Good point on the network drivers. Shouldn’t be an issue, but why take chances? I had secondary internet access and a big flash drive for such emergencies, but not everyone will be in that boat.
I’m going to try the Windows Update Downloader for my next reinstall, might even slipstream it with the installation. The number of updates for a clean install of W7 SP1 is mind boggling.
If the OP is on a budget, you can do what we did and clean install W7 on off lease machines with wiped drives. We are running Home Premium and Ultimate on Core 2 Duo 2.8 Ghz workstations with 4 and 8 gigs of RAM, and they are plenty fast enough for us, the 750GB hard drives seem roomy, and we got them for a song. Not the latest and greatest by any stretch of the imagination, but a huge step up from the venerable Dell 4550s we were running XP on.
Oh, and if you haven’t purchased the OS yet, my kid runs W8 and loves it, and as others have pointed out, if you don’t like the PlaySkool interface you can change it.
If you do a usb stick type install of windows 7, you can grab the WSUSoffline program directly from MS, pull the install.wim out of the “sources” folder, mount it using dism (DISM GUI will save your fingers from command line), and inject the windows updates. That may be what you are referring to. Drop the install.wim back on the USB and you just saved a massive amount of time waiting on 4 hours of updates. DISM is included for free as part of the WAIK tool set.
I really like windows 8 but it’s far from perfect. That scenario I listed above is not possible with a retail install because Microsoft encrypts the install.wim and it reads as install.esd. Dare i even mention the total, absolute, boondoggle of a clean install of the 8.1 upgrade from 8. There are work arounds using KMS activaton keys to get through the install and it activates with your win8 key, but still, how stupid that you have to do a workaround. My custom built desktop couldnt even be upgraded due to errors and issues.
My latest windows 8 toy is a Dell latitude 10 pro tablet. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this thing. It only has a dual core atom and 64 gig SSD, 2 gigs of ram, but it rocks for work. Im shocked at how snappy it is. My boss complained that it was slow, but I dont notice any hesitation or issues. I carry all of my client documentation on it and its nice being able to pull this out then hauling around my old laptop.
My fiance and I nearly fight over this thing when I get home. I set up some of the new Dell Venue 11’s for a client and they were killer but run over $1000 depending on options. I think you can get latitude 10’s for around $300 to $400 with the dock. The Netflix windows 8 app is awesome for those who are into home theater PC’s. We watch all of our television using Xfinity’s website on the Metro version of IE lends itself very well to home theater use. The big buttons and interface are a welcome change.
Lately we started playing with the Metro cooking app. Im amazed at what is on here and it is literally a free, full blown cooking and meal planning assistant. There are how to videos on all aspects of cooking.
Here is one last tip for those following this thread. Have you heard of Office Online?
https://office.com/start/default.aspx
If you sign in with a hotmail, outlook, xbox, or windows live account you can access a web version of Office for free. Great for those out of a job and needing to update their resumes. Im constantly amazed at what Microsoft gives away for free. Im no MS fanboy but their free tools and services have helped me advance my career. I went from $12 to $25 an hour in a few years thanks to their programs like Microsoft Dream Spark.