(Of course it would be even better if they just came with a totally stock install already, but that's not worth hundreds of dollars to me)
(Of course it would be even better if they just came with a totally stock install already, but that's not worth hundreds of dollars to me)
What's more troublesome is that some laptops require drivers and customizations, so you need to tinker with your fresh Windows by installing carefully selected subset of drivers, so your hardware works and at the same time you don't install the same shovelware. The driver situation for Windows is truly dire. There are drivers from laptop manufacturer (e.g. Lenovo). There are drivers from part manufacturer (e.g. Nvidia). There are drivers that Windows was bundled with. There are drivers that Windows will download automatically and install as part of Windows Update. It's a huge mess and I don't think anybody knows how to navigate that. So there's no reliable recipe to create "stable" Windows from the scratch.
My T14 Gen1 (We are at gen7 now I think?) still gets updates. It's pretty neat.
Same happens with some crapware provided by vendor. You can wipe drive all you want, but ASUS motherboard will ask Windows to automatically install "essential drivers", and to be specific - "Armoury Crate".