You might get discs from your hardware manufacturer with drivers

but equally you might not. However, the manufacturers make their drivers available on the internet, for nothing.

Yes, things should "just work" within reason. For example, your DVD drive and graphics card. DVD is a fixed format, something that you can build a "good enough" generic driver for, which will work for 99% of hardware. Same with graphics cards - the chipset manufacturers supply microsoft with generic drivers, and they're bundled with windows. So up to a point, things will "just work".

So if you've got some funky nVidea graphics card with its own RAM and CPU, without the specialised nVidia drivers, it'll work, just about, but it probably won't do all the high end fancy stuff it's capable of, high resolutions, shading, 3d accelleration, etc. But if you install the nVidia driver "over the top" then they'll replace the generic drivers.

Posted By: Arizona Bay on November 28th 2008 at 15:03:11

Message Thread

Yet another Geek Salad question - Buying a PC with OS installed or not... (NCFC) - Yellalee, Nov 28, 14:14:48
- Hang on, what does "3.0Ghz 1333Mhz Clock speed" mean? (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 15:07:39
  - Nah - it's 2x 3.0Ghz... (NCFC) - Yellalee, Nov 28, 15:11:43
    - Oh I see. It's the cpu's cache that runs at 1.3Ghz. (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 15:24:16
      - Huh? (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 15:27:04
        
        I thought so... (NCFC) - Yellalee, Nov 28, 15:32:35
        
        I think it's a good balance, and you're absolutely right - better cooling and PSU (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 15:44:03
- no. yes. yes. no. no. yes. In that order. (n/m) (NCFC) - Ken Dodds Dads Dog, Nov 28, 15:04:39
- Do it yourself. On a Mac it's a breeze and takes about half an hour (NCFC) - BerlinCanary, Nov 28, 14:49:49
  - On Windows it's a piece of piss and takes about 29 minutes (n/m) (NCFC) - Steve in Holland, Nov 28, 14:51:36
    - You're making that up (n/m) (NCFC) - BerlinCanary, Nov 28, 14:51:57
      - No I am not.... (NCFC) - Steve in Holland, Nov 28, 14:53:36
  - But then you end up with a Mac (NCFC) - Old Git, Nov 28, 14:51:19
- get them to do it. (NCFC) - shoddy, Nov 28, 14:25:33
  - Can you say why, as AB disagrees... (n/m) (NCFC) - Yellalee, Nov 28, 14:29:14
    - Well, perhaps my pen-familiarity is emboldening me, but I really don't think it's that dif (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 14:42:45
      - So will my DVD reader work straight away, once i put the XP disc in? (NCFC) - Yellalee, Nov 28, 14:48:50
        
        Yes, the motherboard BIOS should contain a generic driver, just enough to get it to read (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 14:51:55
        
        So presumably the supplier will provide driver discs (NCFC) - Yellalee, Nov 28, 14:55:39
        
        You might get discs from your hardware manufacturer with drivers (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 15:03:11
        
        The longer this goes on (NCFC) - Old Git, Nov 28, 14:53:15
        
        reading my mind OG, reading my mind... (NCFC) - Yellalee, Nov 28, 14:56:27
        
        *pfft* as if... (NCFC) - blindasabat, Nov 28, 14:56:18
        
        As easy as installing a new piece of hardware connected by USB (NCFC) - Yellalee, Nov 28, 14:58:06
        
        yes (though it will take a little longer and involve a couple more progress bars) (NCFC) - blindasabat, Nov 28, 15:08:08
    - i guess if you have to put a value on your personal time (NCFC) - shoddy, Nov 28, 14:30:37
      - Naaah. Piece of proverbial. (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 14:34:01
- Buy a Mac (NCFC) - malkybarkid, Nov 28, 14:25:07
  - You should get some Clearasil for those spots on your chin (n/m) (NCFC) - Yellalee, Nov 28, 14:28:33
    - (: (NCFC) - malkybarkid, Nov 28, 14:30:31
- You would be able to install the OS yourself, just fine. It's not difficult. (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 14:24:08
  - get win2k, it rocks (NCFC) - pants, Nov 28, 14:36:40
    - Yeah, when they released it, it was the best they'd done so far, by miles. (n/m) (NCFC) - Arizona Bay, Nov 28, 14:43:51
      - I'll be annoyed when I have to let go of it (NCFC) - pants, Nov 28, 14:51:14

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