Thinkpads Forum

My T60p came pre-installed with Vista, and after playing around with it for over a week, I just installed XP on it. In both cases, I updated the same drivers to the latest version via SystemUpdate 3.

I thought I'd try to help some people who are debating between the two versions of the OS by comparing the two and how they function on this particular machine. This doesn't address the differences between the OS's, but ONLY the machine specific differences... Such as driver support and hardware interaction.

UltraNav: The synaptics driver for both OS's is similar. However, XP version is very obviously much more mature. This is most noticable with the scrolling functions. With Vista I had to hack the driver to enable scrolling in the basic 'notepad' applet, and couldn't get it working at all in Visual Studio.NET 2005 even after hours of playing with the .dat files. With XP, everything worked fine "out of the box."

Power Management: Very similar, kind of. One very annoying thing I found with thinkpad PM under vista was that if I shutdown the machine, and then started it back up while it was plugged in, after I logged in, the screen brightness would go down to "3" (which is the setting I had for battery - not the "7" I had for AC power.) If I unplugged the thinkpad and plugged it right back in, the screen brightness would jump back up to "7" properly. Another quirk with the thinkpad power manager under Vista was the battery icon that it puts on the taskbar. Under vista, it was constantly flickering. Under XP, it appears to work better.

ATI driver (FireGL 5250): There are a couple options "missing" under the Vista "catalyst control center" that appear in XP. Mostly minor and unimportant stuff, but it reflects the fact that the XP driver is more mature.

Rescue&Recovery: I made a backup image (to CD/DVD) with R&R of my hard drive after I had installed most of my apps under Vista. A few days later, I restored that image to the HDD, and Vista wouldn't boot. The fix was easy enough: boot a real Vista DVD and "repair" the installation. However, not everyone has a real Vista bootable DVD handy, so this might cause issues. I haven't yet tried R&R with XP yet...

Other driver-type issues: There are many programs that have issues running under Vista. I haven't found ANY program capable of monitoring the ATI video chip on a vista machine, for example.

The funny part about this? I actually prefer Vista, and it's the OS I'm using on my home desktop machine. I'm disappointed that I'll be using XP on my thinkpad. Perhaps in a year or two, the thinkpad drivers will be up to speed as well...

What is your impression (or measurement) of power use under Vista and XP? I tried Vista for a week after the RTM came out but before public release and found that it took about 50% more power than XP, even with the eye candy turned off. This was too much for me to take so I ran back to XP. I would hope that the power management drivers have gotten better, but I'd love to get some confirmation of that before I try Vista again.

-darren

garyd9 wrote:The funny part about this? I actually prefer Vista, and it's the OS I'm using on my home desktop machine. I'm disappointed that I'll be using XP on my thinkpad. Perhaps in a year or two, the thinkpad drivers will be up to speed as well...

There is a great deal of difference in power consumption, Vista sucks it down pretty quick. Much like yourself I too like Vista (business) better and on my T60 (model below - 4.0 rating) it runs great. One thing I have noticed by doing a clean install with a retail version (which is apparently possible to do with an OEM version as well, check out the Vista conference) is it will run very smooth with very few Lenovo drivers installed, just the bare minimum. I'm dual booting because some of the networks and troubleshooting I need to do require me to use XP. But I have been forcing myself, slowly to try Vista any way to see how far I can get with some software drivers to run equipment I troubleshoot, before I run into any issues. It's been close to 70% effective which is pretty good considering the first thing out of most network admins and IT people I deal with is some totally negative comment about Vista and driver compatibility (third party), I'm not sure they are really trying or don't have the time to deal with any issues, which is understandable.

Vista is promising but when I run it on my desktop pc, I feel like it has taken full control over my computer more than I do in XP.

rye, have you tried turning off UAC? It is a pain, and.......what version and what specs are your desktop, I tried it on my R52 and kind of felt the same way you do, it's just not enough machine to run it, well.......the way I want it to.

Can anyone say: '18-Cell'?

While I am still using Vista RC1, I do notice my temps are somewhat higher than in XP - so Vista must be consuming more power. I really haven't run Vista on battery yet to see how it goes, but anecdotal evidence in the Vista forum is not good.

No, I have not.

I am using Vista Ultimate version on Intel P4 1.8Ghz with 512MB memory and 80GB 7200RPM hdd.

I'd go up to a gig of ram and maybe upgrade the video card????

darrenf wrote:What is your impression (or measurement) of power use under Vista and XP?

Actually, I found that if properly managed, battery consumption under Vista isn't much worse than XP.

You have to go into the power options, and make sure that stuff like the indexing, media sharing, etc. is set to 'power save' (or whatever sounds like it uses the least power) for the battery config. The Aero interface also makes the CPU/GPU work harder (and therefore use more power) than XP.

Finally - the Big Secret is.. Don't shutdown Vista. Ever. Either use "restart" (and only when on AC power) or hibernate. Vista does all kinds of fun disk access when it's first restarted and/or a user first logs in.

All that being said... XP is still better for battery usage than Vista (but not THAT much better. I was getting 5-6 hours on my 8744-J2U (T7200, 2GM, FireGL5250, etc) with a 9-cell with light usage. With XP, I haven't fully tested, but I'll guestimate about 6 hours.

BTW, my full battery config with the machine is (power hungry)

T7200 C2D (Adaptive power)
2 GB RAM
FireGL 5250 (battery saver mode)
15.4 WSXGA+ at brightness 3
Full 60 refresh always
Using wireless (802.11g at close range - full power saving)

Clean install of Vista Ultimate, updated with all SystemUpdate3 stuff except for the client security, migration, and a couple of other things that didn't seem to serve any purpose for me.


Actually, I was playing with discharging the battery, so I changed the above config to max performance on everything, 7 on screen brightness, and played a DVD movie. Twice. (Movie was 'Cars')

how do you put the firegl 5250 in powersaver mode? I only get 3.5 hours on my box with a 9-cell, which is pretty bad. I do have the IPS screen though, which is a power hog, usually running the LCD at 4/7. It's not a problem for me, as I'm not particularly mobile, but it would be nice to increase it a little biit.

Kyocera wrote:I'd go up to a gig of ram and maybe upgrade the video card????

Ya, I can't agree with you more.

sb37 wrote:how do you put the firegl 5250 in powersaver mode?

Powerplay section of the catalyst control center (advanced mode).

i had xp pro, and with a clean install of vista, i am happy (not with the upgrade though). You are right though that, vista still has some driver issues. For me though, all the lenovo drivers work fine. Maybe it is the clean install. Just my two cents. Cheers

Am I the only one that PERFERS Vista?


I hate the bloatware that IBM/Lenovo calls drivers and such. Never installed it on XP or Vista and thought both OSes ran tons faster.

Vista does consume battery power faster than XP, but I attribute that to there not being a vista-compatible version of Notebook Hardware Control yet (so I can't undervolt my CPU like I did on XP). When that comes out, I'll do a less-biased apples to apples power consumption comparison.

Just my 0.02.

brentpresley wrote:Am I the only one that PERFERS Vista?


I hate the bloatware that IBM/Lenovo calls drivers and such. Never installed it on XP or Vista and thought both OSes ran tons faster.

Vista does consume battery power faster than XP, but I attribute that to there not being a vista-compatible version of Notebook Hardware Control yet (so I can't undervolt my CPU like I did on XP). When that comes out, I'll do a less-biased apples to apples power consumption comparison.

Just my 0.02.

I was thinking of installing a fresh copy of Windows XP.

Brent, I'm right there with you, I'm lovin it Like it better than OSX too..My opinion not trying to start anything.....please...

Dallas now, huh, guess I won't be coming over to pick up parts anymore.

I'm too for vista on my T60.

I can't argue that Vista consumes much more battery than XP. Maybe there's a difference bout 10-15 min. but afterall just get the 9-cell battery and you are good.

Secondly, sure the drivers still need to improve. But i think that Lenovo is making a good job compared to other manufacturers in the field. They have been among the first with complete Vista drivers for their machines on RTM and since then constantly updating their stuff. So for me theres no problem. I can wait a week or two, since the drivers out yet are pretty good for normal work.

After all i like Vista more than XP. I also had problems with XP on my T60, especially some weird rebooting and hibernation stuff which i never coud fis. Vista runs smooth on this machine and beside some litte quircks i'm all fine with some hacks here and there.

In the past people where always complaining bout MS and their OSes. It was the same when moving from w98 to 2000, from 2000 to XP, XP to Vista and will be in the future, too. I think everybody who's interesed should give it a try and decide by himself if he's ready for the new OS or not. There are lot of good ressources for information like this board, neowin and a lot of blogs from which you can get valued information and help.

Just my 2c.

arni wrote:Secondly, sure the drivers still need to improve. But i think that Lenovo is making a good job compared to other manufacturers in the field.

Exactly, not to many manufacturers have been anywhere near pro active, it's not like this has not been in the works for a couple of years now. My machine is running fine with Vista and just for "those special times" I'm dual booting XP, which looks rather drab now compared to Vista.

You should check if it's not possible to use VirtualPC or Server for your XP needs.

Since i'm not having any hardware which is not working under Vista i'm doing all software stuff that has problems in Vista in a XP virtual-pc and i'm all fine since my TP can handle all this load without hitches.

arni wrote:You should check if it's not possible to use VirtualPC or Server for your XP needs.

Since i'm not having any hardware which is not working under Vista i'm doing all software stuff that has problems in Vista in a XP virtual-pc and i'm all fine since my TP can handle all this load without hitches.

This would be great EXCEPT for the fact that VirtualPC 2007 has ZERO support for USB devices. Kinda kills why I would need to run XP for a few minutes.

They introduce this, then I'll be all over it like white on rice.

When you need usb support then go for vmware beta. I gave it a try but for my needs vpc is ok.

trying to bring this thread back on topic (meaning not a vista vs XP generic discussion, but a t60 specific one...)

I'm currently trying to restore an R&R backup (done on a network drive) from an XP drive. In my case, I'm doing the restore due to a WMP codec that FUBAR'd WMP, but it'll be curious to see if the restore is bootable or not without having to use a rescue disk... (unlike the R&R restore of a Vista Ultimate backup.)

BTW, credit where credit is due: the R&R stuff is pretty handy. Most notebooks only come with "restore discs" (or images to make the discs) that only allow you to restore the notebook to factory state if you can't boot it. It's nice being able to boot into the hidden partition and restore a backup from a network drive... That, combined with a NAS device...

garyd9 wrote:I'm currently trying to restore an R&R backup (done on a network drive) from an XP drive. ... it'll be curious to see if the restore is bootable or not without having to use a rescue disk... (unlike the R&R restore of a Vista Ultimate backup.)

Success. Took a while, but the restore of XP went flawlessly and booted up just fine. Add this to the list of ThinkPad specific issues with Vista...

garyd9 wrote: Rescue&Recovery: I made a backup image (to CD/DVD) with R&R of my hard drive after I had installed most of my apps under Vista. A few days later, I restored that image to the HDD, and Vista wouldn't boot. The fix was easy enough: boot a real Vista DVD and "repair" the installation. However, not everyone has a real Vista bootable DVD handy, so this might cause issues. I haven't yet tried R&R with XP yet...

I've experienced the same thing with Vista Business. I have the Thinkpad 8744J2U. After the restore, the system wouldn't boot, it said "missing startup.exe". When I used the Vista DVD to repair, it worked. Here is the problem: the restore process actually altered the hidden partition and caused it not to work properly. If you try to restore again in the future, you will need to insert the "start-up" disk from the set of your backup. And if you try to restore the computer to the factory state, it won't work, an error message "can't find Preboot.cmd" will appear. In case of any confusion, this problem only happen after you restore the computer from your backup image files.

When I reported this to tech support, they said my hidden partition might be corrupted. They sent me the Recovery Disk set. After I used it, I found that the FireGL V5250 driver didn't load because it wasn't included in the image files of the Recovery DVDs. The IBM people admitted it was a flaw with the Recovery DVDs and they were working on fixing it.

Back to the issue: whether or not my hidden partion was corrupted. The answer was "no". When I tried to restore and the same things happened. I ended up with older drivers from the Recovery DVDs they sent me.