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Lenovo Announces ThinkPads Preloaded With XP 192

Posted by kdawson from the give-'em-what-they-want dept.
BBCWatcher writes "Lenovo just announced new ThinkPad T61 models preloaded with Microsoft Windows XP. Ironically they're called ThinkPad T61 'TopSeller' models. Lenovo says they're aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. The XP TopSellers are available immediately, and the part numbers are 6465-03U, 7658-04U, and 7664-06U (PDF links). "Lenovo recommends Windows Vista Business"? Not so much."
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Lenovo Announces ThinkPads Preloaded With XP More

Lenovo Announces ThinkPads Preloaded With XP

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  • Dell too. (Score:5, Informative)

    by RandoX ( 828285 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @11:38AM (#21597559)
    When you pull up their laptop page, there are two links. "Customize with Windows XP" and "Customize with Windows Vista". Same price.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by PlatyPaul ( 690601 )
      Easier than that: if you want an XP-loaded dell, just go here [dell.com].

      They're hardly pushing it (see quote below), but it's still very much an option.

      Windows Vista® is the latest Operating System release from Microsoft. Windows Vista® Home Premium1 & Windows Vista® Ultimate1 offer great features like Windows Media Center which allows you to easily manage your photos, videos, & audio files and the cool interface of Windows Aero is designed to make your computer experience dynamic and fu

      • All versions of Windows Vista® offer new security options such as Parental Controls and integrated Anti-Spyware
        Well..... Microsoft's Windows Defender can be installed on Windows 2000 -- all it takes is a minor edit to the MSI file to remove the OS version check and it installs and runs fine. No such editing is required to install on XP.

        So how is the "integrated Anti-Sypware" new?
      • RandoX commented:

        Dell too.
        [snip]
        When you pull up their laptop page, there are two links. "Customize with Windows XP" and "Customize with Windows Vista". Same price.

        PlatyPaul replied:

        Easier than that: if you want an XP-loaded dell, just go here [dell.com].

        Just to make things clear, Dell have always (since Vista was launched) offered Windows XP as an option on almost all of their configurable PCs on their "business/education/government" sites. Only their PCs on their "Home & Home Office" site have typically offered Vista as the only OS option. They recently started re-offering XP on some of their "home" PCs due to customer demand.

        I think most Slashdot readers would prefer Dell's "Small & Medium Business" site [dell.com] bet

  • This is news? (Score:5, Informative)

    by inphinity ( 681284 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @11:39AM (#21597561) Homepage
    Maybe I'm missing something, but we've been buying T61's with XP for months now, without any difficulty at all.

    And we're not some large megacorp either -- we buy maybe 2-3 computers every 6 weeks.
    • Yeah, I always thought that businesses had more choice when it came to the OS. They're had the option of XP ever since Vista came out.

    • Re:This is news? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Psychopath ( 18031 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:00PM (#21597893) Homepage
      I just bought one last week and had the choice of Vista or XP. I think the news is probably that they have now have canned SKUs for XP where maybe they didn't before? As in, you could always go on and customize a laptop to have anything you want, but companies buying in large quantities probably just use a canned SKU that has the bundle they want with everything, to save time. Just guessing, though.
      • big companies would be stupid to select XP IMO (assuming there is no price difference between XP pro and vista buisness which there probablly won't be). Vista buisness comes with dowgrade rights to XP pro which big companies can excercise easilly using thier VLK media. If they bought the machines with XP they would have to buy some kind of upgrade (probablly "software assurance") later when they wanted to put vista on them.

        • There might not be price differences but there may be functional differences. For example, some companies have homegrown applications with a GUI that makes your eyes bleed, and it just barely functions, but it also does something critical that can't be lived without. The guy that wrote it was killed by a speeding beer truck three years ago and his workstation with the source code was wiped to turn it into a "Super Wiki Mashup Web 3.0 Second Life" server, because management read somewhere that that's what al

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by petermgreen ( 876956 )
            Did you actually read my post?

            Most big companies are going to reimage anyway. If they buy with vista then they can easilly downgrade to XP without paying any extra but if they buy with XP then when they want to put vista on them (which they probablly will evenutally) they will have to pay to do so.

    • Re:Try a regular store (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BlueBat ( 748360 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:20PM (#21598181)
      Try looking for XP in a regular store. You will not be able to find it. I have asked about having XP placed on the computer instead of the crappy Vista and was told that it was impossible. If you want XP preloaded on a machine anymore, you need to go to a website based business it appears. By the way, it was Circuit City that told me it was Vista only. I told them no way, I would go with Linux long before I would go to Vista. They told me I could get a Mac in that case and I told them I wasn't made of money it was XP or no way. They said no way.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by polaris20 ( 893532 )
        The "brilliant" sales associates at Circuit City probably don't even know there's a difference between XP and Vista.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by treeves ( 963993 )
        Same thing for me at Fry's three months ago. Vista was the only option when I went to buy a new desktop for home. My wife uses it primarily, so I left it as-is.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by syd02 ( 595787 )
      This might be how they became "TopSellers."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by s13g3 ( 110658 )
      Well, if you don't want a piece of junk whose components are almost entirely made in North China by slave labor that learned how to solder last week, with memory that no one will take credit for manufacturing (much less warranty) and a HDD drive brand with the highest failure rate on the market, then you don't want a Dell. Lenovo *seems* to be keeping up a reasonable level of quality so far, but, as someone who orders 2 - 3 laptops every week, and has accounts with the largest electronics warehouses in the
  • Personally, I'm just happy that they aren't jumping on the bandwagon and shoving Vista down our throats.

  • Consumer demand..? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ricebowl ( 999467 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @11:46AM (#21597689)

    So the news is that a company selling computers is selling something that the consumer's been asking for? Who'd've thought it? While I'm glad that another company, following Dell and some others, has bucked the Microsoft line, I'm not sure that it's particularly astounding.

    On the other hand though, kudos to them for doing so. Now if only they'd lose the '$Company recommends Windows Vista $model' branding I'd be even more impressed. Why claim to recommend something that you fairly obviously don't? I'm aware that there are provisos from Microsoft for supplying lower-cost OEM software to these companies but, surely, at some point the marketing/PR departments are going to realise that trying to play on both sides of a particular game isn't going to look too good for them?

    Ah, me and my optimism...

    • Re:Consumer demand..? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Entropius ( 188861 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @11:50AM (#21597733)
      Selling what the customer's asking for *is* astounding in today's world. It shouldn't be, but it is.

      • Selling what the customer's asking for *is* astounding in today's world. It shouldn't be, but it is.

        I hadn't thought about that; me and my amnesia...incidentally if I was able to mod you '+1, insightful' I so would.

    • Let's look at a car analogy. If I was a car manufacturer, I could advertise that I recommended automatic transmissions, but that wouldn't mean that I wouldn't sell manual transmissions to those who wanted it. For some people, XP has advantages, for others, Vista is better. Same with automatic and manual transmissions. No one product is right for everyone, so they are selling both.

      • So...wouldn't that also lead to the removal, or at least qualification, of the '...recommends Windows $model'?

        While I accept that there are situations and needs better addressed by Vista as opposed to XP (accept but can't think of one, but that's more my lack of familiarity with Vista than any objection to it for its own sake), but if that's the case why not simply go with '...recommends Windows'?

        At least then they can support the claim by showing their list of installed-OS options.

        • Maybe they are recommending Vista, because although XP works better for now, what happens when MS doesn't support it, or what happens what happens when some new program comes out that only works under Vista. IBM could have any number of reasons for recommending Vista over XP. And saying that they "recommend Windows" isn't much better. Which version do they recommend? Windows 3.1? Now they have to say, "Recommends Windows XP or Vista". But then why recommend anything, because you're recommendations are

          • IBM could have any number of reasons for recommending Vista over XP.

            Lenovo isn't IBM [news.com].

            That being said, I have an antique T22 that runs Ubuntu nicely. What I'd like to see Lenovo offer some time in the future, when my T22 finally dies the Real Death, is an option for some flavor of Linux on a new Thinkpad out the door.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zymergy ( 803632 ) *
        I agree with your sentiment, however, the automobile transmission analogy is not necessarily the best one... This is a tough sell for the manufacturer's marketing departments because the situation seems to require some snake oil marketing tactics.
        That is, unless you mention that the 'Engines' (CPU/Video/RAM) for these cars which use the 'Automatic Transmissions' (Windows Vista) would have to be much more powerful (and expensive) to achieve the same performance levels as a car which uses the 'Manual Transmi
    • AFAIK '$Company recommends Windows Vista $model', if printed everywhere, gets 'em many dollars from Microsoft. It's like with ads in magazines; the advertiser (in this case Microsoft) buys some space (and, in this case, a "recommendation") for lotsa money.
      With all the OEM discounts and marketing aid going on, I imagine that little line may be worth half the ad, so the marketing department damn sure won't remove it.

      Also, I don't think it's doing too much harm. Those interested in not getting Vista will u

    • So the news is that a company selling computers is selling something that the consumer's been asking for? Who'd've thought it?

      You know, pretty much every news event in the world can be similarly derisively portrayed when distilled to its more abstract or generic form. For example, if a plane crashed killing hundreds, you might say "So the news is that some plane crashed?" - there's nothing insightful about saying "Gee who'dve thought it?" (cynical remark != intelligent remark); just because it's well-know

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by irtza ( 893217 )

      at some point the marketing/PR departments are going to realise that trying to play on both sides of a particular game isn't going to look too good for them?

      Well, that may be true, but when the finance department tells the marketing department that the MS advertisement rebate which finances the marketing department is higher than their profit margin/machine and keeps them in business is dependent on that phrase appearing on their site, the marketing department will look the other way.

      MS may not be able to demand X dollars per maching, but they have a whole slew of other dirty tactics to use.

      dislaimer, this comment is unresearched and an unfair accusatio

    • Dont get excited. january 2008 is when MS will stop XP sales and preloads.
      • MS moved the end of retail and big brand OEM availibility to the end of june 2008 so there is a bit of time yet.

        The end of system builder (whitebox OEM) availibility is at the end of january 2009 as originally planned.

        There is nothing stopping suppliers stocking up on retail copies and whitebox OEM packs. I don't know if that can be done with big brand OEM too.

        And finally vista buisness comes with downgrade rights to XP pro :)

      • Dont get excited. january 2008 is when MS will stop XP sales and preloads.
        Didn't they extend that a few months to keep the "element" that has yet to see the value inherent in vista happy? Something like a 5 month extension sa I remember. The big question is will they extend the extension...
    • The marketing line is part of the OEM sales agreement. This is just like "We recommend Duracell batteries" which was required to get into the best pricing tiers. I don't know the exact deal Lenovo or Dell gets from Microsoft but I would say that if you were them you would probably do the exact same thing. When you become a publicly owned corporation your duty is to the shareholders, not to follow some ideological path which may or may not have some future goodwill benefit. Placing that line in the marke

  • Why Won't MS Do Dual Licensing? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BigAssRat ( 724675 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @11:57AM (#21597835)
    I am surprised that MS doesn't allow you to purchase a Vista license that allows the use of XP if you would rather. I bet then they could really beef up their Vista sales numbers, even if only on paper. Who would be able to say that 75% of users purchased Vista but installed XP instead? Looks like they could "win" the numbers game.

  • This is the end I tell you! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Toreo asesino ( 951231 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @11:58AM (#21597859) Journal
    Haha! Microsoft will surely die now, what with all these companies choosing Windows XP instead of Vista!

    Wait a minute....

    • Re:This is the end I tell you! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Constantine XVI ( 880691 ) <trash@eighty+slashdot.gmail@com> on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:08PM (#21598007)
      Actually, staying on XP does, indirectly, have a negative impact on MS. Since Vista went over so poorly, shareholders get irritated that all that money they spent on R&D isin't making much of a return, and thus don't want them to take a risk like this again. Vista must succeed for the shareholders to be happy.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Is there room for growth? Always. But I think shareholders are happy with MSFT regardless of Vista, considering they have revenue of US $50-60B/year and an operating income of over $20B/year a year. If Vista ends up being that big of a failure, they can always fall back on XP and continue maintaining and improving that. One of their big cash cows, the Office suite, seems to be doing great with many people rolling out Office 2007 on a large scale.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by suyashs ( 645036 )
          They should pull a Centrino. Just acknowledge that their latest sucks and go back and optimize and refresh XP. Use what they learned from Vista's development and not make the same mistakes.

      • Re:This is the end I tell you! (Score:4, Informative)

        by BUL2294 ( 1081735 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @02:27PM (#21600247)
        What impact? Microsoft's shareholders don't care what the company does as long as the dough keeps rolling in... And it's rolling in--but for XP and not Vista. Case in point, how much money has M$ made on Internet Explorer? NONE. IE has been a total loss! Nobody ever bought a Windows PC "just to have IE". (Remember that as recently as 2000, IE5 was available for Macs, UNIX, and even Windows 3.1x!) To add, IE has cost M$ hundreds of millions in legal fees and EU sanctions... By definition, the shareholders should be revolting--but they're not.

        M$ has many other products like SQL Server, Exchange, Windows Server, and Office that bring in the dough, even if Vista totally fails...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by damsa ( 840364 )
          8 years is an eternity in computer terms. And yes people do buy Windows to use Internet Explorer. People buy windows or dual boot specifically to test Internet Explorer.
          • Fine, maybe I shouldn't have said "nobody" but the number of Windows licenses issued to "those testing Websites on IE" is miniscule. Until M$ decided to drop all non-Windows IE development, you didn't even need a Windows PC for this purpose... And with VirtualPC, VMWare, etc., you don't even need PC hardware.

        • By definition, the shareholders should be revolting--but they're not.

          Well, I think that might be a matter of individual taste. Personally, I find them pretty revolting, supporting a company as morally bankrupt and actively obstructionist as Microsoft.

          Cheers,

  • And? (Score:4, Funny)

    by z0M6 ( 1103593 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:01PM (#21597899)
    At first I didn't really see the point. It is a laptop with windows XP. How was that news-worthy? Then I kind of remembered that vista is the new ME and it seems a lot of people think so too.

  • Vista to XP - upgrade or downgrade? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:02PM (#21597915) Journal
    http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/VSTA-DWNGRD.html [ibm.com]

    The only downgrade from Vista to XP is the price.. .and hassles besides. Why does everyone insist XP is inferior compared to Vista? As far as the user eXPerience is concerned XP is way ahead of Vista, so it is an Upgrade.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by mgblst ( 80109 )
      Some people actually like the new flashy stuff. Some people at my work. These are more the "decision" types, who don't actually have to use their computer for anything important, don't really now much about them, but still feel that they have earned to right to make decisions affecting us all.

      • These are more the "decision" types, who don't actually have to use their computer for anything important, don't really now much about them, but still feel that they have earned to right to make decisions affecting us all.

        Like, for example a bunch of computer geeks panning an OS they've never really tried before?

        Oh yeah, I hate Linux. What do you mean distro? No I mean Linux. I hate it. All it has is DOS and it doesn't work with any modern computers. It's impossible to learn how to do the simplest stuff wit

      • I had the misfortune to buy a Toshiba compact laptop three weeks ago pre-loaded with Vista Home Basic and a shitload of Toshiba stuff. And the WOW factor was well and truly there ... as in "WOW what a load of shite!"

        After using (or trying to use) it for a couple of weeks, I can confidently say Vista is not just inferior to XP; for any serious work at all, that machine is to all intents and purposes unusable. It reduced my productivity by a factor of two or three.

        This week I was forced to give up and install
    • But vista is NEW! And... SHINEY! And... it's got this cool bar that lets you put widge...errr... gadgets on it! Totally worth your RAM committing suicide.

  • I have one since September (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have a T61 (exact model is ThinkPad T61 7661-A12 ) since late September... best laptop I ever had, flying fast.

  • 2K to XP again..... ? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jabjoe ( 1042100 )
    Has this happened before, a mass downgrading from the latest Windows to the previous version? Have to say, not to my knowledge. Many people have said this happens with every new version of Windows. Really? I personally wasn't happy with going from 2k to XP because XP didn't add anything and was all cute/telly tubby and was a bit slower. Like many, after being on 2K became a problem I moved (on work machines you don't always have a choice), I moaned but that was it. Once I turned off all the crap I was f
  • I just bought a Thinkpad in the last 3 months.

    XP Professional was on many of the laptop configs. Just ask your salesmen if it wasnt. I just got the crappy Vista (home basic... whatever) and installed XP Pro and Ubuntu after fixing the partition map.

    I think the only place NOT to recommend XP are the touchscreen models, as Vista has better touchscreen support.

  • Been using a ThinkPad with Vista for half a year (Score:4, Interesting)

    by felix9x ( 562120 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:14PM (#21598093) Homepage
    I been using a ThinkPad X60 with Vista Business for six month. Generally I had no major issues and like how Vista works. Here are a few notes though:

    1. By default the CPU is set to run at half the speed. My notebook came with a 1.8Ghz Core2 Duo, but by default the power settings are set to run it at 900Mhz. In fact thats the only speed the laptop does not get hot as hell. Even at the lower speed most desktop apps work fast enough.

    2. I did a few tweaks myself like disable shadow copy and windows defender. I decided to leave the indexer on since I actually like what it provides.

    3. With the most recent updates I think a few annoying things got fixed. The laptop comes out of sleep faster and copying seems to be faster.

    4. Wireless networking sometimes is flaky. I don't know if Vista is responsible or its due to the interference where I live or its the lenovo wireless utils that are sluggish.

    5. I really like the minor UI improvements in Vista like the new resource monitor. I don't see why it cant be back ported to XP.

  • How is this news? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:17PM (#21598135) Homepage
    You could always order a CTO Thinkpad T61 with Windows XP Professional preloaded. It cost a bit more than Vista Home Basic, but the same as Home Premium or Business.
  • But I will tell you this. The thinkPad is one of the few machines that run pretty well with Vista. It's damn near tolerable. I kid I kid. Actually I'm becoming a convert as I learn the system. Some parts are really silly, but boy, what a beautiful face! It is unfortunate that so much time is spent uninstalling the crapware and disabling some "services", if that's what you call them. Don't know who they serve. And the ThinkPad still comes with that "button" mouse which beats the hell of a trackpad. The only

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      Like any relationship, it takes more then a beautiful face to live with someone day in and day out.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by iminplaya ( 723125 )
        Think of it as a new, really hot girlfriend that doesn't speak your language. Or can't get it through her @#%$!)(@# head that the roll of toilet paper should be put with the paper coming out over the top!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by grcumb ( 781340 )

          Think of it as a new, really hot girlfriend that doesn't speak your language. Or can't get it through her @#%$!)(@# head that the roll of toilet paper should be put with the paper coming out over the top!

          I could take all that and more... if she would just stop shitting in the bed.

  • But... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bazman ( 4849 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:21PM (#21598197) Journal
    Can I buy one with neither and how well does Ubuntu run on it?

    We just bought a Sony laptop with Vista and poor techie had to spend ages upgrading it to XP... Yes, I do mean upgrading... Seems Sony don't do XP graphics drivers for this model, you have to use Win 2k ones with a modified .inf file or something...

    • Re:But... (Score:5, Informative)

      by BCW2 ( 168187 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:36PM (#21598449) Journal
      Check out Emperor Linux, they have T60s and T61s preloaded with a custom kernel so everything works out of the box. Been around for a few years and have had very good reviews from Linux Journal and others.

      Try http://www.emperorlinux.com/mfgr/lenovo/toucan/

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by JonathanErnst ( 981839 )
        Ubuntu runs perfectly on my T61. I have even managed to get a refund on my XP license.
        • Well, let's not exaggerate. How well Ubuntu works varies widely depending on the hardware config. In the last few months, Ubuntu has supported the wireless, video, and audio chipsets, which have traditionally been problematic, out of the box on my nVidia-powered T61. However, among things that *don't* work:

          * The display brightness settings only work in the console, not in X.
          * Other hotkeys, like sleep mode (Fn+F4) sometimes work, sometimes don't (in the current rev of Gutsy I'm running, they don't).
          * Hib

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by shutdown -p now ( 807394 )
      For everything there is to know about running Linux on Thinkpads, you should check ThinkWiki [thinkwiki.org]. In particular, here's the page on Ubuntu on T61 [thinkwiki.org].

      From personal experience with Thinkpads, they are quite Linux-friendly. My old R51e has full hardware support in Linux. The latest version of Ubuntu works fine, in particular, and so does Debian.

      • > Thinkpads, they are quite Linux-friendly.

        1) Intel builds most of the interfaces in a Thinkpad, since they make the chipsets.

        2) Intel wrote much of the Linux driver code for their devices. Even for the stuff they didn't write, they have teams of people making sure the drivers work with their silicon.

        3) All Intel employees are issued Thinkpads (except for the few with Macs). They have been for years. So anyone in Intel responsible for driver support for an Intel chip is going to experience it on a Thinkp

  • Already upgraded. (Score:3, Informative)

    by binaryspiral ( 784263 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:42PM (#21598539)
    I ran with the factory Vista Ultimate image on my T61p (Core Duo 2.4Ghz 2GB Ram) for a month, and couldn't take the performance hit compared to XP on my R52 (Single Core 1.8Ghz 2GB Ram).

    After reading about the 1% perf increases of Vista SP1, I decided that wasn't good enough and nuked Vista, and installed XP - it's like I've weighed anchor and hoist ye misen mast.

    • couldn't take the performance hit compared to XP

      And I couldn't take the performance hit of XP, compared to 2000...

      In fact, I still miss NT4, but there's just too much software that doesn't work on it anymore.
      • And I couldn't take the performance hit of XP, compared to 2000...

        In fact, I still miss NT4, but there's just too much software that doesn't work on it anymore.

        Interesting, XP SP1 was when I converted from 2k and didn't notice much after turning off the themes, menu transitions, and transparency options in the windows.

        But I can say without a doubt, I don't miss the BSODs of NT4.

  • Posted from a T61 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by norbac ( 1113477 ) on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:53PM (#21598739)
    I just received my brand new Lenovo T61 preloaded with Vista home basic. What a disaster... but not because of Vista, but instead because of all the pre-loaded junk. The taskbar had 7 icons in the notification area in addition to the ones from the OS, plus a useless battery power gauge that took up another big chunk of real estate (this side-by-side with the already existing Vista power gage, so I'm getting duplicate data). I actually took a screenshot [flickr.com] since I couldn't believe it. I did a quick registry check and counted 30 executables set to auto-start on login. On every log on I got nagging pop-ups about turning on some lenovo software. Launching IE brought up two tabs, one set to always load the lenovo page. It was a slow, annoying mess...

    I flattened the machine and installed a fresh copy of Vista Ultimate. With the all the cruft gone, things are now flying on the machine, and I'm quite happy with the OS. The difference is astounding.

    All these negative comments I kept hearing about Vista make sense now, but it's clear that at least some of the disenchanment is misdirected. Don't OEM's actually use the machines they send out?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by afroborg ( 677708 )
      That has always annoyed me too. Why can't you buy a laptop with plain old windows installed on it? Why does it have to have a dozen irritating utilities, all of which insist on having a taskbar icon, and most of which simply duplicate functionality that already exists within the OS?

      Why would I need a branded wireless LAN config utility? The OS already does that
      Why would I need a "Modem Helper" utility? The OS already knows how to work a modem
      Why would I need a sound mixer utility? The OS has one alread

      • And so many of them are bundled / built in with the drivers for the hardware, so you can't even get rid of them!

        If the OS doesn't execute them on startup, they can't do a thing. If you remove their "Run" entries from the registry, Windows doesn't know anything about them.

        I suggest downloading and installing Startup.CPL as the first step on any machine, and removing any and all entries you don't want run, or even any you just don't recognize (almost nothing actually NEEDS to be run at startup).

        http://www.ml [mlin.net]

      • Most of such utilities are crap (autoruns usually takes care of them), but the one that I've found to actually increase functionality is Toshiba's power management utility [pringle.net.nz], which is a lot more useful than the default XP one.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Chysn ( 898420 )
      > What a disaster... but not because of Vista, but instead because of all the pre-loaded junk.

      Lenovo must be buckling under some sort of pressure. I bought an R60 (with XP Home) a little more than a year ago, and I was impressed by how much restraint they showed with the pre-loads. There was practically nothing. I did need to remove the stupid battery icon that you mentioned, and I actually started to LIKE to ThinkVantage stuff. But there were no free AOL trials, no irrelevant media players.

      Somebody
      • Same experience here, not much crap on an IBM bought about a year ago. Still: even under XP there were about 10 IBM programs started at boot, with cryptic names that make it look like a virus (googling helps there). As for quality: The IBM program to select between normal and presentation view is one of the better ones around. One of the disadvantages: As usual for IBM, the programs look like they weren't changed since they were first written in 1993.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MythMoth ( 73648 )

      Don't OEM's actually use the machines they send out?

      Honestly, I think the answer's "no" to that.

      When I got my R60e (bottom of the line, but still a nice bit of hardware), it was literally unusable. It was thrashing so badly that I couldn't get anything done. And that was with XP - after a reinstall (of XP) from my own disks it was absolutely fine. The task list went down from 90+ processes to fewer than 30.

      Could they afford to sell the R60e at the price I bought it for without all the shiteware? I don't know, but if I had been an unsophisticated customer th

    • Lenovo actually make it rather easy to address. They have a piece of software known as base system administrator http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/TVAN-ADMIN.html#TBSA [ibm.com] which when run puts a config file in the recovery partition saying what packages you actually want. You then do a recovery install and you'll have exactly what you wanted.
    • Vista, flying? on a laptop with a slow laptop hard drive? (even the fastest are slow), never seen Vista fast on a laptop.

      Wow, just incredible, I can only guess you've either opted for 4gb of ram, got an insanely quick laptop drive (solid storage?) or some kind of raid / dual hard disk solution, perhaps with the swap file on the secondary disk.

      Alternatively, your definition of 'flying' and my definition may be vastly different.
  • How about one with both OSes installed that you can just dual boot from? Or maybe throw Ubuntu in there and tri-boot.
  • I hope they still offer XP when the Penryn notebook platform comes out.
  • A few weeks ago i purchased a T61. The Canadian Lenovo website is horrible. There are very few options available (compared to the US site). Still I managed to find a sneaky little link off to the side which contained a very unorganized list of a bunch of T61 package permutations, and found one that suited me closely enough. There were two listings with identical options (not placed side-by-side) I found for this. One with Vista and one with XP. I seem to recall the XP variation cost $30 more. I took it (alb
  • Sorry if this is kind of off-topic, but i remember that when IBM sold it's PC department to Lenovo (even though Lenovo was actually producing the machines before that, anyhow), folks were very afraid that the great ThinkPad would fall in quality and robustness and all the things that make ThinkPads great - does anyone have anectodal evidence whether this actually happens, or are ThinkPads still the laptop-of-choice for the people that value quality over the bling-factor?
    • My experience is that they aren't quite as durable as they used to be, but are still a step above everyone else (excluding the more specialty stuff like the Toughbook, of course). I also like the styling, and a 5 year old Thinkpad looks like a Thinkpad, and won't look dated like silver paint with blue LEDs or white (and yellowed) plastic is going to look in a few years.
  • Although I wish they'd follow Dell's lead and offer Linux as an OS option.

    I had been looking at a ThinkPad T61 for months but finally splurged because they recently dropped by price by about $300. I've been using it for a couple weeks and man, this is a nice laptop. It reeks of thoughtful engineering and quality construction. It runs Linux perfectly, as long as you choose the right wifi and video cards. The best part? A midrange ThinkPad actually costs less than their competitors' flimsy equivalents. I don'

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