I'm sure I tried the "recovery" route before and it's just reinstalled all the bloat.
The windows key should be automatic as Microsoft now associate it with the hardware but if that goes wrong then they market licences are only a couple of quid.
Lenovo aren't that bad when it comes to bloatware. Just uninstall anything you don't want.
FYI lenovo vantage is useful for driver updates etc and isn't bloatware, we use it on our company laptops.
The problem with ThinkVantage - which won't be an issue in this case - is that it seems to only finds drivers for shipped OSes and for systems still under support. So if you've got a machine which is several years old or one you've upgraded the OS on then you'll just get a gallic shrug out of it. And honestly, these days the amount of drivers for current machines which aren't already baked into Windows Update is becoming vanishingly small.
When it does work though, yes, it works well.
I’m sure I tried the “recovery” route before and it’s just reinstalled all the bloat.
Yup. An OEM recovery partition will typically be a 'factory reset', it'll turn it back to how it was when you bought it. I say "typically," I've never seen one that isn't but if I state that as fact then someone will surely know of an outlier.
Makes sense that the OEM recovery reloads all the bloat, but does using the Windows reset just take you back to a bog standard, 'pure' version? Never done it but would like to know.
If you go to Microsoft and download the Windows 10 installation you can do a clean install, I did it on our Ideapad and it got rid of all the Lenovo nonsense. I'd recommend it and then it's done.
Cheers all, I've done the clean windows thing on a few older laptops with great success, just seemed wrong on a brand new laptop but after my sons it was an option (did the windows update before installing the SSD and it made quite a difference).
Looks to be OK, I've uninstalled McAfee and it seems to be quite responsive. Will leave it for now, it would be a clean Windows install if I do do it, not a recovery.
My experience of bloatware is that Lenovo are one of the best and HP one of the worst for it, but YMMV and I've not had a domestic one through my hands for a while.