The idea is wonderful. For Lenovo laptops, by contrast, you have to somehow know exactly what components are used in your laptop and then go hunt for those drivers. (And no, I don't want to use Lenovo's mysterious automatic update tools.)

I said that Dell's idea is wonderful, but the implementation is horrible unfortunately: you have to download the drivers one-by-one (unless you're willing to use their download manager), the order in which drivers are installed matters and Dell doesn't tell you the order, the documentation on what each driver does is very poor, they are inconsistently packaged (zip files, exe's, installers), and sometimes you get offered, say, 3 wifi drivers because apparently Dell doesn't know which wifi chipset was put into your configuration.

Like I said, the idea is great.

That seems very old-fashioned to me. Why should I have to type in anything at all for the computer to know what its components are? Shouldn't it already know?

Apple’s Software Update/Mac App Store knows what computer I use. Even with the BTO Mac’s, the OS knows what components those computers have. The Mac App Store never presents me with software that's not suitable for my computer. I know x86 + Windows has way more possible configurations, but even there, it should be possible to create a report of all the components and send it to Windows Update (AFAIK, it already does that — why are you downloading drivers from DELL’s site?)

To me, that sounds like a Windows problem, not a DELL problem. No matter what components your computer consists of, a basic Windows install should have a suitable driver for your network card, at least to get online to get better and more up-to-date drivers. In my experience, it always does. Maybe I've just been lucky?

As for downloading drivers from a different computer, I think that's mostly done by IT departments to manage numerous computers. Of them, it can be expected they know what they’re doing, and making the process easier could obviate their job, so I suspect they like the way it is now.

That about sums it up.

making the process easier could obviate their job, so I suspect they like the way it is now.

Wow.

Wow what? You realize this mindset is extremely common, and that some people will in fact actively sabotage improvement efforts to keep their jobs, right?

Having worked in a large IT department I can assure you that anything that alleviates the drudgery of basic computer maintenance is very very welcome by everybody I've known who works there.

Including drivers for cards that were created after Windows was released? Good luck with that!

> As for downloading drivers from a different computer, I think that's mostly done by IT departments to manage numerous computers.

Clearly you've never had to wipe/restore a family member's computer because of their crippling malware, er, porn, habit.

If a Windows Update-type solution could be funnelled through a locally controlled central server for large installs, then the IT department could approve each update, and the local machines would automatically pull them down.

I assume that something like this already exists (even if it's not tied into Windows Update specifically).

WSUS is Windows Update for small/medium-sized MIS to run.

you're breaking the 0.01% use case at the expense of the 99.99% use case. maybe the 99.999%

Also, you might need a specific version of a driver, not the latest version. Online software update always get the latest.

(Not to get off topic, but creating a standalone install of Mac OS X Lion is real challenge. Installing it assumes that you'll always have a fast and reliable Internet connection.)

Oh, I know all about that, it can be quite an ordeal. Earlier this summer, I spent a month in rural France for a film shoot. A few days after I arrived, my MacBook Air started acting up, all apps would crash immediately after launch. Ran Apple Hardware Test: bad RAM. I called Apple, they wouldn't send someone out to fix it, I had to bring it to an Apple reseller for repair. Which I did, and it was fixed in three days. However, even in that larger city (Poitiers), their Internet connection was bad. They wouldn't install the OS for me because they knew their Internet connection was unreliable. Afterwards, I tried installing the OS via a WiFi network at a local bar, it took 4 hours and then it failed. I tried a different bar, same story. Eventually, I went to a cyber cafe in an even larger city, where it took 1,5 hours and went through.

OS X’s web downloader should allow for partial downloads, download suspension, and redownloading of specific corrupted blocks. It's great that you don't need a disk or USB drive to install OS X from scratch, but the process still needs work.

Also, even if the RAM somehow corrupted the OS, weren't you able to boot into the recovery partition? Or even install it on a USB drive beforehand? https://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/

As for the Internet connection, I think that’s kind of expected of a computing device nowadays.

It's been this way for years.

I do a fresh install of each new laptop I get, and all I do is install the system updater, wait for it to d/l the files, wait through a few reboots, and done.

Biased IBM supporter here. All IBM/Lenovo Think systems have a MachineType-Model (eg: 2537-25A). It's written on the button of Thinkpads, or you can find it by:

Windows: GUI: msinfo32, CLI: systeminfo Linux: dmidecode -t 1

The only possible exception, I can think of, is if you order a custom configuration - then the model part will say 'CTO'.

Source: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/Pro...

Fujitsu has Fujitsu DeskUpdate that's similar.

They're pretty sweet, much better than downloading everything separately, but of course not as good as Linux with its package managers.

That’s a comment I did not expect on Hacker News. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of HN commenters have some experience with web site development.

To do an overhaul on a site like DELL’s is a major undertaking. I wouldn't characterize it as ‘easy’. If their corporate structure even allows rethinking their online strategy, it will take considerable effort to get the site on par with the likes of Apple and Microsoft. Those, IMO, are best in breed. And DELL is certainly not alone, HP’s site is just as nightmarish.

If they ever desire to improve their brand identity (and subsequently, their website), they would do well to look at how Microsoft did it. Microsoft hired Pentagram[1] to completely rethink their aging brand and went from there. DELL’s brand could use a similar treatment.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram_(design_studio)

Dell, I would guess, does much of their business online so it would seem a no-brainer to make the online experience as good as possible. Broken links and consistent timeouts are inexcusable for a site like Dell.

Oh, I agree. But I doubt they’re doing it on purpose. I would also guess that they have a lot of talented, knowledgable web developers on staff. That's why I'm saying that the problems are probably not as easily solved as you may think. I don't know what their backend is, I don't know what kind of CMS they're using and how it ties into their ERP, CRM, etc.

The last time I ordered a customised Macbook, delivery took weeks (and was from China). This was some years ago though, so may no longer be accurate.

Seems the answer here would be for Dell to have 'off the shelf' laptops with standard configurations they can ship quickly. If they don't already, I'm kind of amazed.

My main complaint was that after ordering a computer for 1800.00 it's very frustrating to be told that it will take 10-20 days just to "build" it, much less how long it will take to actually get to me.

I’ve ordered numerous BTO Macs. Most took only a few days, a few took over a week. In the cases that it took over a week, it was always when the model was recently released.

Apple works the same way, in my experience. When I ordered my Air a couple years ago, I couldn't buy it in store because it was a configuration they didn't carry and it took several days after my online order before it even shipped from China.

There's a reason customer satisfaction is high with these two brands. If Dell can bring his company back, 1997-Apple style, we might see a resurgence in its popularity (which peaked in the mid-2000s), giving us three major consumer notebook player.

This is a good time.

Lenovo and HP's business websites were a disaster for the longest time, they basically forced you to go through a VAR, and Dell had such a huge price advantage that it didn't make sense to go with anyone else.