SZ and reformating

I'm supposed to be picking up an SZ160 tonight on the way home from work. I am a bit undecided for a few reasons but all in all I really think the SZ is a great product and nothing's perfect right?!
I realize it is considered a "business" notebook but I think it would have been great if it had a DVI adapter, it seems it would be great to hook up to an external display when not on the road. Also the space bar issue and Sony's not well regarded customer support is something to think about. That said you gotta take a chance sometime and I could always ebay it if I don't wind up liking it.
I intend to reformat the hard drive but from the SZ110 review I read on this site Sony doesn't provide a full list of drivers. Has anyone else had a problem reformating their SZ notebook, or am I better off just deleting the bloatware on the machine?

 

There are lots of previous topics all within the first 4 pages of topic listings of this forum dealing with reformatting... from partial to full to recovery to driver downloads, its all there and in great details

 

I don't think the problem is necessarily all driver related. I think the image they use for the recovery partition is more than just an OEM XP install and all the correct drivers and libraries. I think there is some specific sequence they install things in, and maybe even some other "hot fixes" that are applied to get it to an OEM install state. I think I remember seeing a KBxxxxxx item in the installed applications list after doing a complete restore, and that would indicate to me that some kind of update or hotfix has been applied, and that may be related to clearing up some of the issues that have cropped up during "fresh" installs.

Having said that, After doing a fresh install, you will likely have trouble getting the camera utility to work, and the wireless switcher likely won't work. The camera driver installs ok, but the utility doesn't seem to work, but that's not necessarily a problem, as the camera still works, you just won't have that little annoying little utility popping up every time you use the camera. I think that is a good thing. Now, the wireless switcher is another problem that prevents you from easily being able to turn on and off the different wireless devices (BT, A, B/G). There is another utility that can be used in place of that. I think it is the WWAN utility that has that functionality. You can use it as your wireless switcher, even though you don't have a WWAN card built into the SZ.

There are more specifics in the other threads, but that is the short version.

 

Thanks for the info. I just came back from picking it up, it's sitting in my office. Can't wait to get home and start using it.