[T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide] Blue6IX:
There was an initial surge of testing what could or could not be removed from the phone right after we got root, which has mostly passed now. Most of the obvious "I can get rid of this" stuff has been figured out, and the rest of the things we can safely get rid of will take a closer look and involve a bit of head scratching to figure out.

Meantime, I felt like it was a good idea to summarize what we know a bit, and come up with a good procedure for removing stuff that was both simple and stable. You could (and I, as well as others, have) delete(d) this stuff all at once without issue, but i'm more comfortable with a more cautious approach - and I know others will be too.

To that end, i've taken the time to test this method a few times, re-engineer it, tweak things, change the order up a bit, and finally lay it out here. We all pretty much want to get the most out of our phones, and for almost all of us here the "extras" pre-installed on our phones get in the way of this.

This'll be fun, and pretty painless - so - ready to remove some bloat?

Setup 1: We're going to go backwards in time a few steps. The ideal situation here is:

00 - Backup all phone data to somewhere off the phone itself.

01 - Factory reset phone, power down.

02 - Remove microsd card, format in computer.

03 - re-insert microsd card in phone, power on.

04 - Set up your Gmail account, enable the Market on your phone.

05 - S-OFF (if necessary), installing CWM 4.0.0.9 and Rooting your phone.

06 - Installing Busybox and Root Checker, verifying that both root and busybox are obtained/available on your phone.

07 - Uninstalling Busybox installer, checking Busybox installation in Root Checker again, then uninstalling Root Checker.

08 - Power down your phone, and boot into recovery mode.

09 - Make a CWM backup of your system in recovery, then rebooting your phone.

10 - (optional, but recommended) Making a copy of the CWM backup to another place, like your computer.

If you did/do it this way then you can always restore to a clean CWM backup from right after you got Root & Busybox on your phone, in the cleanest ready state it can be.

Otherwise, do a CWM backup of your system now, before following the instructions laid out below to be able to restore your phone if something goes wrong.

I'll try and help anyone who needs it if something doesn't go right, but please understand you do this at your own risk and backups are your best friend!

Setup 2: Tools.

01 - Install Root Explorer.

+ Other file managers may work with varying degrees of success, and there are some free alternatives, but nothing that will do the job like Root Explorer. I highly recommend this app, and if you're going to be doing this kind of stuff on your phone you should probably pick it up. You at least need a file manager capable of read/write access to your system folders, and that can copy and delete.

02 - Install Absolute System Root Tools.

+ Again, there are probably free alternatives out there, but this program is pretty awesome and I recommend it. You should have an app that lets you uninstall system apps, and lets you

clear their data

before uninstalling. One thing to note, is that it won't delete the .odex files of installed apps, so you'll have to go back and get them manually with Root Explorer.

03 - Before performing any steps listed below, you should make backups of all the files you will delete. I list the locations of everything so you can navigate to it with Root Explorer and copy the files somewhere else, like your sdcard. I would also go so far as to say you should make a CWM backup before attempting each of the steps below, but i'm overly cautious when it comes to backups - that's up to you.

(You could end up making changes in files you aren't working in, without realizing it. A Nandroid backup is the only way to ensure you can restore those files if that should happen)

** - Use Absolute System to uninstall .apk files listed below, and it will also get the /data/data location as well. You will have to go back and get the .odex files manually. If you choose not to use an app to uninstall the .apk files listed below, I wrote out their full path location so you can use Root Explorer to delete them manually.

** - Changes made to /system/etc are mirrored in /etc as soon as you make them. All changes made in /system/ are mirrored in the main directory in any corresponding folders or files in real-time as you make them.

** - I recommend removing all widgets and shortcuts/folders or any other items that may be on your desktop before starting this process. You can always put back anything that survives later when you are done.

** - It might be a good idea to turn off GPS, Mobile Networks, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi before proceeding. Optional, but recommended.

Feel free to skip any apps you want to keep along the way, and you don't necessarily have to go in order, but it'll be cleaner that way. Part of the organization behind it is to make it easy for the user to remember what they are doing, and break it down into smaller blocks so you'll lose less progress if something goes wrong.

Now that we're past all that, lets get down to business.