New Lenovo, Clean Install?

[Carbo]

It was time to retire two reliable Dell XPS laptops. My wife and my laptops, both 8 years old, starting showing signs of retirement and so I purchased her a new machine, a Lenovo Slim 7x. Compared to the old Dells, I was surprised at how smooth and quick it performed, and the graphics were superior. But it's been eight years so I shouldn't be surprised. In fact, I liked it so much I just purchased another one for myself. It remains in the box unopened at the moment.
My question, is it worthwhile to do a clean install of Windows 11? Last time I did this was with my Dell and Windows 10. Are these new machines weighed down with crap? Is the install simple enough for a rusty old timer?

 

[C1]

The answer is NO !

Looks like getting certain drivers (eg, GPU) for that model is problematic (research forums).

It is much better to work on removing/disabling stuff not wanted/desired than aggregating all the needed drivers & applications plus there will be all the configuationing & settings including possibly having to mess with complex BIOS.

(It takes me five days out of a week to get a machine suitably groomed from scratch. Also, I'll only do such a project when I decide that I have all the needed drivers & applications available before hand.)

If you go the install from scratch, you may surprisingly find yourself ended up worse off.

If you are gonna try from scratch, then create an image backup so you can restore to your OEM if unhappy, but FIRST of all with your machine(s), before you do ANYTHING, make screen prints of your BIOS settings & your device manager line items INCLUDING what's in "Programs & Features" (Control Panrel).

Good luck

 

[mikeymikec]

I always do a clean install on laptops, so I would personally send that laptop back and get one without apparent driver issues.

 

[tcsenter]

If that is a Qualcomm chipset/processor it is running the ARM version of Windows. This entire ARM sphere is not like Windows for x86/x64 PC, the drivers are often not as publicly available particularly graphics which are often customized to the product/design.

While ARM seems like it is doing fine in common apps, the gaming and 3D rendering stuff is a real weak spot:

Tested: Don't buy a Snapdragon X Elite laptop for PC gaming

How does Qualcomm's Snapdragon X integrated GPU fare against Intel's Arc graphics? We tested and compared both.

www.pcworld.com

 

[ch33zw1z]

Lenovo software after a reload can be found on support.Lenovo.com - grab the “system update” software to pull down drivers for your MTM

 

[dr1337]

Installing from scratch is the best way to configure windows 11 for offline accounts if you're interested in that.

As for problems with reformats, I even put windows 10 on my ideapad and had zero issues with drivers or software, hotkeys, performance profiles, it all just works. Windows 10/11 are way easier to install because they come preloaded with tons of drivers, and then windows update takes care of the rest. Worst case all you need to do is download a network driver on a seperate computer/before you wipe.

 

[mikeymikec]

It's rare in my experience to have trouble with drivers, assuming that the OS is the one that the laptop was released with, but:

The biggest pain in the neck with drivers I recall from recent years started around 2017 I think through to around 2022 - Lenovo laptops and the touchpad driver: Even though I routinely ordered the same model, it might come with a Elan touchpad, Synaptics, etc. IIRC Lenovo either didn't bother to supply touchpad drivers or the drivers they provided didn't come with a UI to configure the touchpad, so therefore features like PalmCheck were missing. Some of the solutions I encountered online were pretty creative, like having to use a particular version of the driver, force-install a certificate that Windows didn't want to trust, etc. Then of course because of a laptop arriving with a different model of touchpad then I'd have to find a new solution to get the touchpad working properly.

These days, now that the touchpad drivers are meant to interface with the Settings app, at least configuring basic touchpad functionality and disabling all the 'minority report' - esque gesture features is possible, but still no configuration of the palmcheck feature. Thankfully it appears to 'just work' though, I haven't had any complaints.