My First IBM: T60p 14" - questions on preload / formatt

[Azurik]

Hey! I am very excited to join the IBM Thinkpad gang. My work place got me this model and I fell immediately fell in love. I just bought one of my own, but have a few questions to get it up and running.

Mine came with Windows XP Home - going to wait about a year for Vista to get a lot of its kinks out. I want to do a fresh install however...

I have Rescue & Recover 3.1, and am currently downloading 4.0 as we speak. I heard this new version allows one to customize what programs will be installed.

Does anyone have advice on which Thinkpad applications are important to leave in there and which one most people can live without? I am taking out the majority of junk apps, but I am not sure about the IBM Thinkvantage ones? Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: Also, is there a guide out there that shows you how to do a fresh install of another OS from scratch. I am planning to get Windows Vista Ultimate next year and besides making a backup disc of my Recovery data, I am not sure if I am missing something critical.

Sorry for the dumb questions, just an excited new owner who wants to get everything done right the first time around!

[arni]

From my experience i would leave the proload just as it is and only remove those applications you really don't need / use. But if it's your first TP then take your time and explore all the tv apps if they benefit you and uninstall them only if you do not feel comfortable with it.

BTW i'm using my TP with the factory preinstall and only removed diskeeper since i'm a long fan of perfect disk.

Also i would suggest you to stay with the R&R version which came preinstalled on your laptop as some users had difficulties after upgrading R&R for different ways. Just do a search on the forum.

Second, you have R&R 3.1. With this version you can get a nice utility from Lenovo to customize your preload. Take a look at Matt Kohuts article over on lenovoblogs to learn about this process:

http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=63

But most important! Do a set of recovery discs at first! You'll won't regret it if something goes wrong and you have to go the fresh way.

[RonS]

arni gave you good advice. Thinkpads come minimally bundled with crapware. The few that are there are easily removed. A lot of you just paid for - the Thinkvantage software - actually some pretty good things. If this were a Dell or HP, I would be right there with you slicking the drive and re-installing. But that's not the case with Thinkpads.

I think you should play with it as-is for a while, and then selectively uninstall applications and utilities you don't need.

[Azurik]

From my experience i would leave the proload just as it is and only remove those applications you really don't need / use. But if it's your first TP then take your time and explore all the tv apps if they benefit you and uninstall them only if you do not feel comfortable with it.

BTW i'm using my TP with the factory preinstall and only removed diskeeper since i'm a long fan of perfect disk.

Also i would suggest you to stay with the R&R version which came preinstalled on your laptop as some users had difficulties after upgrading R&R for different ways. Just do a search on the forum.

Second, you have R&R 3.1. With this version you can get a nice utility from Lenovo to customize your preload. Take a look at Matt Kohuts article over on lenovoblogs to learn about this process:

http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=63

But most important! Do a set of recovery discs at first! You'll won't regret it if something goes wrong and you have to go the fresh way.

Thank you for the advice. Upon reading this, I deleted the R&R 4.0 .exe file I downloaded yesterday and will most likely keep all of the Thinkvantage application. I just don't want Client Security, Google Desktop, Google Picasa, AOL and everything else that came preloaded. I have my own tools for those. I'll also make a recovery disc DVD.

As far as that Base Software Administrator program stated in that Lenovo blog, I came across that already and downloaded the software. However, it's a bit confusing to me. Here's what the blog author had to say about the program:

"The typical scenario would be to boot up your system for the first time, create a “manifest file” using this tool, and immediately thereafter do a factory recovery. However, when the system recovers, it recovers to YOUR specifications."

What I got from that is I basically I create a custom "manifest file" with what programs I want loaded, and all I have to do is go to R&R and select reset to factory default and let the manifest file kick in? How does it know which manifest file to use? Is there a place you should save the manifest file you created?