In the last issue, I spit some relatively mild-mannered vitriol the way of a certain insurance company and a certain group of people who saw their way clear to pinch our car. With all our stuff in it. In broad daylight. At a karaoke event for Japanese seniors (don’t ask).

I’m happy to report that some of the stuff our rolling weekend home contained was still in the car when it was recovered, albeit a little worse for wear given that the car sat in impound for two weeks with the windows open. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope for the laptop and guitar that were in the trunk and, sure enough, they were both gone.

Last month, we also talked about the cloud computing concept – one that sees all your data stored online, accessible from any PC with an Internet connection. The loss of the Eee PC definitely hurt, but it didn’t put too much of a dent in my productivity since everything I needed was still stored online, available from any computer I use, anywhere.

Previous to all that, in our May 2008 issue I mentioned how easy doing a full factory default restore on the Eee PC can be; it took less than five minutes in my tests and didn’t require any restore CDs, bootable discs or otherwise.

Now, in preparing to sell a Sony VAIO laptop purchased during a Boxing Day sale, one that (we now realize) is simply too heavy for my partner to cart around town, I’m struck with a contrast.
Here I sit, after getting home from the office about five hours ago, and I’m still waiting for the VAIO to finally be reset to factory default settings as the Craigslist ad I posted promised it would be.
As any competent computer user will tell you, it’s not just a good idea to wipe the hard drive(s) of any computer you’re selling or giving away, it should be considered mandatory.

To my surprise, the VAIO in question (I can’t speak for others in the line) includes a hard disk wiping utility specifically designed to be used when selling or donating the computer after you’re done with it. So, that counts for about an hour and a half out of my night; waiting while the drive is wiped clean, written over with random data and wiped again. But what of the other three and a half hours? I burned the important data from the computer; less than one CD’s worth: perhaps another half an hour. I watched the Windows Vista Home Ultimate initial install – not too painful but still a bit drawn out: I can’t give exact timing but it was less than an hour.

That leaves two hours. Two hours and Vista’s prettier-than-XP progress bar is at 68 per cent. There’s a dialogue box letting me know that it is now “Installing the requested software.” It kindly informs me that “This may take several moments.” A couple of problems with these statements: I didn’t request any software and I’m not sure what is classified as a “moment,” but two hours sounds like more than several of them.

And it’s not even done yet.

In fact, judging by the barbiturate-addicted snail’s pace at which the progress bar is moving, it’s not even close.

The problem is one that plagues many PCs. While it may be tempting to point the gnarled finger of blame at Windows Vista, that’s not entirely fair. Sure, the Vista initial install took a while and, granted, it makes this reasonably balanced machine perform sluggishly unless every bit of graphical flair is turned off.

However, the bulk of the problem lies with the bloat and, dare I say, crapware that’s bundled with the restore discs. Discs, I must point out, I had to burn myself as none are included in the majority of retail PCs these days. Subtract another half an hour from the total for burning restore DVDs and we’re sitting at one and a half hours for the machine to install gigabytes worth of stuff I didn’t want in the first place. Hopefully, the buyer of our once-loyal PC will feel differently.

Things like Corel Snapfire, SonicStage Mastering Studio, Norton Internet Security 2007 with spyware protection (one of a host of time- or feature-limited software packages you have little choice but to accept), a trial edition of Microsoft Office 2007 and more. Much more than the average PC user bargained for, I’d guess.

Perhaps some users will be happy to get a bundle of free (but mostly trial) software already loaded up and ready to go. Perhaps many PC users don’t care to research the best software solutions to meet their unique computing needs after purchase and are happy to have the shovelware included.

Perhaps laptop manufacturers really have the consumer pulse and so, can decide which programs they’ll need on their new laptops. Then again, perhaps consumers have just gotten used to accepting the bloat that far too often comes with a new laptop or desktop PC; Sony is far from being the only company guilty of bundling software and “utilities” that customers may or may not want. Perhaps doing so adds to the perceived value of a new computer.

Now it’s 1 a.m., I’ve been home for five and a half hours and we’re rocking 74 per cent on the progress bar and I’m about ready to give up hope. It is a stark contrast to the hour-long XP installs of days gone by… to say nothing of the simple wipe and restore process that got me back in the data cloud within five minutes with the Eee PC.

Yours in insomnia,
Andrew Moore-Crispin