Make Your PC A Microsoft Signature PC Without Paying $99

Windows PCs are notoriously junk-filled out-of-the-box. Buy a Microsoft Signature PC from a Microsoft Store (yes, Microsoft has a handful of stores across the US) and you’ll find it free of the usual junk. Soon, Microsoft will offer to turn any PC into a Microsoft Signature PC with its “Signature Upgrade” service – as long as you pay $99.

A typical PC might come with a pile of additional desktop shortcuts, system tray applications, and other bloatware. Software developers pay computer manufacturers to preload their software, reducing the price of the computer by a few dollars. Microsoft realizes that this makes Windows look bad and their response is Microsoft Signature, a fancy name for PCs without the junk. But there are steps you can take yourself that will save you from paying that $99.

Option 1: Reinstall Windows

If you have a Windows disc – or your computer manufacturer offers a clean, Windows-only restore option – you can reinstall Windows from scratch. All the virtual clutter that came with your computer will be wiped away – as will your personal files, so back up first.

After you reinstall Windows, you can download the appropriate drivers for your computer from your manufacturer’s website. If your computer came with a driver disc, you can use that instead. While you’ll probably need some drivers and perhaps a handful of utilities, you won’t require anywhere near as much junk as you get by default.

Option 2: Uninstall Junk

Unfortunately, many computer manufacturers don’t allow you to perform a Windows-only restore – their restore partitions force you to restore their Windows image, which has all their junk on it.  Your only recourse will be to uninstall the junk.

Fire up the Control Panel and get to uninstalling that virtual clutter. Be smart about what you uninstall – keep the graphics drivers and other important software. But uninstall the trials for applications you’ll never use, useless manufacturer-provided utilities, and all sorts of other junk. If you really need it, you can probably redownload it from the manufacturer’s website.

If you’re not sure about an application, try Googling its name and seeing what other users say. Much of the time, other users have written up guides that explain what the applications included with your computer do and whether or not you can uninstall them.

You can also try PC Decrapifier, an application that helps automate this.

Install Additional Software

The Microsoft Signature program doesn’t just remove manufacturer-provided junk. It adds Microsoft’s own software to the PC – different people will have different opinions on whether this software is necessary or just additional junk. These are the applications Microsoft advertises as included, most of which are available for free online:

Microsoft Security Essentials – Unlike the typical antivirus software that comes with a new computer, Microsoft Security Essentials doesn’t bombard you with requests for money; it’s completely free. It runs in the background and does its job without bothering you. If you’d rather use another antivirus application, there are other free antivirus applications you can download.

Windows Live Essentials – Includes Windows Live Mail, Family Safety, Writer, Mesh, Messenger, Movie Maker, and Photo Gallery. You can select the applications you want when installing it.

Internet Explorer 9  – Windows 7 will upgrade to Internet Explorer 9 via Windows Update, anyway.

Microsoft Silverlight – If you watch Netflix, you’ll probably want this. Otherwise, you probably won’t.

Adobe Acrobat Reader & Flash Player – Lots of PCs include these already. You can download both from Adobe’s website – make sure to update them if they’re already installed!

Office Starter – You can’t actually download and install Office Starter yourself. But you probably wouldn’t want to, anyway – Office Starter includes only Word and Excel, and each program contains advertisements that bother you while you try to work. Instead, you can install a 60-day trial of the full Microsoft Office suite, install a free desktop Office suite, or use a cloud-based solution like Google Docs. Or you can buy Office and install it – Microsoft evensells digital copies of Office online.

Signature Theme Pack – The Signature theme pack uses a subset of Bing’s images – you can always install the Bing dynamic theme or another theme from the Windows theme gallery.

If you’ve followed this guide, you now have a pretty close approximation of the Microsoft Signature PC experience. You don’t get free support for the first 90 days, but all you need is a search engine to provide your own support.

What do you think of Microsoft’s plans to charge $99 to remove bloatware from PCs? Leave a comment and let us know.

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Microsoft Launches So.cl, A Social Network

Microsoft has just launched So.cl, their own version of a social network, but it is a little different from what you typically see from social networks. Generally, a social network is a place to share status updates, locations, photos and general information about what is going on with your life. Microsoft’s social spot is all about sharing web searches.

The idea behind so.cl is that sharing searches on the web will lead to interesting discussion and conversation with your friends about the things you find. Are you looking for information about the life of Doc Holliday? Well you may have a friend who is an expert on the matter and could offer some interesting ideas. This could lead to a valuable exchange of information. In theory, this could lead to more meaningful conversations than those about what you had for dinner or how some guy cut you off driving down the road.

When you share a search you can filter out results that are not up to par. So if you searched for Doc Holliday, and only three of the websites were worthwhile, you can cut out the others and only share the useful ones.

Like all social networks, users will have profiles and be able to follow other users. The obvious difference is the type of posts you follow. The general backbone of So.cl should feel familial to anyone who uses any other popular social network.

Users can sign up for this new service with a Windows Live ID or Facebook. If you sign in through Facebook, So.cl will show you any of your Facebook friends who are on the service so you can follow some people you already know.

Clearly, they are not trying to compete with Facebook, as they allow you to sign in through them, but could this be a service that actually takes off? Would you be interested in sharing the interesting things you find on the web with So.cl?

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