Hi

I have a new HP all in one, 6th gen i7, 16GB RAM which is working great with Sonar. I know it may be a case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but is there any point to the HP Support Assistant? Any downside to uninstalling?

If it affects your ability to record music in any way, then definitely uninstall it.
 
Otherwise, it's really up to you.  Some folks rely on these tech support tools. 
 
Personally, I would remove it (But as a former IT guy, I do my own PC troubleshooting so have no use for the manufacturer-provided help tools).  Of course, if you feel like you might need it down the road, probably best to leave it alone.

I would disable it so it doesn't start/load when you boot up.  Then if you ever need it you can manually start it.
 

Thanks for your input. It doesn't affect my ability to record music, so I'll leave it alone for now. I was just wondering if this is just unnecessary bloat ware. I've not had an HP PC before and my previous machines have not had any form of 'brand' support preloaded.

Support Assistant should not affect your ability to record.  I think it's a good tool in that it will let you know when new drivers, BIOS/UEFI updates are available for your system.  You can choose whether or not to install them, but at least it lets you know.  Otherwise you would have to version track those on your own.
 
It's my opinion in that you should always keep BIOS/UEFI and system drivers up to date, as it will help keep your system running problem free.  Obviously there can be bugs in these newer versions, but generally HP is pretty good at their SQA testing before releasing updates and drivers.
 
There are some settings for how Support Assistant notifies you of updates, I've never had a notification cause a problem while recording, but you can change those notification setting without turning it off completely.
 

I literally just spent several hours configuring my friend's new HP laptop today, running Windows 10.
 
In MY opinion, software that runs all day long to check for updates for things like BIOS, that may get updated 2 or 3 times in an entire year is just annoying, rather than helpful.  
 
On initial build or buy of a computer, I will fairly immediately check for things like BIOS updates, chipset updates, and such, as there are almost always updates between board manufacture and my purchase of it.  From that point on, I manually check for any updates to all of those pieces ONCE every quarter, or if I find myself experiencing issues, and I NEVER allow these auto-update checker programs to run on every boot.  
 
I also never allow programs like Avast, which IS an excellent antivirus program, to do any thing like running its 'Software Updater', which attempts to keep all your system components up to date for updates.  I have seen WAY too many cases where it just failed to find a need update, OR it found the WRONG software.
 
Anyways, I saw that HP Software Assistant, or whatever it is called, and after reviewing it, I completely removed it from my friend's system.  Microsoft Office by default also fires up stuff, like One Drive, or One Note, or whatever - I think of all of that stuff as being like some sort of Kum-Bah-Yah software that tries to make everyone happy, at the expense of everyone's happiness.
 
I would ALWAYS prefer to run more lean, and do not mind having the discipline to manually check for updates on a quarterly basis.  I DO make an exception for Windows Update maintenance, which I DO allow to run per its recommended settings, and since Avast is actually running by default/design, I don't mind it checking for new program versions and grabbing its virus definitions as needed.
 
Bob Bone
 

For my office computer I don't worry to much,, but on my DAW I'm with Bob... I spend time looking for anything useless that is running in the background and killl it dead. I build my own computers just to aviod bloatware. But just about everything you intall like printers and even monitors for crap sake seem to want you to keep in touch.. not on my DAW..I want every last CPU for that and that only. 

Mine hasn't worked for at least two years but after the Windows 10 update last week... it started working again. Weird. It's on my laptop and it doesn't bother me. I guess I should check to see if MS changed anything else.
 
J

jbow
Mine hasn't worked for at least two years but after the Windows 10 update last week... it started working again. Weird. It's on my laptop and it doesn't bother me. I guess I should check to see if MS changed anything else.
 
J

That's because they have made drivers for W10.

I'm with you guys ... I go on search-and-destroy missions for any and all bloatware running in the background. If it doesn't help keep my PC secure or work with Sonar, it gets disabled or uninstalled.
Excluding necessary system drivers, obviously ...
 
Helps me to run a lot of tracks at lower latency settings.
 
I will say that I'm looking at the PCs built by PC Audio Labs (based in Tenn.) for my next purchase. They are one of those companies that streamlines PCs specifically for music (and video) production. They strip down all the unnecessary bloatware and substitute it all with high-performance hardware. They aren't cheap, though