Disabling Dell Backup & Recovery Notifications

While I have found the notifications VERY VERY annoying, along with the fact that on one of our machines there was a clash between the trial version of McAfee and Dell Backup & Recovery, I would disagree with most of your points.

1. Many home users may well never remove it, but that is more down to their lack of knowledge. For that I blame the IT software industry as a whole and Microsoft in particular for "dumbing down" PCs tremendously. I've had to look at quite a number of PCs (laptops and desktops) belonging to colleagues, friends etc where they have been thinking of getting a new PC because their current one was running very slowly. 99% of the time it is for lack of basic maintenance - like doing disk clean-ups and defrags. Do the basic maintenance and they speed up dramatically. The other factor is all of the "foist-ware" - almost everything from Adobe Reader, Flash, Java tries to get you to install something else along with it. A further factor is all the websites with good useful software on them where the link to download it is buried thanks to all the big bright "DOWNLOAD ME!" and "FREE TO DOWNLOAD!!!!" links which are actually ads for software - typically the likes of download "managers" you don't need and "tune-up" software that does nothing unless you part with money and then usually does more harm than good.

2. The ONLY reason you need the Dell Backup & Recover software as installed in Windows is to create the INITIAL RECOVERY IMAGE. Once you've created the recovery image on a USB stick, Dell Backup & Recovery serves no other use and can be completely uninstalled.

3. You DO NOT need to have Dell Backup & Recovery to do a system restore as shipped from the factory. The restore you do by hitting F8 before Windows starts and using the recovery option there uses a version of Backup & Recovery ON THE HIDDEN RECOVERY PARTITION - NOT the one installed in Windows.

4. The Recovery Image you create on the USB stick is bootable, so again if you do a recovery from that - as would have to do if your hard drive died - boots and uses a version of Backup & Recovery ON THE USB STICK. So, which ever way you look at it, once you create the backup Recovery Image on a USB stick, Dell Backup & Recovery can be ripped out by uninstalling it completely. Notification problem solved. I have to say in Dell's defence that this dependency on the Recovery Image, and therefore the Dell Backup & Recovery utility, is really because that is what Microsoft demanded. It is Microsoft's way of cutting down on pirated copies of Windows 7 (nice) and 8/8.1 (YUK!). They insist that PC manufacturers, such as Dell, ship machines with Windows pre-installed and activated, LOCKED to that machine. AS IS THE RECOVERY IMAGE. No install CD/DVD, no product key, therefore of no use on any other machine and no pirate copies. Personally I don't like this as I have to spend time ripping out all the stuff I don't want from the factory image before I can start configuring a new machine, but that is they way things are these days and there is not a lot I can do about it. Unless I buy PCs with blank hard drives and sign up to a Volume License Agreement (VLA) with Microsoft to install my own licensed copies of Windows using the MSDN DVDs.

P.S. I LOATH Windows 8/8.1 yet Microsoft are bent on forcing everyone to use that OS..... Yet another bit of "dumbed down user" software.

P.P.S. I also detest this forum software - I format my post nicely and it makes a complete dog's dinner of it.