One of the annoying pains that come with owning a new PC are the Bloatware apps and software that come with the system. Unfortunately, Windows PCs aren’t any better, and it’s likely that anywhere between 30 – 50 percent of your storage space is being taken up by bloatware and necessary programs.
Thankfully removing bloatware from a new Laptop is extremely easy to remove with the right guide. If you have a new Windows laptop, 2-in-1 or not, you can free up some storage from your PC when you expunge bloatware.
We’ll be covering how to remove bloatware from your Windows PC and operating system, so continue reading to learn how!
What is Bloatware?
Put simply: bloatware is an abundance of software that comes with your laptop and takes up storage space on your device. This clutter often doesn’t have much use to users, hence the name ‘bloat’ in bloatware. It also causes your laptop or PC to have reduced performance while it’s on your laptop.
These pre-installed applications are usually software like antivirus software that are often inferior to free online versions, strange installed programs that aren’t clear in their purpose, and bundled bloatware apps that come with the Windows package.
If you’re planning to use your Windows laptop for studying subjects like data science or during your work, you’d want to remove as much bloatware.
Why do PC Manufacturers add Bloatware?
That’s a great question! Why would these laptop manufacturers add annoying pieces of bloatware onto their devices if people find them annoying? The short and simple answer is money.
Budding developers and certain companies pay a lot of money to have their software comes pre-installed onto popular PCs and laptops like antivirus software and desktop cleaners. These are in the hope that you’ll accept the bloatware and pay the premiums that they will continually prompt you with.
Windows laptops are especially prone to this, which is a shame because Windows laptops are generally quite good for gaming, video editing, and as a general workplace PC.
Top 3 Ways To Remove Potential Bloatware
Now that you have a better idea of why software developers have these programs installed in your new Windows PC. If you want to be one of those laptop users that remove the bloatware (which we highly recommend), then read on as we discuss the top 3 ways for you to get rid of bloatware from your new Windows laptop.
If you’re interested in knowing whether a 4K laptop is worth the purchase or want to know the cheapest laptop for Cricut Explore Air 2 – we’ve written articles about those too!
Remove Bloatware With Windows Settings
One of the easiest and simplest ways to remove bloatware is to do it using the inbuilt Windows system resources available to you. Here are a few simple steps to easily expunge bloatware from your laptop:
- From your Windows desktop home screen, navigate to your Start Menu and type “add or remove programs” into the search bar. You should be led to your Control Panel.
- You’ll be prompted to choose to Add or Remove Programs, and you should be introduced to a search bar and a list of all the apps and programs that you have installed onto your Windows PC.
- Make a list of all the bloatware apps that your device comes with, and find them in your search bar.
- Once you find the useless programs, you can click uninstall on them. Go about uninstalling bloatware until you have none left on your list. You will likely be prompted to confirm the choice, which you should.
There you go! Make sure you don’t uninstall any applications you’re unsure about as they may affect apps that users do regularly use like Zoom.
Remove Bloatware With Windows Powershell
If you’re unable to access your settings or want to remove bloatware from your PC using coding instead, then you should try Windows Poweshell. Windows Powershell is a built-in command language that you can access without having to install anything. Here are the relevant steps to removing bloatware from a new laptop using Powershell:
- Just like in the previous tutorial, you should navigate from your home screen to your Start Menu. In the search bar, type Windows Powershell.
- Make sure to right-click the Windows Powershell and when prompted, you need to run the application as an administrator.
- When Windows Powershell opens the first thing you need to do is to type Get AppxPackage and press enter!
- From there, scroll down until you find the bloatware that you want to remove. Once you’ve identified it, type Get-AppxPackage | Remove-AppxPackage, where the is the name of the bloatware.
- Hit enter and it should be removed!
Windows Powershell is a useful tool for removing bloatware, and it’s super easy to do no matter what kind of laptop you own, whether it’s a 12-inch Google Pixelbook or a 15-inch laptop that you bought for under $500.
Remove Bloatware With CMD
One last way to get rid of bloatware from your laptop is using the command prompt that comes with your Windows device. This is more commonly known as CMD, and may seem scary to people who have never used it before but is surprisingly simple! If you want to get rid of bloatware, CMD is a great way to do so – here’s how:
- Instead of navigating to your Windows search bar, hold the Windows key on your keyboard and hit R.
- When the Window command prompt center appears, make sure to press Control + Shift + Enter to open up the console.
- From there, type wmic and hit enter. Then type the product get the name and hit enter!
- You’ll see the list of programs and your device. Find the pieces of bloatware that you’re trying to uninstall.
- Replacing with the name of the bloatware, type product where name=”” and select uninstall. Hit enter!
- You’ll be prompted to confirm the installation, by hitting Y and then enter.
Make sure to not delete important applications like Google Classroom, although this shouldn’t be an issue if you’re planning to be homeschooled!
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the best ways to remove bloatware from your new Windows PC, and hopefully, you won’t be disturbed by any more annoying notifications. If you’ve read through our article and had a few questions begin to stir in your mind, we’ve got you there!
We’ve listed the most frequently asked questions when it comes to removing bloatware from your Windows laptop.
Otherwise, check out our articles about how to remove stickers from your laptop or how to use your laptop as a monitor for your PS4!
Is it worth it to remove bloatware?
Having bloatware on your laptop can compromise your battery life and RAM by having useless pre-installed apps running in the background. No matter what you use your laptop for, gaming or computer science, get rid of bloatware.
What bloatware to remove from HP Laptop
There are a lot of different pieces of bloatware that take up storage on an HP laptop. Here are the most common ones:
- Bonjour
- Energy Star
- HP Sure Connect
- HP Audio Switch
- HP System Event Utility
There are a lot more, and we recommend that you vet your device properly so that you get the most storage out of your device – especially if you’re a college student starting a new semester.
Does Microsoft have bloatware?
Microsoft unfortunately does come with bloatware when you purchase it and you update the operating system from Windows versions. It’s overloaded with bundles of apps that you won’t find useful and will instead be a detriment to your i7 processor laptop with 16 gigabytes of RAM.
Make sure to remove it if you have a gaming laptop, as it can render your performance to be less than what you need.
Parting Shot/Conclusion
If you purchase a new laptop, whether it’s a gaming laptop or not, removing bloatware from it is a necessary step to ensuring you get the most out of your laptop’s processor and storage space.
Following these simple steps will remove the presence of annoying notifications and strange apps that demand you upgrade for a service you don’t want. You’ll be doing your laptop a service if you remove bloatware from it.
