How big were the different Windows versions? (95 = 19 MB)

[Rudy]

Really? Have you ever searched for drivers online? Most hardware manufacturers have god-awful sites, if they're even in English. I'd rather not have a hardware install rely on my internet connection, a server in China, and a valid link between the two.

Let me point to you what I actually wrote: if the computer would just go directly online and find the latest and greatest driver and download it right away

Meaning the computer goes and downloads the latest drivers by itself. OSX does it for Printer drivers (unfortunately I think it's the only drivers it will fetch)

[Rigby]

Let me point to you what I actually wrote: if the computer would just go directly online and find the latest and greatest driver and download it right away

Meaning the computer goes and downloads the latest drivers by itself. OSX does it for Printer drivers (unfortunately I think it's the only drivers it will fetch)

To be fair what if your computer can't even get online without drivers, or what if it's not online to begin with. Not including the drivers in the installation and forcing people to download them would be a terrible idea. The amount of disk space they take up is negligible.

[Mr. Gibs]

Personally I would rather if the computer would just go directly online and find the latest and greatest driver and download it right away. Mind you that would mean that Ethernet and Wireless drivers still have to be included ;)

And what about people who don't have internet connections? You know like more than half the world. Or people who don't have unlimited access and instead pay by the minute / usage etc? Or what if you buy a computer, or build it yourself or w/e, install / re-install Windows and since no drivers are included your computer doesn't boot up properly?

My machine, Windows 7 x64 Ultimate the DriverStore folder takes up 1.85gb which isn't really all that much. And Windows already does check online for drivers when you plug something in, it'll check the driverstore folder, then online (if it can) to see if a newer driver exists and if that fails then show you an error message.

And I'm pretty sure XP had it too.

[SirEvan]

I don't know anyone with a >2tb hard drive, unless it's a raid setup but even then they have multiple 1tb or multiple 1.5tb

I have 8x2TB drives

[threetonesun]

What kind of cheap hardware are you buying. :p

Stupid things like card readers and cheap Ethernet adapters, but I've even see printer websites where it's impossible to find the correct drivers for your specific revision of printer.

[monkey13]

All the drivers are copied over so that if you happen to replace that AMD Radeon graphics card with shiny New Nvidia, your PC won't show the colorful rainbow on screen or even worse, refuse to load windows. Or demand you to insert your Windows CD which you may have happily donated to some charity.

Yeah but that is pointless. I think there is a standard for a minimum driver that all cards are supposed to meet (I forget the name). So even if you stick a different brand in you should at least be able to boot in.

Who then goes on to keep those drivers? First thing you do is get the latest ones. That is how it used to work on XP.