One more reason to build your own system

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19585433

One more reason to build your own system too true and provided the criminals have not infiltrated the HDD production line, otherwise we'll all be at their mercy!

Fdisk /mbr ought to keep the [censored] at bay.

Hardware as in CPU's RAM or HDD is just hardware how can that be infected with malware, the bbc report was assuming that that hardware would be used within a Microsoft environment at the stage of manufacture there is is no certainty of this being the case ,So that would go a long way in saying what a load of tripe /scaremongering but for what purpose ? windows 8 ? by chance i personally don't believe it
As for building my own system or recommending this ,then yes every time, as you can get so much better value for money and not only this but if you are reasonably clued up on hardware you will be easily able to upgrade the system in the coming years, something that could prove to be expensive or impossible if buying the likes of Dell to name only one

Or if you don't want to just buy a full copy of Windows, wipe the hard drive with something like KillDisk and then install the OS and drivers from scratch and get rid of all that preinstalled [censored]

I get my systems built as its just easier than messing about with deliveries and RMAs but I always do the above to get rid of the preinstalled image.

You don't have your own HDD factory in your shed?

In reply to a post by techguy:

Or if you don't want to just buy a full copy of Windows, wipe the hard drive with something like KillDisk and then install the OS and drivers from scratch and get rid of all that preinstalled [censored]

I get my systems built as its just easier than messing about with deliveries and RMAs but I always do the above to get rid of the preinstalled image.

Hdd with pre installed o/s, forget that, When you buy a HDD it's blank, no data written to it, but they get formatted anyway ,If i bought a laptop i would be tempted to re install the o/s or substitute it with the o/s of my choosing

Shh!

Not necessarily, just one more reason to wipe the factory pre-installed image

do some systems not come preinstalled and you have to create the backup media from the installed system. Nor sure if you then still have an embedded virus on that also.

The backup image is almost always the same as the preinstalled image, so yes there would probably be a virus on that too if the preinstalled image had one.

I wipe the whole lot and use Microsoft retail or OEM installation media.

Edited by Pipexer (Sun 16-Sep-12 17:15:30)

Before ordering my new system I went into THAT retailer and looked at the mass produced systems.

Its actually cheaper to have one built to order.

If you have ordered the media then that works. Allot of companies are supplying systems without media and then assuming you create your own.

The issue is that the plonkers who build the OEM images do it in a clumsy way. I bought a Sony Vaio a few months back and the factory installed image had remains of Chinese programs and all sorts of nonsense on it.

The environments probably aren't strictly controlled and the procedures probably aren't in place.

What you then have is someone who keeps opening up a Windows image, browsing a few websites to get the likes of Adobe Flash etc up to date, running Windows update, maybe installing a few programs from a memory stick, sysprepping the image and closing it up for deployment to computers coming off the production line.

It gets worse because then you have various different hardware configurations on the PCs/laptops, so if they are lazy they will open up the same image and uninstall/reinstall drivers, expand and shrink images for different size hard disks, etc.

Oh, and bundle trial ware antivirus programs into it.

You then end up with a brand new PC/laptop that is not performing as well as it would have done if you had just installed a clean copy of Windows manually.

The sooner the Microsoft Signature scheme comes to the UK the better - it's not rocket science, but OEMs just continue to persist bundling [censored] trialware and nonsense value-add with their systems which causes problems.

just don't buy cheap Chinese systems

current pc boot drive died and is now an ssd

the new pc to be made next year will also have an ssd, all installed from DVD

Would have to say been building my own systems for a few years and would never go back to pre-built, you just get far more value for your money (and can re-use old cases.)
Had some trouble initially putting OS on SSD but this seems to have been my fault for buying cheap SSD's rather than well branded if not more expensive drives. Recently upgraded 7 to 8 by imaging 7 first then putting in a new SSD and restoring to that before upgrading to 8 (so if it all went south, I could still fall back on the original.) Worked perfectly. Feel so much more comfortable with a system built and installed my myself.