Tim wrote:
As far as I know, the latest drivers for the latest video cards don't come
stock with Windows XP or Vista either. (I've never installed MS Windows on
anything so I could be wrong here, but it has always been my understanding that
they require a separate download.)
The usual practice is for the hardware vendor to deliver a machine with
windows and all the necessary drivers installed and tested.
I'd say *badly* tested. Prebuilt systems that I've had to deal with
have had poor performance, or hard to repeat kludgy work-arounds.
That's the sort of thing that usually makes people choose a different
vendor next time.
Many vendors keep updates online for things they have sold so you have a
central place to find them.
Some might, but I've had a hell of a time trying to rebuild some Windows
systems where the sound or video card needs special drivers that just
aren't available anywhere other than the long-since-lost original
install discs. Some Creative sound cards seem the worst at that.
Perhaps I've been lucky, but I've always been able to find these for
Dell and IBM systems and their components. I'm not sure how old the
boxes are but the Dell support site still has bios updates for their
pentium II era optiplex GX1's that I've grabbed to fix PXE booting (they
still make nifty thin clients).
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
