It’s almost the new year and Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa have passed. The gifts are all open, new toys have been broken in and a few lucky people got a new computer for Christmas. If you’re one of those people, congratulations.

Now wipe the thing clean and reinstall the operating system.

If you get a computer somewhat on the cheap from some amazing deal Best Buy or Circuit City or Wal-Mart had, chances are you’re also the proud owner of bloatware.

What’s bloatware? Glad you asked. It’s that free trial software that comes with a computer and causes me more tech support headaches than anything in January. People get this amazing software they think is free, get really attached to it and after 30 days have passed, WHAM, it doesn’t work anymore.

The reason why those computers are so cheap is because software companies pay a fee to put their software on the machine so people have a chance to try it out. It’s like how newspapers and magazines put ads in their papers to cut back on the cost to their readers. As a result, the computer is significantly cheaper. This is even more true around the holidays. The lower the prices, the more bloatware. The exception is the smaller ultra-portable laptops.

If you pop in your Windows install CD, there should be an option to start it up and reinstall your operating system. That way you start with a clean slate and you can enjoy that new computer a little bit more.