The need to download additional drivers and crud from Dell was surprising. By default, Windows was using some kind of unaccelerated graphics driver (scrolling was *slow*), it didn't know how to hibernate the laptop, and it didn't know about the wireless. And the volume buttons didn't work. At least Dell had everything in one place where it was easy to get. (And, I had the forethought to download all of that stuff *before* I wiped the machine...)
Windows XP SP2 was released in August of 2004. And drivers included in it are likely even older since the SP had to be locked down at some point for full testing. So it's not surprising that a lot of basic things didn't work. Odds are, chipset drivers and such were not in SP2, and so it was running in real basic mode on nearly everything.
I really wish Microsoft was better about releasing service packs more often, and including better drivers with them. The base Windows XP driver cab (August 2001) is 73 megs, SP2 tacked on 18 more megs, and SP3 23 megs worth.
It's also a shame Vista SP1 can't be slipstreamed into a base Vista disk. Hopefully SP2 will restore that functionality, whenever it comes out.
And Apple too needs to improve this mess with their patches. While their combo updater is handy, they offer no official way to slipstream it into the base install DVDs. The time wasted by IT people patching new installs must be massive compared to the work it would take to get the OS providers to update this stuff better.
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