Thinkpads Forum

thinkvantage softwares are beginning to give me more and more headaches,

the only things i'm aware of that i use are,
power manager
FnF4
presentation director(very rarely for when plugging monitor into a tv to watch movies, i think windows can handle it without this).
Fn Home/End for screen brightness
Active Protection for HD...
keyboard light
hard drive in ultra bay, but i don't use thinkvantage easy eject, i just use the windows safely remove hardware
system update

i never use:
rescue and recovery for backups
Fn space bar zoom
blue thinkvantage button

but i have processess running for these types of things i never use.
are they necessary for thinkpads to function?
can i remove these unused things?

am i correct that if i remove rescue and recovery i won't be able to create recovery media?

if i'm not into the thinkvantage software, do i really need recovery discs?

i'm thinking i can't be the only person having issues with these softwares?

What kind of "issues" are you having? Surely, the things you list as not being used shouldn't give you problems if they're running. I think you need to be more specific about the issues.

As for removing/uninstalling software, you can do that or just disable some of them from starting up, either using "msconfig", or disabling the related service. I don't think you can do anything about the blue access button though (not through windows), but I could be wrong.

am i correct that if i remove rescue and recovery i won't be able to create recovery media?

I personally don't use R&R, but instead use the official install disks as needed. It's recommended that you create the disks if you plan to uninstall R&R. It wouldn't hurt and you might need them one day!

ok so i kept

Access Help
Active Protection System
Client Security Solution
Create Recovery Media
Help Center
Power Manager
Presentation Director
Productivity Center
Rescue and Recovery
System Update
ThinkPad Configuration
UltraNav Wizard

but anything else i ditched, i don't even remember what they were anymore.

but what's the deal with SoundMax?
is it necessary to keep?
i never use it, or any of its functions, but i obviously want sound out of my machine

If you talking about the Soundmax Update utility, you can uninstall it. You won't lose your sound.

i meant the regular soundmax, which sounds to me like i would lose sound huh. thanks.

The Soundmax I'm talking about is just the update utility. If you open Control Pane > Add/Remove Programs, you will see a Soundmax app listed. This is just an update utility.

Naturally, if you remove the Soundmax driver, you will lose sound.

What Soundmax are you referring to... can you list more detail about the name.

particularly in my running processes, smax4pnp.ext
in my add/remove programs i only have 1 soundmax thing, it just says soundMAX 1.59MB rarely used

Actually... I gave you some wrong info.

The Soundmax app in Control programs is not an update utility. It is an app that gets installed to give you the ability to access the soundmax options. Since I never used the options, I just uninstalled it on every thinkpad I own... 6 of them. It has nothing to do with the sound driver.

If you're unsure what will happen, just uncheck it using msconfig and restart your computer. After restart, check to make sure the process is not active and check your sound. It should still be there. If it is, just use Add/Remove programs and uninstall the app.

oh, yeah, duh, idk why i didnt think of that, i tested it, and removed soundmax, still have audio, no worries, thanks