Be warned, it’s another rant 
We recently installed a new HP Pro 3120 SSF Series machine that ships with Windows 7 Pro and Office 2010. The name Pro is a little over-egged as they are actually low-end machines as a replacement the DX24xx range. The SSF or Space Saver Form is quite correct as its basically a half depth Micro Tower – think back to the Compaq Evo SSF but not nearly as well made.
Now, I’ve always been a fan of HP for their reliability, build quality, and typically a huge fan of their normally excellent Value Added Software – am thinking ProLiant servers, Insight Manager, SmartStart, etc. However the shipped build on this machine which is aimed at the business market has got me thinking what the guys at HP have been smoking! maybe too close to their colleagues at Apple!
The Out Of the Box Experience (OOBE) this machine is great, it covers the HP setup routine, registration, updates configuration, and what appears to be a McAfee opt-out.
However, upon booting into Windows for the 1st time its soon apparent that there is a truly massive clean-up / bloatware removal task needed if being used in a standardised business build, starting with:
– HP Games (18 of them)
– McAfee Browser Protection Service
– McAfee Firewall Protection Service
– McAfee Virus and Spyware Protection Service
the McAfee stuff was a real sneaky one, especially as I quite clearly chose NOT to use McAfee.
Additionally we are removing:
HP Advisor – a 93MB toolbar with links to eBay, McAfee, Huddle, Biz Solutions (actually Solutions and Offers for your business AKA marketing guff!)
Device Access Manager for HP ProtectTools
Drive Encryption for HP ProtectTools
File Sanitizer for HP ProtectTools
