How to Remove Bloatware from a New Windows PC

The average new Windows PC ships with over 30 pre-installed applications you never requested — and several run silently in the background from the moment you power on. Knowing how to remove bloatware from your Windows PC is one of the first tasks worth tackling out of the box. It frees RAM, reclaims storage, and cuts the number of background processes competing for your CPU. Whether you just unboxed a new laptop or you're finally dealing with years of accumulated junk, this guide covers every method from safest to most thorough. For more Windows how-tos, browse our full tech tips archive.

Bloatware covers a wide spectrum. On one end you have obvious offenders — 30-day trial antivirus suites, coupon apps, and casual games pre-pinned to your Start menu. On the other end sit OEM utilities like PC Health Advisors and manufacturer update daemons that run background services you didn't ask for. A quick look at Windows Task Manager to see what's slowing your PC often reveals a dozen of these processes quietly consuming resources. The concept of software bloat has existed since the early PC era, but modern Windows machines push it further with sponsored apps and store demos baked into the default install image.

The good news is that most bloatware is removable with built-in Windows tools — no third-party software required. A small category of "provisioned" Store apps reinstall themselves after feature updates, but even those yield to a single PowerShell command. This guide walks you through both scenarios in order of complexity.

Step-by-Step: How to Remove Bloatware from Your Windows PC

The Windows Settings app handles the majority of removable pre-installed software without any special tools. Here's the order of operations that works cleanest on most machines.

Using the Settings App

Open Settings → Apps → Installed Apps (Windows 11) or Settings → Apps → Apps & Features (Windows 10). Sort the list by Publisher to group OEM software together — this immediately surfaces which apps came from your PC manufacturer versus Microsoft itself.

• Click the three-dot menu next to any app, then select Uninstall.
• If the Uninstall button is greyed out, the app is a provisioned system app — the PowerShell method covered in the advanced section handles those.
• Restart after removing a batch of apps so background services fully terminate.
• After rebooting, open Task Manager's Startup tab — some programs leave startup entries behind even after uninstall.

You can typically remove 15–20 apps this way in under ten minutes. Sorting by size first lets you prioritize — a 1 GB trial game is a higher-value removal than a 4 MB OEM toolbar.

Handling Stubborn Apps via Control Panel

Some older OEM programs only appear in the legacy Control Panel uninstaller. Press Win + R, type appwiz.cpl, and press Enter. This opens Programs and Features. Sort by Publisher again, identify anything from your PC brand — HP, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS — and run any pending uninstallers. Reboot once you've cleared the list.

If you notice unrelated Windows oddities after a cleanup session — like input behaving unexpectedly — it's worth checking our guide on fixing a keyboard that's not typing correctly on Windows before blaming remaining bloatware.

Best Practices Before You Delete Anything

Create a System Restore Point First

Before removing anything, create a restore point. Search for Create a restore point in the Start menu, open System Properties, and click Create. It takes under a minute and gives you a clean rollback option if an OEM driver utility turns out to be load-bearing for some hardware feature you care about.

Pro tip: Some OEM audio drivers are packaged as apps rather than drivers — uninstalling them can silence your speakers entirely. Always check Device Manager after removing any audio-related OEM software.

Know What You're Actually Removing

Not all pre-installed software is junk. A few categories are worth keeping:

• Keep: Laptop keyboard backlight controllers, battery health managers, fingerprint reader software.
• Remove: Trial antivirus suites, PC "optimizer" tools, sponsored games, shopping browser extensions.
• Research first: Anything with an unfamiliar name. A quick search for the app name plus "bloatware" usually resolves it in seconds.

If you're unsure about an app, don't delete it yet — disable it from startup instead. That frees performance without risk. Task Manager's Startup tab is the right tool for this; see our guide on using Windows Task Manager to identify slow PC culprits for a full walkthrough of that tab.

When Bloatware Removal Makes the Biggest Difference

Budget and Entry-Level Laptops

Entry-level machines — 4 GB of RAM, Celeron or Pentium processors — feel bloatware most sharply. When 12 background processes compete for 4 GB of RAM, every idle app matters. On these machines, removing bloatware isn't cosmetic housekeeping; it's often the difference between a laptop that boots in 45 seconds and one that takes three minutes.

After cleanup, a fast follow-on optimization is switching to a faster DNS resolver. Our guide on changing your DNS server for faster internet pairs well with a freshly cleaned machine.

Shared Family or Work Computers

On shared machines, bloatware creates security risks beyond raw performance. Trial software with expired licenses leaves unpatched vulnerabilities sitting on the system. Manufacturer "companion apps" often include auto-update services that phone home without clear user consent. Removing these tightens your attack surface — a cleanup worth pairing with account security basics like setting up two-factor authentication on your Google account for any linked services on that machine.

Quick Wins: The Apps to Remove First

Across all major PC brands, these categories of pre-installed software consistently deliver the best performance-per-removal ratio. Use this table as a starting checklist when you sit down to clean any new Windows machine.

After clearing this list, check the Startup tab in Task Manager once more. Uninstallers frequently leave orphaned startup entries behind — disabling those finishes the job.

Common Myths About Windows Bloatware

Myth: Removing OEM Apps Voids Your Warranty

This is the most common hesitation, and it's largely unfounded. Uninstalling pre-installed software does not void your hardware warranty under standard consumer protection law in any major jurisdiction. The hardware warranty covers component defects — it does not require you to maintain the manufacturer's software suite. If a technician ever needs a factory-fresh state for a warranty repair, you can use the built-in Reset This PC option or follow our guide on doing a clean Windows install from a USB drive to restore it completely.

Myth: Windows Defender Is Just More Bloatware

A surprisingly large number of users disable Windows Defender assuming it's dead weight. That's a mistake. Independent testing labs — AV-TEST and AV-Comparatives — consistently rate Defender at or above 99% malware detection. It integrates tightly with OS updates, uses fewer background resources than any major third-party suite, and doesn't nag you to upgrade to a paid tier.

Remove the trial antivirus. Keep Defender running. A related misconception holds that a clean install always beats targeted removal. For most users, methodical app-by-app removal is faster and lower risk. But on a heavily compromised or manufacturer-locked machine, the clean USB install route is a legitimate fallback worth knowing.

Beginner vs. Advanced Removal Methods

For Beginners: Built-In Tools Only

If you're new to Windows maintenance, stay inside the official channels. Settings → Apps → Installed Apps handles everything designed to be uninstalled. Task Manager's Startup tab handles everything that shouldn't run at boot. These two tools cover roughly 80% of what most users need to remove from a new PC — no command line, no third-party software, no risk of touching something critical.

Once your system is clean, take a few minutes to dial in your display. If colors look washed out after driver changes, our guide on calibrating your monitor for accurate colors on Windows walks through the built-in calibration wizard in about five minutes.

For Advanced Users: PowerShell and Beyond

Provisioned Store apps are baked into the Windows image and reinstall for every new user account or after feature updates. To permanently remove them, open PowerShell as Administrator and use the following:

• Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "*CandyCrush*"} | Remove-AppxPackage — removes the app for all current users
• Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Where-Object {$_.DisplayName -like "*CandyCrush*"} | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online — removes the provisioned package so it stays gone through updates

Third-party tools like O&O AppBuster offer a GUI for the same operations, which is practical when cleaning multiple machines. For a single personal PC, native PowerShell is sufficient and adds nothing extra to your install. After cleanup, if you ever need to troubleshoot your network connection, our guide on finding your MAC address on Windows covers several quick methods useful for router-level diagnostics.

Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaways

• The Settings app and Control Panel together handle most removable bloatware on any new Windows PC — no third-party tools needed for the majority of cases.
• Create a system restore point before you start; it's a one-minute safety net that gives you a clean rollback if something unexpected breaks.
• Provisioned Store apps require PowerShell's Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage command to stay removed through Windows feature updates.
• Windows Defender is not bloatware — remove third-party trial antivirus suites and let Defender handle protection without the resource overhead.