# dell and windows review it seemed well built / was overpriced for what was there - in this case not much the dell xps 8700 / windows 8 combo just flat out refused to cooperate windows 8 is a profoundly intuitive unhelpful and bloated mess of an os on initial startup it will not get online - not without much useless experimentation windows 8 then needs over 700gb of updates - which it then cannot download for mystic reasons after an hour's work the updates eventually install - windows then slows to an unusable crawl / crashes impossible to get online; at this point the unwise might use the so called 'rescue disk' - which is of more use as an unattractive drinks coaster read something to do with a partition or something being corrupted there's then something else do do with inserting a disk to installing missing drivers the whole thing now won't boot and just sits there five long hours later go back to installing manjaro linux on your spare ssd from a usb stick (which installs in about 5 minutes and then works perfectly) switch it off for lunch; switch it back on and it refuses to get back online re-install windows 8 and the latest official drivers but still no luck suspect an inherently duff realtek integrated network controller and-or some ancient unresolved r8169 / r8168 driver issue finally get windows to work by 'simply' removing the realtek driver in hardware manager rebooting and reinstalling the latest realtek ethernet drivers another 3gb update to windows 8.1 (only to notice a complete re-installation would be necessary just to get dell's tiny ssd cache working) it refuses to get online again; swear at that point to never go back to windows again and install ubuntu 13.10 (xfce) on your spare ssd; this works for a while - and then suddenly no internet connection again decide at this point to send everything back to dell for a complete refund send them an email requesting a product return - they in turn send an email back saying your particular account does not include email contact and your request must be completed by phone call them - they put you through to the 'technical department' - who after fifteen minutes of 'please hold' music finally state there will be no problem returning the machine - minus £20 for shipping costs five minutes later the phone rings again; someone from dell calls you back to say there's a problem with your return request; a request is made for your reference number the rep on the phone is surprised to discover it was ey you called you (not two minutes ago); ey states your request should of been handled by the "technical department" the technical department tries to set up a three-way conference call with the person who originally processed your request - but no such luck the technical department eventually arrives - and proceeds to (somewhat aggressively) talk over your simple request (that you are not happy with your purchase would *not* like the motherboard to be replaced - but rather want a full refund) before ey concedes to your request for a refund you have to counter-browbeat ir with informed technical details over the innumerable ways you have (over three days) tried to get this machine to work as advertised after a total of half a solid hour on the phone (including 'please holds') the dell rep finally states it will be picked it up this friday between 8-5 and your account will be refunded with the full amount considered going with lenovno as ir machines seemed more cool and sci-fi // republic of bob