Looking for a Microsoft Signature Edition PC? Here’s What to Do Instead

Microsoft7;s Signature Edition PCs were one of the Microsoft Store7;s best offerings since Microsoft used a clean copy of Windows with no bloatware on these PCs. Microsoft no longer makes Signature Edition PCs, but you can turn any PC into one.

Buying a PC Often Comes with More Than You Paid For

Booting up a new store-bought PC usually starts with joy, followed quickly by disappointment. At first blush, Windows seems to be clean and whole, and then suddenly a trial antivirus opens up. It wants you to pay for it, install other programs, and just as you dismiss those notifications, a game you didn7;t ask for makes its presence known. Your computer may be new and fast, but it somehow feels gross.

Microsoft used to offer the perfect solution: Buy a Signature PC, and you wouldn7;t get a machine loaded with bloatware. Microsoft boasted at one point that their PCs would start 104{c15a66f4e73aee90bd9f5f7bdf76277ceb686efcc6613faa92af9bd435960bdb} faster and shut down 35{c15a66f4e73aee90bd9f5f7bdf76277ceb686efcc6613faa92af9bd435960bdb} faster than non-Signature PCs. You can only see these numbers courtesy of the Wayback Machine because Microsoft isn7;t pushing Signature PCs anymore.

So you7;re left with four choices if you want a clean Windows PC:

• Use Microsoft7;s Fresh Start Tool to remove junk
• Buy a Surface device
• Build a PC
• Clean install Windows with the Media Creation Tool

Let7;s take a look.

Use Microsoft7;s Fresh Start Tool on Any PC

Starting with Windows 8, Microsoft introduced a ;Reset Your PC; option to uninstall all your programs and get your rig back to a ;first-launch-like; state. The problem was that this fresh launch included all the bloatware that came with your system in the first place.

Thankfully Microsoft later introduced Fresh Start, a tool that would uninstall all desktop programs that aren7;t standard to Windows. Whether it7;s an antivirus app or Office, this tool will remove it. There are some downsides to using this tool, though. You might lose drivers specific to your machine, for example. And while the tool might remove traditional desktop programs, it won7;t uninstall any Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps from on your computer.

That means if your bloatware came in the form of UWP Apps2;as opposed to traditional Windows desktop apps2;this option wouldn7;t help you. Considering that even Microsoft is installing apps we don7;t want now, the Fresh Start tool simply isn7;t all it7;s cracked up to be. Still, it7;s a viable option for removing a lot of the garbage that manufacturers install (and that you might have installed yourself) and it does its job without disturbing your personal files.

You can get started by opening your Start Menu and searching for ;Fresh Start,; then clicking on the ;Device performance & health; option that appears. Click the ;Additional Info; link, then click ;Get Started.; The steps from there are pretty straight forward.