Sunday, June 12, 2022

Reinstalling Windows on Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 320-10ICR

My wife has been using the Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 320 for many years for one thing and one thing only - watching videos on KissAsian and YouTube.

It's a neat little tablet that does the job well. She doesn't even need to have the physical keyboard attached. Any typing required is done on the onscreen keyboard. The only complaint is that it's starting to get a little bit sluggish. All those Windows updates have used up all the free disk space, and the thing can't take any more new updates. The 32GB eMMC wasn't much to begin with.

I've always reinstalled the latest Windows 10 Pro to get around the updates issue, but looks like I need a more permanent solution. Given that the tablet is only used for media consumption, I've decided to just install Windows 7 on it. No performance degradation as there are no expected Windows updates. Turns out Windows 7 won't install as it's missing/asking for some device driver that it can't find.

Bumped it up to Windows 8.1. The operating system installed just fine, but the touchscreen does not work. Same goes for Peppermint OS. Need the touchscreen to work, so that we won't need to have the physical keyboard attached.


Looks like my only option is to just install Windows 10, then disable Windows Update. Version 21H2 didn't work. The ISO booted just fine, but the screen was all garbled. I can move the mouse and see something moving, but no way to complete the install. Then I read somewhere that Version 2004 and up won't work on the Miix 320. Tried Version 1909 and that one installed just fine. Took a looong time to set up though because every time I tried to create an offline account and set up the password, the system would switch to the "Just a moment..." screen then power off or hang.

I reckon this is because I've already set up the wireless network and it's trying to install drivers, while I was finishing the setup. After what felt like a dozen forced reboots, I managed to log in to Windows and set up my account. As for disabling Windows Updates, lots of tutorials out there, but none of them supposedly work anymore. Will just just reinstall the latest Windows the next time it slows down again.

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