This is one more reason to avoid Windows all together. MS in the long run is just shooting themselves in the foot. Uninstalling individual programs is a pain, plus many uninstall routines don’t uninstall everything.

I don’t have a problem with Silverlight being preinstalled just as I wouldn’t have a problem with having Flash preloaded. These applications are essential on the web these days (Silverlight will become more important than it is) and are amongst the first things that most users will install in any environment anyway. I do have a problem with unwanted toolbars being installed. I hate toolbars, fail to see why anybody uses them and would instantly uninstall one that came preinstalled.

The biggest problem with HP and increasingly Dell PCs is that the recovery partition includes all the crapware so you get it whenever you do a reinstall of the OS. The sooner that changes the better – especially if you don’t get a proper Windows DVD with your new PC.

Jerino, while Windows Live Search will be the default search option on all of the HP consumer PCs, I didn’t write about that. That’s not the news: pre-installing Silverlight and a new Windows Live Search Toolbar that customers may not want is.

No big deal. Firefox also has Google as its default search option, same trick.