A Clean Windows Install
 

I recently purchased a computer on behalf of an organization for which I volunteer. They have a limited budget, so I suggested a reconditioned computer from TigerDirect.com, as my girlfriend has had nothing but positive experiences with them (including a warranty return which they handled without giving her any grief). I settled on a Dell Latitude ca. 2010 with Windows 7 (there was no point in trying to convert this group to Linux--lost cause don't go there fuggetaboutit etc.).

When it arrived, I noticed that the computer had on it something that is rarely seen: a clean install of Windows 7.

There was no "buy me" ware, no nagware, no "trial" ware. Just Windows. Other than the almost 200 Windows updates I had to install, with the accompanying multiple reboots, it was actually quite refreshing. I could hardly describe it as "lean." Chubby, maybe, but not obese.

It leads me to wonder, how many persons have seen a clean Windows install? Not many, I wought. I haven't seen one since Windows 3.1.

An OEM install should be like that - installed and goes out to the customer to boot up and finish the registration.
The last machine I built I ordered OEM Win7 and did it all myself, but usually the shop should do the build.

I don't remember my Gateway laptop with WinXP having any bloat to it when I bought it. I know it came with MS Office and Media Center.

My Lenovo, I never let it boot up before wiping out Windows. But from the recent news about Lenovo, I can assume it had plenty of bloat included.

I have seen literally thousands of them. It mostly depends on where you buy your machines. At least here in Germany the smaller OEMs usually don't deliver bloated installs, but clean Windows installations. Mostly the larger OEMs (those that are certified Microsoft partners) are those that have all kind of stuff pre-installed.

The Windows 10 "technical preview" is completely clean (it didn't even have a video player in the early versions).

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/preview-iso

I wouldn't call an OS, even a tech preview, that comes with an inbuilt and active keylogger as "clean", but that is of course besides the point of this thread.

My laptop came without any OS preinstalled, which means I had to buy a copy of Windows 7 for it, which means it is clean. I've installed a lot of programs I need, but apart from that it has no adware or anything like that.

(re TobiSGD post) :D
I have it on a machine not on my LAN, and connects only to update. Fuggem.

I agree and believe also that it depends where you bought it and also what you bought. We buy stuff from a certain vendor and also we buy office grade machines. As a result we don't get all kinds of games and helpful home-ware. Clearly, you go to the local discount store and buy a system, you get all kinds of free-ware/offer-ware.

The Asus, IBM and Lenovo laptops I've had didn't come with adware. They just came with Windows properly set up.

At least for ASUS I can say that this is not always true, I had to reinstall from the recovery partition on a friends ASUS netbook recently, which ended with me removing all kinds of unnecessary software.

I bought copies of Windows 7 when it was first on sale for $39 just to get a clean install.

OEM's have been putting on junkware for a while. Kind of hard to remove.

What I gather is that some systems are being sold as Microsoft (some phrase) reseller or reconditioner and I think they do put on a clean version instead of some factory version.

is this windows 10 is free after we install it in our pc? i can see they give us key to use during installation process

Windows 10 will only be free to legitimate owners of Windows 7 or Windows 8, and IIRC, only if you get it the first years after release.

oh how sad for a none legit owner of windows hehe