[wpkg-users] wpkg for crapware removal?

[Rainer Meier]

Hi Paul,

On 14.12.2012 09:47, Paul McGrath wrote:
>    Instead of the "remove" we use "install" (execute once) to remove some crapware.  Usually Bing, Ask and Google toolbars.  We get a lot of Samsung laptops and they are choked full of crapware but I haven't got around to building anything extensive.

execute="once" might be suitable for initial cleanup if you use the Windows 
installation as it is shipped from manufacturer. From my point of view this 
isn't the best idea anyway due to many reasons:

- A LOT of crapware/adware/tryware installed
- Drivers outdated
- Windows installation outdated (missing patches etc)

So usually for me it takes longer to clean the machines (and still living with 
the risk that manufacturer changed some Windows settings which I don't know 
about) than re-installing them from scratch; knowing to have a clean system 
then. Using unattended Windows setup and WPKG a machine can be automatically 
deployed within less than 1 hour usually. Cleaning a crapware-system usually 
takes me longer manual actions and creating/maintaining a very-detailed 
crapware-remover tool would require me to adapt it continuously.

Jon actually had slightly different requirement. He's willing to "blacklist" 
some known crapware and assure it's removed automatically whenever it's 
installed on the client (after deployment). At least this was my understanding.
So here an execute="always" package might help. The package will have to 
identify every kind of undesired software and remove it silently on every WPKG run.

So for me initial crapware removal on stock machines is easy: Re-install.


br,
Rainer