New Dell Ahoy!
Dear Microsoft, what's with this light ambient dance music in XP when setting up my language and time zone preferences?

Dear Dell, would it kill you to set the default resolution for a PC to the resolution of the monitor shipped with it? I have this new 17" 1280x1024 monitor, and the default resolution was set to 1024x768, with all the terrible pixel doubling effects that entails.

I'll have to de-shovel some of this shovelware crap, and clear out these desktop icons. Oh, and install every damn thing off of my old computer too, while I'm at it.

Update: Partially decrufted. McAfee? No thanks. QuickBooks? No. H&R Block Tax Offer? Uh, a little late there guys. MusicMatch? No. What is it even? A dozen auto-updater programs for who knows what? Gosh, no. Dell Support systray icon? NO!

Update: The Dell 1704FPT LCD that came with this system is darn good monitor. Granted, it's not this one. I haven't tried hooking up my SGI widescreen monitor yet (will PnP configuration be enough for this video card to support the SGI's funky resolution? Stay tuned!)

One "downside" to this monitor is that the resolution isn't a 1.33 resolution; it's a 1.25 resolution, which means it's slightly taller than a standard 4:3 monitor or TV. The downside is that the monitor stretches 4:3 resolutions vertically to fit. Most games don't bother dealing with these kinds of weird setups, which means they'll look a bit stretched. (My SGI side-boxes 4:3 resolutions, as is proper.)

Update: Start Menu trimmed down to a reasonable size.

Hints to Dell and others:
* If some driver has a control panel applet (Integrated network card, Intel SATA driver), it doesn't also need a Start Menu item.
* An app doesn't need a separate Start Menu item to launch its help; its help can be launched from in the App itself.
* An app doesn't need a Start Menu item for its uninstaller, there's the whole Add Remove Programs applet.