Thinkpads Forum

I had to roll back my T60 to a Win 7 32bit Home Premium image from over a year ago, made not long after installing Win7 from scratch. Today, after installing over 100 Windows Updates and some programs and utilities I know I want, I'm getting close to where I'll image the system again so I don't have to spend a whole day doing this again! I ran Lenovo System Update and was immediately informed that I needed to download a more recent version. I did that and it ran automatically. It wants to install one critical update:

ThinkPad Hotkey Features Integration - Vista/7/8/8.1 [32,64]

"Recommended" updates include the following:

Thinkpad Power Manager - Vista/7 [32,64]
Thinkpad UltraNav Utility
REACHit 2.0 - 7/8/8.1 [32,64]
Message Center Plus - 7 [32]
ThinkPad Bluetooth with Enhanced Data Rate Software - Vista/7 [32,64]
Lenovo SHAREit - 7/8/8.1 [32,64]

Optional updates:

Lenovo Power Management Driver - 7 [32,64]
Synaptics Thinkpad Ultranav Driver - Vista/7/8/8.1 [32,64]
Password Manager - 7/8/8.1 [32,64]

Which of those are worthwhile installing and which should I avoid? I figure the UltraNav Utility is probably good, have no clue about the others, including the Synaptics ThinkPad UltraNav Driver. What do you think?

Be aware that the newest Hotkey Features versions sometimes break the functionality of the OSD displays. On a couple of T400/T410/T420 machines I needed to revert to a previous version (V3.81) to make it work again. But do perform the update and check out what happens. All UltraNav and PowerManager updates should be ok to do, I haven't experienced any problems by using the newest versions here.

REACHit, SHAREit, Message Center and Password Manager is software that's not strictly needed in order to run your Thinkpad. I have only tried SHAREit, this is software used to connect to and transfer files from and to phones and other wireless devices. I assume you have this software installed in the first place, as you are asked to update it? If you never use it, maybe you are better off uninstalling it?

Software like Message Center Plus, Password Manager, REACHit and SHAREit I usually uninstall since I never use them and/or they get in the way of "clean" day-to-day operation. Everything else I would update since it's software to support the enhanced functionality of the various ThinkPad hardware features.

I last did a system update on my T420 about 2, maybe 3 months ago; I haven't noticed any problems with the on screen display, however I'm not sure if a newer version has been released since then which is known to cause problems.

In my cases it has always happened when I do clean installs and manual driver installation. I have also answered some posts here on non-working OSD, but I don't remember the specifics. I suspect it will be a non-issue in this particular case, but worth mentioning.

Thank you for the contributions. I intend now to go ahead and check REACHit and SHAREit because it looks like they might be very useful. Of course, what the imagination does with a few words may not be what will happen in reality! I will pass on the Password Manager. I'm not great with passwords, but my browser has a PM thing going on and I intend to investigate PM's like lastpass and keepass. Looking at the info in the Update Utility for the Password Manager I get the idea that it might not support my 3rd party browser, Pale Moon, so I'll not install it. Also suppose I will leave off the message center, don't know if it would be a big help or an annoyance.

Power Manager I don't know about. I did a little searching and some people said the PM driver was a problem. Do you guys install the Power Manager update? And if so, is the driver necessary?

Looking, I evidently don't have SHAREit installed right now. Or REACHit.

Yes, the driver is needed. I'm not sure if this was on one of my T4x or T6x machines, but the device manager showed an unknown device without the PowerManager driver installed. And certain other functions are dependent on it as well. You can install the driver without needing to install the Power Manager itself, but not the other way around.

You do already have it, btw, as we are talking about an update here. Do not uninstall it.

http://www.shouldiremoveit.com/Message- ... ogram.aspx

At the above page it suggests that 94% of the people who have Message Center Plus retain it, so maybe it's OK and won't get in the way... could help, maybe, so I'll install it.

So, I have everything checked for installation in the list in the OP with the exception of Password Manager.