[zenlot]

Seems that author is confusing Microsoft Windows 8.1 with the Lenovo stuff which it ships along when you buy a laptop with the pre-installed software. And because of this reason I didn't bother reading other parts of the article.

Though, I have been using FreeBSD as a base for 10+ years, Linux at work and with the arrival of Windows 8.1 I have switched to base of 8.1+Hyper-V+FreeBSD as a VM. This perfectly works on the Lenovo hardware (which I prefer) and I am amazed how Microsoft improved, since the year of 1992+, when I have discovered their products.

[theandrewbailey]

> The bottom line , the computer was full of crappy Lenovo and other brands software that just gets in my way and i don't want to use. Even worse after about 2 days some of the bundled Lenovo apps started crashing once in a while. I know this issue is not related to microsoft, and i am not blaming them for this.

Seems pretty clear to me that he's not confusing the Lenovo stuff with Windows.

[ld00d]

Even if he was, that speaks to one of the main issues with Windows: most of the time you get a Windows machine, it has manufacturer-installed software. Microsoft could choose to control that through their licensing, but they don't.

[skorgu]

You might want to read a bit further, he does go on to attempt to install vanilla 8.1.

[topbanana]

I'll save you the effort. Shock horror, he has to download a wifi driver.

[jkot]

For Linux user it is sort of shock. Also why that thing has 230MB? Even 10MB would be too much.

[TheRealDunkirk]

Heh. Last time I installed the "driver" for my Logitech mouse on Windows, I think it was 150 MB. 150 MB! For a mouse driver!? I remember when we got REAL WORK done with DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11, and Office 4.0, and it all fit on a 10 MB hard drive, with room left over for Doom.

[zamalek]

There is probably 10MB worth of driver, and 220MB worth of crapware. If you install a fresh copy of Windows those hardware vendors are going to try their damned hardest to get their crapware back on to your machine.

[theandrewbailey]

That 220MB includes some app with a not native UI (likely ugly and unintuitive) to enable unnecessary features.

I have it even worse: every time I plug my Razer mouse into a different port, the driver installer comes up. I've NEVER downloaded the thing, and it came to me through Windows Update. I always say "Never Install" but it always comes back, but the mouse functions fine without.

[zenlot]

I have just opened support.lenovo.com and checked for the drivers of Yoga models, randomly chosen 4 of those, and all the official WiFi drivers are worth: 64MB. I am not sure what the author was downloading then. --- BCM WIFI driver for Windows 8.1 (32-bit) exe 64 MB Windows 8.1 (32-bit) Wifi-BCM-5.93.98.207 2/12/2015 ---

[rootdiver]

The issue is not about the WiFi driver, i can live with that but when my wp8 phone is getting in my way of downloading the driver, its just wrong, really wrong. Its like it is saying to me "You don't know what you are doing, let me fix this for you".

[sudioStudio64]

But this guy (you, whoever) didn't actually know what they were doing...otherwise he wouldn't have blown away the restore partition without saving the stuff that they needed to do a vanilla install.

[rakoo]

So what you're saying is, if my computer never had Windows installed on it, I'm not supposed to be able to install it ?

As a linux user, I expect the leading commercial products to be at least on par with what a relatively standard linux distribution gives you. But no, apparently a vanilla ISO of the OS is not enough, you need more.

[sudioStudio64]

I didn't say that and that wasn't what we were talking about.

The guy in the post said that he didn't want to install the crappy Lenovo software from the restore partition. If he had he could have saved the drivers and then re-installed.

If I wiped the machine and didn't have drivers on hand I would expect something not to work...with any OS.

You are clearly a Linux "advocate" and you don't really care about this except to the extent that you can denigrate Windows to make your "side" seem superior.

I don't use computers that way. I try to learn how things actually work. When they don't work like how I would assume they work, I make a note for next time, and move on. I don't see the failings of some nameless developer somewhere in the bowels of a company or an open source project as indicative of , or representative of, some larger plot or plan that impinges my freedoms, rights, or prerogative. It's just another thing in a sea of things to remember about working with imperfect man-made tools to perform other tasks that I'm actually interested in. The software that manages my disk access and video card doesn't convey a sense of righteousness to me and I don't identify myself by or through it.

[V-2]

While I agree it's ridiculous, Apple imposes a limit of 100MB for cellular downloads - http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the... - so even though it's a more reasonable figure, still a showstopper for obtaining your 230MB wi-fi driver.

[bydo]

This is for app downloads; you can't install an app larger than 100MB over cellular. You can download generic files of any size in the browser, or from within apps.

[V-2]

Ah, ok. I stand corrected, thanks.

[V-2]

By the way, some sources say that the download cap has already been increased somewhat for Windows Phone (from 20 to 50MB): http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-lift-20mb-download-l... - still nowhere close to 230MB, to be sure.

[TheBeardKing]

Anecdotal, as is this whole thread, but I have off and on experience with Linux, starting with Red Hat around 2001, several different distros, laptops and PCI wifi cards, and I don't remember ever having to separately download a NIC driver. In Windows, however, I have had to do this several times. I fully feel the author's frustration that in 8.1 Windows doesn't include their OEM's drivers. That's not to say the driver world of Linux is just peachy, far from it, but at least I can start connected to the internet to begin troubleshooting my issues.