Doing a clean install of Windows, you may still end up having bloatware

[Damian.Byrne]

So, I've just noticed on my Acer laptop that I've got some bloatware app called Acer Explorer. Which shouldn't be there, as far as I can tell.

 

Here's what happened.

Today in the mail, I got an Acer Win 8 (not 8.1) laptop I bought from Germany. I used Magic Jelly Bean finder (or whatever it's called), a program to find the Windows licence key and then installed 8.1 from a USB flash drive. This was a completely clean install, in that I deleted all partitions before I did the 8.1 install. The flash drive had been prepared on my desktop machine running Windows 10, a machine I built myself (so no chance of manufacturer bloatware there). (I upgraded this way because I simply could not tell 8 to install the English language pack).

Once 8.1 booted up for the first time, it told me that I could upgrade to 10. So I said, why the hell not, and let that process run. Once that was done, I installed all my useful apps and then, just before I go to restart...I notice at the top of my start menu an app called Acer Explorer. 

 

Has this happened to anyone else? Does Windows 10 insist on installing bloatware, even on what you thought was a clean machine?

[jameshumphries47]

So, I've just noticed on my Acer laptop that I've got some bloatware app called Acer Explorer. Which shouldn't be there, as far as I can tell.

 

Here's what happened.

Today in the mail, I got an Acer Win 8 (not 8.1) laptop I bought from Germany. I used Magic Jelly Bean finder (or whatever it's called), a program to find the Windows licence key and then installed 8.1 from a USB flash drive. This was a completely clean install, in that I deleted all partitions before I did the 8.1 install. The flash drive had been prepared on my desktop machine running Windows 10, a machine I built myself (so no chance of manufacturer bloatware there). (I upgraded this way because I simply could not tell 8 to install the English language pack).

Once 8.1 booted up for the first time, it told me that I could upgrade to 10. So I said, why the hell not, and let that process run. Once that was done, I installed all my useful apps and then, just before I go to restart...I notice at the top of my start menu an app called Acer Explorer. 

 

Has this happened to anyone else? Does Windows 10 insist on installing bloatware, even on what you thought was a clean machine?

yeah it does, because you are using an OEM version i assume.

[Elfuego]

There is an option to automatically install drivers on the setup pages. Uncheck it - it was there in windows 8. It maybe a separate option but its buried in the custom pages somewhere.

[Damian.Byrne]

yeah it does, because you are using an OEM version i assume.

 

OEM licence key yes, but as I said, I did a clean install of 8.1 from a flash drive. That flash drive could not possibly have had the files for Acer Explorer on it (or if it did, then for fairness sake, it would have had to include all bloatware apps from all or most other OEMs). So I'm assuming that the Win 10 installer reads the licence key, and looks on Microsoft servers for the appropriate bloatware apps.

[boboman342]

I reinstalled windows 7/8/8.1/10 MULTIPLE FREAKING TIMES on my hp laptop I just bought recently, always from a formatted flashdrive from my main rig (also custom built) running windows 10 (stupid custom 8750m drivers only work on windows 8). I never had ANY kind of software downloaded on my laptop even when using "express settings" during the windows installations. 

 

The only reason I can think it would download some unwanted apps is if you has signed into your microsoft account or something like it on the laptop with the apps pre-installed and microsoft synced them will your account so when you signed in again, it tried to reinstall them.