You are only partially correct. I have the same laptop, and installed first Windows 8, which were performing much worse than windows visa I used to have, at least for my taste (no aero theme, shortcuts for things I do not want to use, missing shortcuts for things I actually found useful). So I installed windows 7 and faced the same problem with drivers.
I think it is unprofessional from HP to promote windows 8 in such abusing manner. It is not as if the hp retailers had this windows-8-only warning anywhere (even not in the box I got).
Now for the solution. I tried to find out for what hardware I need drivers and had hard time with that. I maybe installed some successfully, I do not know. But then I applied the following (you need to have 64 bit windows 7, as I had to be sure): I installed all drivers offered for windows 8 from HP web site, with partial success (some drivers installed perfectly). The ones that were not installed successfully, I at least could find what company produced what device during installation (these programs are often branded with manufacturer and not with HP) , so for the ones that did not worked, I went directly to the website of component manufacturer.
And it worked.
Finally, a message to HP: this is my last time to buy so blindly from you.