Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

Trying to fine-tune this T60 for a family member:

Anyone else ever have issues with any of the ThinkVantage utilities? I recently had to do msconfig->Services, and un-check "Access Connections Main Services" to prevent the ThinkVantage Access Connections utility from hi-jacking the wifi set-up for the machine.

In other words: I want to use the windows wifi utility, and had checked the "Use windows to configure my wireless network settings" in the "change advanced settings" tab of the generic windows wifi setup window. After successfully connecting to my home network, I tested this setup by restarting... Only to have the TVAC utility take control again.

Thoughts? On a related note... Are there any other ThinkVantage utilities that I'd be better off unloading/uninstalling?

Thanks.

My personal opinion is that the ThinkVantage apps range from very useful -> to not worth installing. The argument for removing a lot of the ThinkVantage apps is, as you've experienced, the tendency for them to interfere with the OS'es built-in functions. Also, a lot of the apps are more headaches than helpful. Here's one take on the apps:

Useful:
- Active Protection System. Shuts down your HDD if bumped or stressed.

- Presentation Director. If you connect to projectors, this is useful since it will mirror your laptop to the VGA port and offer some alternatives.

- Fingerprint Software. Integrates well with login and system startup.

The nice thing about these three apps is that they don't interfere much with the OS. They just do their thing in the background quietly and efficiently.

Neutral:
- Power Manager. I installed this just because it seems to provide a few options to ensure that I am getting the highest performance from the machine. I believe you still have to do a few tweaks in Windows, however, such as disabling deep power down for your wifi adapter.

-EasyEject. Useful if you have Ultrabay HDD adapters or need to hot-swap out items on the Ultrabay. Not useful if you don't.

-Backup and restore. I don't use this so I can't comment.

-Maintenance. I believe I get better results using my own set of apps for defragging and cleaning up old files. But for those who don't want to bother manually cleaning and defragging, this isn't a bad option.

Annoying:
- CSS, or Client Security Solutions. I can't stand this app because of how flaky it is, and for the way that it interrupts every form I enter by asking if I want to store it as a password in CSS. I ended up having to disable CSS from my apps as well as my online websites for two reasons. 1) It's much more secure for me to remember my passwords rather than having a program store it all. 2) ALL this program does is store passwords. I thought that because of its ties with the TPM, that it would encrypt some sort of data, but no, all it is is a bloated password storage app. Because of its intrusive nature, it tends to slow down my overall system speed and that's not worth it to me. Plus, many times I get the "this user could not be enrolled" error message, despite doing everything by the book.

- Zoom (Fn + Space). Zooming around messes up my window anchor points and icon alignments by resetting them to some strange default. I haven't found the need to zoom in outside of graphic apps like Photoshop, and since this takes up background memory, I decided I'd be better off without it.

- Ultranav Wizard. Nothing here that you can't find under Control Panel -> Mouse, assuming you have the latest synaptic drivers installed. Also takes up memory by auto-running in the background.

- Thinkpad configuration. Redundant.

The bottom line for me is that I wanted my system running as lean as possible, with no extraneous processes running in the background. To that end I found that a lot of the TV apps just took up memory and space without offering much use.

Awesome! Just what I was looking for-- Thanks.

I would disagree - ThinkPad Configuration is useful and required by at least one app.

this is the kind of information/perspective I wish was in a sticky.

To some they're annoying however to others they're useful.

The information about the utilities? or the utilities themselves?

Would it be useful to put up a sticky concerning basic questions and solutions? Like a FAQ sticky? I see lots of threads asking similar questions about, what kind of vid card do I have? what can i do with it? what hd to get? 5400 7200 difference? is it sata? etc.

back on topic.. I found this:

http://prowiki.isc-csg.upenn.edu:16080/ ... dows_Vista

A university's advice concerning which apps to use, which are useful, under Vista.

Always uninstall Diskkeeper and DLA (if possible) or at least disable in msonfig (start-run-msconfig-ok-startup). Im a bit ambivalent on Google stuff.

More or less agree with your list Nandaiyo.

Useful:
- Active Protection System.

- Presentation Director.

- Fingerprint Software.

- Power Manager. Presentation Director and ACM need Power Manager to work efficiently. Look into having a low recharge threshold. It works wonders for your battery life.

- Thinkpad configuration. Use it. Works.

- System Migration Assistant. Works. Very nice to move users between computers. Would be perfect if it came with a decompression utility for those very rare broken packages.

Neutral:
- System Update. Somewhat buggy and the latest Multimedia package they recommend for download/install doesnt work. Beats the hell out of manually updating every single package.

- Active Connection Manager. Somewhat buggy but does nice stuff and is wonderfull for larger companies. The latest client (4,41) is the most stable yet, since 3,82. Uninstall for home users, and users with either very advanced or very simple wireless demands.

- EasyEject. Useful if you have Ultrabay HDD adapters or need to hot-swap out items on the Ultrabay. Not useful if you don't.

- Backup and restore. Not the best backup utility but very nice to make a snaphot of your computer. I recommend ppl disable the scheduled backup. Best practice is to work with your new computer for a week or so and once you are happy with your computer make a base backup of your computer. That way you can turn back the clock if you run into problems and still have your programs up and running as if nothing happened. You dont need to reformat completely.

Annoying:
- Productivity Center

- Access IBM

- Client Security Solutions.

- Maintenance / Away Manager and its nice for desktops computers. Not Laptops.