Microsoft's new Surface Laptop 7 has arrived. The recovery images have not Shiny new Surface 7 devices are starting to arrive, but a lack of recovery media is causing problems for some users. A Register reader got in touch to complain about issues that cropped up when creating recovery media. Gareth Hunter wrote: "I preordered the machine a few weeks ago and received it yesterday. "I created the …
> Why not just `dd` (or similar) the original drive as a backup
Oh, you poor misguided boy. You can't just dd a Windows system disc and expect it to work without all the magic done in the sysprep.
Why, the drive's serial number will be different, you can't expect a Real OS to work properly when that happens. This is a precision instrument we are talking about here, a delicate balance of code and hardware, not some loutish OS that can just be expected to work after being brutally sector-copied.
Every install of Windows is a delicate flower, that must be nurtured.
You remind me quite eloquently of why I don't use the POS at any opportunity possible to avoid it.
After all this development it's quite ironic what we actually want IS the simple program loader that DOS was....
Disagree (somewhat) -- I've done it a million times. But you're right that it does take a meticulous effort to correctly replicate all disk ids info, mac address, partition tables, UEFI parameters, etc. Best to start by yanking out the SSD to clone and clone it (bit-for-bit) using dd under Linux on another machine.
Exactly. That what any experienced user/sysadmin would do because we've all been burned when the OS needs some obscure hex ID buried somewhere in the partition table, or MAC address that's not copied. (See Sysinternals and the various blogs from the great Mark Russinovitch for gory details.) Common, TheRegister, you know better than this. Stop pandering for clicks with this ridiculous FUD.
Gee, the Elite X has been out a whole 2 days and it doesn't work flawlessly? What wrong with these clowns at Qualcomm, Samsung, Asus, Microsoft, etc.? I'm sure the geniuses who are complaining about lack of backup media, problems with this or that game, etc., would have done a much better chip design.
No, Microsoft should have ensured that the recovery image creation tool they shipped with the device actually worked, rather than being so badly borked that it's now left one of their early adopters with a brick...
You might be happy to use random third-party tools for stuff like this, but if there's a OS-provided alternative that *ought* to also let you do the same job, it's not unreasonable to presume that many people would opt for the latter instead.
Every time this question is asked here, I think to myself "Surely there must be some community-maintained online database of Linux on various models of laptop". After all. It would be in keeping with the OS ethos of making your discoveries available to others.
If there such a database it's not easy for find by Googling, nor do Reddit discussions link to it.
Why there isn't such a popular resource is an interesting question.
It might be that even Penguins want an easy life, and usually buy a laptop that comes with Linux pre installed and is supported by the vendor, rather than go it alone installing Linux on a laptop that shipped with Windows.
It might be that not enough Penguins buy brand new laptops to test every new model.
It might be that tech reviewers, who have a stream new laptops pass through their hands, do test them with Linux, and thus reduce the need for a community-run database. Certainly wired.com claim to test Linux on all laptops they test, but the results are the property of wired.com and not open source.
It might be that database exists, and it's only easy to find by super clever Linux users (who use the ' Here's Technical Info' badge to ask a question).
If helps helps answer your specific question, here is a list of issues with Linux on various surface machines:
https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/issues
Non-Linux users seem to have a lot in common with permies. Lacking the self-confidence giving it (Linux or freelancing as the case may be) a try, when they come here they carp about it being too complicated, immoral or whatever excuse they can come up with for lacking initiative.
In fact it's easy enough to download a live image and test ot from USB although personally I'd assume that where there own H/W is concerned Microsoft will throw as many roadblocks as possible in the way and not waste my money trying.
People buy a product. One of the capabilities of any Windows installation is to be able to create recovery media. It is recommended by Microsoft. Microsoft offers a tool for it.
The tool doesn't work.
So why point and laugh at the end users, while sniffing your own farts, and be all high-horsey about 'oh should have used linux', or 'rip open the laptop and exchange the ssd'.
I mean, really?
so yes, you can do all those things. All kinds of non-standard things to get recovery media. Do whatever you want with that new laptop you just bought.
But remember - it doesn't do what it says out of the box, and _that's_ the problem.
There certainly used to be a database of Linux on various laptop models, I should know as I maintained pages for two such laptops, an HP and Sony each of some flavour that I've since forgotten and no longer own.
Found it: https://linux-laptop.net/
Although it looks a bit different now to how I remember it.
Hence the cunning plan from Microsoft: the only way to get a vanilla Windows to run another trial Linux install is to buy another device. Microsoft won't actually stop you trying to get Linux on it asap, and help others do the same, but you have to pay dearly to do so.
I am sure there will be distros with out of the box "compatibility" soon enough if not already. The question is if you want to install Linux on such a device.
I used to run Linux as my primary OS prior to purchasing my first surface about 7 years ago. I switched to windows because I couldn't find a Linux distro that was as usable on a touch screen.
A couple of weeks ago I thought I would give it another try. I have been running mint, having spent several hours making the damn thing "usable" on a touch screen. I still can't right click without using the touchpad*, and don't get me started on the terrible battery life... And the really good audio I had before has turned in to the stereotype of crappy laptop speakers. I was actually planning to revert back to windows this weekend.
*Yes there is a "turn long click in to right click", but no "only the the touchscreen and not the touchpad". And I couldn't figure out how to adjust the sensitivity for tapping the screen being detected as a click instead of a click and drag half of the time...
"Hindsight is the best known science to man". I always clone AND image a new computer before doing anything (which is usually install Linux on it!). I suppose, though, to be fair, the "excitement" having a new PC, can make any of us get carried away, and then caught out by Microsoft's slack attitude to customers. I'd just send it back with a terse note. My sympathies to those who have borked the machines.
So the Surface Laptop 7 uses the same network card, USB controller etc. as previous versions…
Just that the USB stick only contains a limited number of drivers and if your network card doesn’t work with say the generic LAN driver MS bundles, it’s unable to access the online database to get the correct drivers…
Had this before when upgrading/restoring systems from USB (both old and fresh off the shelf like the Surface Laptop 7), the USB controller was an interesting one, worked fine to enable the installer to work, but the drivers the installer selected prevented USB access after the reboot…
Would not be surprised if MS haven’t released the recovery images they also haven’t updated the downloadable W11 media with the drivers for the Surface Laptp 7…
Another "you'd think" point, but you'd think a user confident/capable enough to be swapping SSDs would also be able to get Device IDs from Device Manager and get OEM drivers if MS haven't published specific ones yet. Only possible issue would be the AHCI driver for the storage controller (not an issue anyway as this is an SSD), but that's nothing like the problem it used to be in the XP days ("fond" memories of trying to slipstream in drivers, then giving up and turning off AHCI)
> the XP days ("fond" memories of trying to slipstream in drivers…
I’m sure there is a way to slipstream stuff with W10/W11, but MS don’t make it easy to add stuff to the install USB…
But part of the problem (particularly with the AHCI) is getting the installer to use the external drivers rather than defaulting to what it thinks are the correct drivers…
It's a lot easier now than it was, in the days I referenced when XP was king floppy disk drives were largely obsolete, but the support wasn't there for accessing a USB drive during installation. There WAS support for USB floppy disk drives, but a very limited number of them were on the compatibility list.
Most enterprises used an image based install, but turning off AHCI was a very common fix when I worked at a particular large OEM in 2006 or so, particularly when new models came out with new chipsets. XP also had fairly limited hardware support natively, so people often couldn't get online to get drivers for their NICs or graphics cards etc.
>> Gareth Hunter wrote: "I preordered the machine a few weeks ago and received it yesterday." [emphasis mine]
I usually hate to blame the victims, but in this case you are part of the problem. Preordering crap from anyone, but specially from Microsoft, tells them you are willing to pay to be their beta tester
Why would a fairly large software company - or one of the biggest three companies in the world even - be responsible enough to even have an OS recovery facility available? Apple has a bootstrap online installer built into the ROM, and Microsoft has images available for download for Intel processor machines. So it's not like it's a NEW thing.
This is typical of the sort of thing Microsoft do: they make something without finishing it. I can't think of a single Microsoft application that's *finished*. It's all 'beta' or fluid in some way. Using their software is like a moving target. Same goes for their hardware.
It seems like a lot of what Microsoft do is just not engineered properly, with arbitrary decisions made that go completely against what end users actually want or need.
The trouble is that it's all so normalised now. It's not just Microsoft, but since Microsoft's software is the most used in desktop OSes on the planet, it really does fall on them to set a standard. Unfortunately, it seems all they're interested in doing is maximising profit at the expense of quality.
> Apple has a bootstrap online installer built into the ROM
Seem to remember this was the direction of travel of Dell, HP and Lenovo. Not sure if the installer is in ROM or on the HDD, but use of the OEM bootstrap installer was becoming the quickest way to do a full factory reset. Okay it only handled the OEMs selected hardware for that model.
The raw metal "until you need to repair it". At which point it is probably worse than Crapple. Teardowns have featured in the IET magazine, and the liberal use of hot glue on everything was very apparent.
Truly the definition of a consumer, throwaway device, being marketed as a faux premium product. Quite disgusting really.
I don't get this, it's a laptop, what are you hoping to "teardown" exactly? They've provided incredibly simple access the battery and SDD, what else are you replacing here? I've owned countless laptops, every single one of them is essentially use until dead or outlived it's purpose, then throw away. Almost all tech is like this.
Well in the past when everything wasn’t on the motherboard things you might have wanted to gain access to:
SoDIMM slots for after sale memory upgrade
WiFi LAN card
Mobile WAN card
Replace the keyboard (typically a £40 component as opposed to £800 for new laptop)
Replace the AC power daughter board
…
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