Thinkpads Forum

Hi I'm going to upgrade my second T61 with SSD. The point is which Windows I should choose. Is Win 8 better than Win 7 today? Can Win 8 support Intel X3100 graphic chip?

Pick whatever you prefer. I like Win 7 over 8 myself. 8 is still to buggy for me and I don't like the crap that MS forced down my throat with 8.

+1 for Windows 7. Everything about Windows 7 design was made with consideration of being the most capable and useful as possible to the end-user. None of that was considered for Windows 8. I have gotten used to Windows 8 (and 8.1) once I learned all the new tricks. However, I most prefer Windows 7, with my second choice would be Kubuntu. After that, Mac OS X. Win 8 would never be a consideration in situations where I have a choice.

jayton4 wrote: Win 8 would never be a consideration in situations where I have a choice.

Very well put and sums my own feelings towards that OS better than I've ever been able to express them myself....

I have now 4 T60's in the family with Win 8.1.
Windows 7: Been there, done that. Very nice for people who have the PC on all the time and have nostalgia for WinXP.
Win 8 boots much faster, no driver issues and very, very stable.
The last 3 T60's i bought used was with Win7 installed. I did not even bother to boot into this once, the Win8 disk was put in immediately.
All machines are running very fast and smooth, mine with a slow SSD boots in 17 secs, the others with conventional HDD's in less than 30 secs.
The modern UI can be bypassed if one wishes, and the APP-world is mostly crap for me.

I have Win 8.1 running on three X61s, so I think it can support your X3100.

For an SSD, 8/8.1 is better. It writes much less during hibernation, which gives an SSD a longer life.

For user experience, I prefer Windows 7. I use it on all my hard disk laptops.

There is a significant difference between 7 and 8 for people who use the Expresscard slot. 8 has a basic system latency of about 1ms, regardless of processor speed. 7 has a basic latency of 250us, 1/4 that of 8. For instrumentation use, as with National Instruments Labview, or Firewire devices, 7 is the better choice.

Windows 7 works perfectly with SSD. my only advice here is to ensure you regularly check for firmware updates. I use a crucial M4 512GB on my workstation server (a mac) but at some point when I'm up and running with a T61 for on road recovery work, then that might benefit an SSD of some description.

I road tested Windows 8 as a blind IT tech and to be direct, it's a waste of time and money. the feel of it and it's methods is way way too far out lol and the only advantage of a windows 8 DVD is a drinks coaster lol. you know the old trick of using your tower's CD drive as a coffee mug holder. lol just the same thing.

ed

Thank you very much for your help. I've been using SSD with Win 7 on my first T61 for almost a year and it runs quite nice. Now it's time for my mum's T61. Following your opinions I'll vote for Win 7 once again. Hope I won't regret that.

^^^ What's there to regret? Sooner or later you'll run across a copy of Win 8. If you happen to like Win 8 better then reload with Win 8.

My Windows systems are set up with a C drive/partition and a D drive/partition. The C drive contains Windows and all programs while the D drive contains My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, My Videos, Downloads and any other data. Backup is done only on the D drive. Whenever I wish I'll simply wipe the C drive and reload everything.

My observation with Windows is this:

Win 98 - good
Win ME - bad
Win XP - good
Win Vista - bad
Win 7 - good
Win 8 - bad
Win 9 - ??? Hopefully good, as in Vista to Win 7 good.

I don't find Vista and W7 to be all that different.

if some of you are using T61/R61 with NVIDIA video card, can you post which drivers u use?

I tried Win 8 and 7 with SSD. Win7 seems to work faster on everyday use, 8 is faster in booting/hibernation etc. Finally i get back from 8.1 to 7.