Re: Not just Lenovo's fault
"For this feature to work requires the OS to co-operate with the BIOS, to auto download and install the software that the BIOS points at. Needless to say only Windows supports this "feature" and it couldn't have happened without Microsoft's endorsement."
Microsoft includes that feature ostensibly for automatically installing required platform drivers or other OEM "enhancement" software to a vanilla Microsoft image without requiring an active Internet connection which would not be present if the network drivers aren't present.
Their rationale is probably that a major hardware vendor would not risk damaging its reputation with unscrupulous behavior. However, that thinking is clearly naive at best or malicious at worst, as clearly anything can be preloaded into the firmware image. As large as Microsoft is, I highly doubt they could really be that naive.
If that feature is to stay, they should at least prompt the user at OOBE if they want to install the factory software, noting that it could potentially contain security vulnerabilities and is not provided by Microsoft. That said, any time you install drivers from a vendor or use a factory installation image, you're trusting that the vendor has not added anything else aside from the described functionality in the first place. Don't forget the Conexant driver with the debug keylogger that HP installed on its laptops...