The one I bought did not have bloatware on it at all it is an upper level machine. The COM surrogate could be due to adobe, intel or anything on this machine I need. Its aggravating but liveable. BUT this issue did not occur in XP.
COM surrogate is a generic error. But we can look at symptoms to help narrow it down. Since it pops up in image previews, it is probably a video driver issue and can most likely be fixed by either updating the video driver or rolling back the video driver. If neither of these work, then you may have to wait for a new (updated) driver to be released. This is not a Operating System issue (Win7). Dell may be able to give you specific directions.
FYI, Dell's XPS line is not a high end line. It is their basic multimedia and gamer line of computers. Dell's "Precision" line is their higher end line of computers and, generally speaking, better quality. Dell does have a higher end gaming line (Alienware) and they can be OK. When Alienware was truly Alienware, I was much more impressed with the hardware, but after Dell bought them, it hasn't been the same. They seem to have fallen into the generic, cheap hardware that large manufacturers are notorious for using.
