Thinkpads Forum

Got my T60 last Thursday, and I've been moving my applications over to it this weekend. One of the annoyances I came across while doing so was that it took a LONG time to authenticate when first logging onto Windows XP and returning from a password protected screensaver. For the latter, I'd get a small dialog telling me to swipe my finger on the reader, and would have to sit through a 20 second delay before I could return to my applications. Before logging on, I'd see the "Checking the Status of the Security Chip" dialog for 30+ seconds, then get the swipe logon, then wait a while before Windows actually authenticated.

Didn't seem very practical to me.

I decided that I'd try the latest version of CSS, which appears to be 8. That turned out to be a bigger project than expected, since it also requires Rescue and Recover v4, and you can't carry your CSS 7 settings over. So I took the plunge, upgraded to RR v4, uninstalled CSS 7 (which caused a bluescreen at one point, oh, yeah), then installed CSS 8.

All I can say is WOW. Logging on with a finger swipe is now actually a convenience, quicker than typing a password. I LIKE it!

I can only conclude that something was wrong with CSS 7 before; I can't imagine anyone finding authentication that takes 5 times longer to get you to where you can be productive to be particularly effective.

I've seen other threads where fingerprint authentication seemed to be a culprit in authentication delays, and I've also seen complaints about CSS 8. So far, though, my experience has dramatically improved with its installation.

Are there people around there that have the same experience? I took the 7 version off my system, and i am finally starting to feel like i bought me a Dual Core laptop!
I wouldn't mind installing it again, knowing that i won't slow me down.
I am very impressed with all the Thinkvantage applications, except when they lag me.

Dodge, does CSS 8 offer a similar encrypted virtual drive option that CSS 7 had?

I read somewhere in passing that CSS 8 didn't support PrivateDisk anymore. I'm rather fond of having a fingerprint-protected volume on my system, though I haven't looked into just how secure PrivateDisk is.

PD support was removed from CSS8. But you can still install PD after CSS8 when you copy the install files over to another dir before the upgrade. Just have a look in the CSS dir. There is another dir inside, which has all the install files for PD.

Another alternative would be Truecrypt which i'm using fine under XP and Vista.

I recall thinking the exact same as you when I upgraded from CSS7 to CSS8. But there's more to it than that. This past weekend, my T60p took a dump, and I had to reload from factory. I did a custom factory install and didn't install R&R or CSS, figuring I'd just install the more recent download of CSS (I used R&R once to burn off the system restore CD set, and then uninstalled it). When I installed CSS8, I got the crazy slow "checking the status of the embedded security chip" message. There is a setting in CSS8, however, to disable the client security logon interface. If you disable it, you will still be able to use the fingerprint reader to logon, you will still have access to password manager (if you use that), but you will greatly speed your bootup time.