One of the best things about a build-your-own PC is you can make sure no crapware/bloatware is installed, since you are buying a bard hard drive to start. No unwanted apps or utilities that cause more harm than good. You install the OS and the apps you want.

Unfortunately, not everyone is as good with a screwdriver as me, and most folks prefer to buy a brand-name PC. That's especially true for laptops, since the white box/builders market is primarily for tower builders. So, laptop buyers have no choice but to put up with unwanted apps that clog the hard drive and memory.

+ Also on Network World: Windows 10 Anniversary Update: A guide to the builds +

Well, it seems Microsoft has had enough of these OEMs causing havoc with its customers and is doing something about it. A recent build of Windows 10 released to Insiders comes with a special tool that will fetch a new version of Windows and perform a clean installation. You already have the option to clear out applications and courtesy of the Refresh and Reset features that first appeared in in Windows 8. Now you can just gut the whole thing and start over.

The tool is currently in preview, along with Build 14367, for both desktop and mobile devices. This will most likely be a part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, due July 29. As Microsoft gets closer to the release date, it has stopped adding new features and is now totally in bug squashing mode.

Microsoft has been keen to this issue for a while. It sells its own line of Signature laptops online and in its retail stores that come with nothing but the bare OS, although some come with OEM update tools that could potentially distribute other OEM software that they are trying to avoid in the first place.

There was a time when Microsoft had a policy requiring nothing but a bare OS install. This was back in the 1990s and the Windows 95/98 days. Back then, the move was viewed as a way to keep Netscape Navigator off PCs, although no one knew this for certain. Maybe they should bring it back.

To me, this mess with bloatware shows that relations between Microsoft and OEMs are not ideal. Microsoft gets the hell for bloatware even though it's not Microsoft's fault because, let's be honest, the default blame when anything goes wrong on a PC is Microsoft in the first place. They have to take the grief for an OEM's shoddy, if not dangerous, product.

One would like to think OEMs and Microsoft are working together to ensure that OEM update utilities work properly, don't conflict with Windows Update, etc. Judging by all the problems they are having, it doesn't appear there is much back and forth going on. And if I'm wrong, that doesn't speak well to the relations between OEMs and Microsoft.