Is this why I've been a Mac person the last 10 years?

[frayadjacent]

I bought my partner a refurbished Thinkpad for Christmas last year.  He's a tough person to buy for and I thought I'd finally triumphed: now he could play PC games (while I vid!  it was going to be perfect!).  

He played a few games for two or three weeks, then stopped using the computer.  :(

So, this week I decided to commandeer it.  I started by installing a fresh version of Windows 7, taking advantage of my last quarter of student status to get it free from my university.  Installation went fine, but now the damn thing won't connect to the internet.  Apparently there is a problem with a network adapter or a driver or something.  Windows helpfully suggests that, if drivers aren't properly installed, I connect to the internet to see if updates are available.

I've found some instructions but they all involve clicking on various icons or services that don't exist.  Maybe because the driver isn't installed? 

I generally don't take a position on the whole Mac vs Windows thing, mainly cause I'm not that impressed with Macs and I clearly don't know much about PCs, but this is really a bad start.

Comments

[calvinahobbes]

You could maybe download the drivers onto USB via mac...? *hands* Alternatively, can you downgrade back to the older version of the OS?

Also, did you try asking Google rather than asking Microsoft? I can usually find a helpful forum thread whenever I have a problem...

[frayadjacent]

Yeah, I did try googling it, but the solutions I found didn't work. I did end up downloading the driver from my mac, but it looks like the computer is having trouble even recognizing the wireless network adapter -- it doesn't show up on the "Devices" list, though there is an unknown device. A bunch of the devices have the exclamation mark of doom. :( I'm going to call the store I bought it from when they open.

I'm hoping I don't have to downgrade, because I kept getting warnings that the OS was not an authentic installation, along with requests for a key. Which is a little annoying; I mean I would have thought that this refurbished laptop store would at least put an authentic OS on the damn computer before selling it.

Thanks for the brainstorming! It honestly did not occur to me to download the drivers on another computer, because I never use flash drives, and my external HD isn't PC-compatible. In fact, I had to dig up a flash drive from undergrad days -- 8 years ago! Thank god for hoarding, huh?

[calvinahobbes]

Haah, hoarders unite! You never know when something might come in handy >_>

Urgh, Windows just always sounds like so much trouble! I hope you find a solution.

I... think it's pretty skeevy that you bought a refurbished computer with an illegal OS copy on it? I would maybe complain about that...

[frayadjacent]

I... think it's pretty skeevy that you bought a refurbished computer with an illegal OS copy on it?

I know! And yet I was too lazy to do anything about it, especially because, while it was the ultimat cause of my problem, it wasn't really relevant to solving the issue.

I ended up installing Ubuntu instead!

[calvinahobbes]

I just keep hearing good things about Ubuntu! I think at this point I'm pretty much decided to try that if I ever buy a non-Apple machine. (Too bad I don't get to change my work computer from Windoze.)