How to get rid of bloatware in Windows 7?

Option A: Reinstall Windows 7 without bloatware

Microsoft used to provide pure Windows installation media images with which Windows could be reinstalled without using the vendor-specific (e.g. Asus etc.) recovery partion on a PC or laptop.

Unfortunately Microsoft stopped providing these installation media images and currently I'm not aware of an easy, legal and secure way to get them.

Option B: Reinstall Windows 7 from recovery partition and clean up afterwards

There are several tools that could help uninstalling bloatware more conveniently than doing it manually. The ones I tested are Decrap annd Revo Uninstaller.

Decrap is a tool that promises to uninstall crapware nearly automatically. When testing it with my Asus N61J laptop I discovered certain disadvantes of the tool:

Seleting the software to uninstall was cumbersome because some applications were splitted up into multiple components.
All settings were lost and execution didn't continue when the system had rebooted for any reason (e.g. Windows Update, Uninstaller requiring a restart)
Uninstalling some software took a very long time (15 minutes).

Revo Uninstaller is a tool that shows all installed software in a convenient panel and in addition offers advanced features to scan and remove leftovers in the file system and registry. I definitely recommend using the Trial Version of Revo Uninstaller Pro because it has much more features. Here are the things I liked about Revo:

The overview of installed software allowed me to easily identify which application I'd like to remove (i.e. through displaying application names and icons)
Revo launched the uninstaller routines for me and despite unlike using Decrap I had to click through uninstall dialogues manually I got a much cleaner result in less time
Scanning and removing leftovers was working like a charm

Why should I used those tools instead of uninstalling manually? Those tools have advanced features to also remove leftovers from the file system, the Windows Registry and so on. Uninstallers often do a sloppy job in this regard.

Recommended way to reinstall Windows 7 without bloatware

Since Windows 7 installation media images aren't available anymore I would recommend to use the excellent tool Revo Uninstaller Pro. For sure you'll have to spend 1 or 2 hours to manually click through the uninstaller dialogs but it's worth it.

I also recommend doing a Windows system image afterwards (built-in into Windows 7). Also check out the links below to get more detailed information about the available options.

How to get rid of bloatware in Windows 7?

Option A: Reinstall Windows 7 without bloatware

Option B: Reinstall Windows 7 from recovery partition and clean up afterwards

Recommended way to reinstall Windows 7 without bloatware

Further Resources