Thinkpads Forum

When I first got my T42 for work, I nuked it thinking most of the IBM applications were just your typical bloatware, but when I did a system restore following a nasty beta testing experience, I opted to try it out. So for the better part of the last 9 months I've been using the full suite of software that came pre-loaded, and given the fact that I move from a varied number of environments, I really came to love Access Connections (3.x).

Then 3 days ago, I ran my updates and saw Access Connections 4.11a was available. A nice new interface, slight touch-up on the features, all well and good.

Then I needed to go ahead and share a VPN connection with my ethernet port, so I tried to do what I what I was used to at that point, try and close out Access Connections so it wouldn't get in the way of a non-typical network configuration. So I right-clicked on the system tray icon and was greeted by the complete lack of the ability to exit the application.

YARGH!

Who came up with that bright idea? Surely they know that Access connections doesn't work in 100% of all situations.

Is this a bug, or a 'feature' to prevent users from accidentally closing Access Connections and complaining when their profiles aren't working?

Good question. I can tell you, though, that I removed AC 4.11a from my machine because it affected system perfomance and my wifi connectivity. Back to trusty 3.81 for me.

Other problem software for me is Active Protection System version 1.34 and the newest 1.40 - rolled back to 1.32 and everything's fine once again.

Yup, the "non-exit" feature is here since the v4.0. Very annoying, I might add. Have you tried to make a profile for your VPN connection - I've seen a VPN option somewhere along the road while creating a Wired LAN profile. Just a thougth :)

zyphria wrote:Then I needed to go ahead and share a VPN connection with my ethernet port, so I tried to do what I what I was used to at that point, try and close out Access Connections so it wouldn't get in the way of a non-typical network configuration.

Um, er, why do you feel you need to do that? Access Connection is a corporate level application that does understand about the common VPN approaches!

Access Connection works just fine for me with a Nortel Contivity VPN.... I have an AC profile set up for establishing a VPN connection which loads the Contivity VPN application.

Cheers,

Bill

If Access Connections is not managing a current connection it seems fairly benign to me. I still don't like not being able to exit, however. I was servicing a client's laptop last night, and I could not get wireless to work via Access Connections. So I exited from A/C (and I think it was V4.01) and used Windows. A/C normally works well for me, but if something else is wrong, it would be nice to be able to exit. ... JD Hurst

Yeah, 4.11a is making my T42 boot up slow now.

Any suggestions as to how I can roll back to the previous driver? System Restore?

Just use the Software Installer to manage and uninstall packages and/or a rollback of a ThinkVantage application.

I have Access Connections 4.11a running and it works like a charm; cool interface (I like the P2P, Chat, Send File, and Whiteboard features ) and it hasn't, when I timed it, changed the cold boot time. It seems to actually connect as fast, if not faster, than Access Connections 3.81.

I notice that the "Welcome" page hangs longer.

I'm not sure if this is due to 4.11a or some other software installer update.

Well; I did see an option to have it chained to the Login screen via Username and Password; I don't use that though.

I had around 5 or 6 new updates, so I tried them out one by one. I didn't see any difference with Access Connections 4.11a.

I saw that chaining option as well - made sure it remained unselected, yet I still experienced very slow boot times. Tried setting Zero Wireless service in windows to "manual" but that didn't do the trick either.

The slow boot issue is definitely associated with 4.11 - it was the only software installed before the problem arose.

Other annoyance I encountered with 4.11a was that it would connect the wireless connection automatically after boot even though it was not selected (either in the windows option or in AC - wifi wasn't even set in the windows configuration!). Only way to make it stop auto connecting was to remove my wifi profile from AC! That's not really an option. Rather strange issue there. Seems to me that this second issue is associated with the slow boot (bootvis identified mrxsmb.sys as the culprit) - my guess: this is some sort of auto configuration or auto association issue.

No complaints on the interface though. Looks very nice indeed.

Is there a website or e-mail for feedback at IBM/Lenovo?

@BrandonRouth.com --> just uninstall Access Connections 4.11 using the Thinkvantage software install utility. When you start the software installer, you'll see 3 options - the second is for uninstalling Lenovo applications. Reboot the system and then use the software installer once again to install AC 3.81 ... No need for system restore.

Reverted to 3.81. When I hear they allow you to exit the program without having to manually nix the process I'll install it.

As for my scenario, maintaining a wireless network connection, while connecting with a VPN, and sharing that connection through my ethernet port...not frequent no, but don't make me threaten the stability of my computer in order to do it.

I think the reason why my startup/slowdown is due to the new active protection 1.40.

Anyone else experiencing something similar?

icantux wrote:I saw that chaining option as well - made sure it remained unselected, yet I still experienced very slow cold boot times. Tried setting Zero Wireless service in windows to "manual" but that didn't do the trick either.

The slow boot issue is definitely associated with 4.11 - it was the only software installed before the problem arose.

Other annoyance I encountered with 4.11a was that it would connect the wireless connection automatically after boot even though it was not selected (either in the windows option or in AC - wifi wasn't even set in the windows configuration!). Only way to make it stop auto connecting was to remove my wifi profile from AC! That's not really an option.

I have not experienced any changes in boot times with 4.11. My experience with 4.11 is as good as with any previous version (starting with version 3.30), if not better.

If I turn the wireless radio off with the Fn + F5 key combination, it stays off even after a reboot. I just press Fn + F5 again to turn the wireless radio back on, then I left-click on the Access Connections icon in the system tray, highlight my home wireless connection, move the mouse to the right and choose Connect.

Yeah! See, that's how I use AC and the Fn key with 3.81 ... All nice. But when I upgraded to 4.11 I ended up with those strange issues. Oh well, no harm done I suppose - just keep using that which works!

BrandonRouth.com - you experiencing problems with Active Protection System also? Heh, both 1.34 and 1.40 slow the shutdown process for me and I end up getting a userenv 1517 Error code at shutdown with either of those two installed. I started a thread in these forums regarding Active protection system issue. Rolled back to version 1.32 and everything's fine. The active protection changelog indicates no big functional changes to the software in either version 1.34 or 1.40 that affect my system so the upgrade isn't such a necessity. (1.34 and 1.40 only introduce features for SATA and support for a pen device - neither of which I use/have).

What does active protection do? Detect shaking?

BrandonRouth.com wrote:What does active protection do? Detect shaking?

Protects your hard drive by detecting sudden shocks to your system. Look here for the full explanation:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-53167

I thought it was just me before I found this thread. I did an update on my wife's A30 and got the new AC which killed her WiFi connection immediately and even after the first reboot. I got it back working later and has been reliable so far without seeming to effect the boot times.

My T23 was an entirely different story! Got AC 4.11 and it loaded up fine, but would not let me get on to my AP no matter what I did. I looked at the Windows WiFi settings and they were all butchered up. So I dumped it and reloaded, same result. After 4 hours of messing with it (@ 2am) I gave up and dumped it for good and reloaded with a copy of 3.71 I had laying around and imported my backup copy of profiles. Like magic..... my WiFi was back and working fine! Anyone have any thoughts/ideas? At this point, I'm just curious to what might have happened.

The only hiccups that one would encounter is Windows trying to install its own drivers and registry entries in the middle of the Ac 4.11a Update install. Also, it is possible that the WiFi driver also got knocked off; I would have checked your net connections in Windows or have done an ipconfig. If those come up blank, you know that the net driver and base config for the Wireless got messed up. In that case, a manual install of 4.11a should fix the problem. If, however, you don't need any of the newer features that 4.11a offers, then you should stick with either 3.71 or 3.81 . HTH