W8.1 computer

What ho one and all,

A neighbour has 'up-graded' his computer to an Apple (silly boy!) and very kindly offered us his old, 'all in one' HP (W8.1) with a bigger screen.

I cannot use it as I need more hdd space for photo editing, so am setting it up for my wife to up-grade from her XP based Dell.

It has come with what I can only describe as a pile of HP (and other) 'c**p' installed. How can I uninstall all this rubbish?

What I would like is a clean install, with no HP (and other) junk but that is probably not possible. On the other hand, I do have a W7 disk so could format the hdd and start again. Is this a reasonable idea or not?

If I were to do that, I would make an image of the W8.1 os to an external hdd (AOMEI backupper) and trust that I can restore from a USB external drive should it be necessary. is this a reasonable idea or not?

Thanks,

Rex

Check Programs and Features to see what you can uninstall from there. If there are still some programs you don't want, check the link below for possible software to remove the items.

https://download.cnet.com/pc-decrapi...tives/windows/

If you want to install Windows 7, you should make sure that in addition to a backup image of Windows 8.1 (in case something goes wrong), you have Windows 7 drivers for that HP system. Check for and download those first.

Another possibility might be to simply "upgrade" to Windows 10 for free. Then you would at least get security updates.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-...ws-10-upgrade/

Already tried Decrapifier and it did not find all the HP camera c**p installed. She only occasionally uses a webcam, and certainly does not need the complex rubbish (Kim Kardashian Bunny ears) filters that are available as part of the HP cam package.

And thee is a pile more stuff that I have not been able to remove from the desktop. That is why I figured a clean install, plus reclaim the SysRestore partitions, which in my opinion, are a waste of time as they only restore to the Factory defaults, not with whatever programs I have installed.

Would definitely ensure I have an image of W8.1 before attempting anything drastic.