Thinkpads Forum

So I am trying, I am REALLY trying to accept vista but I just can't. Random blue screens, slow as hell, I mean really slow. Ram hog. Its just plain junk. In the process of installing XP Media center on it and am pretty much done. Its so much faster to have XP.

Am I alone here or do most of you feel the same way. Its like Vista is just making the T61 feel like an A20P. Am I wrong?

i installed XP because i felt it's sluggish with Vista.
now after uprading to 3G ..i suspect it's actually faster then XP with the same amount of RAM. bottom line it's FAST !

i didn't get a single blue screen yet ...

i do have one problem with VIsta and Outlook 2003 though ... but that's about it.

Since my upgrade to 3G i didn't use XP again ...

It is also a power hog. I tried to clock down my CPU but it keeps on surging up.
Superfetch seems to guess a lot which programs you are going to use next to cache into memory but most of the time it guesses wrong.

not familiar with the power issue ... it idles at the same clock for me when using XP or VIsta

T23_Owner wrote:Am I alone here or do most of you feel the same way. Its like Vista is just making the T61 feel like an A20P. Am I wrong?

I have been using Vista business 64-bit on my T60 for 3 months. It is really fast, fluent and stable, not even a signle blue screen during work time. Only went dead a few times during resuming from hibernation. 2GB memory is strongly recommended for Vista.

List the spec of your T61. Blue screen normally means a software/driver issue for modern Windows.

XIII wrote: Superfetch seems to guess a lot which programs you are going to use next to cache into memory but most of the time it guesses wrong.

Superfetch, ReadyBoo(s)t and ReadyDrive in fact have the contrary effect of slowing down your system down instead of speeding it up, read a detailed test on them recently and i can only recommend turning them off until Microsoft has fixed them - maybe in SP1 but they're still broken in SP1 beta so who knows..

I love Vista Ultimate 32 on my new T61p. I've had the laptop for about a month. I'm also using Office 2007 with it. 3 GB Ram (really four but only 3 recognized) T7700

I also run XP Professional Sp2 on an R50p with Outlook 2003 and Office 2000. 2GB Ram Pentium M 735 or something like that.

My Vista Ultimate T61p is faster, more stable, with zero blue screens since purchase. It took me a little while to get use to System Restore grabbing 15% of hard drive space, but now that I know I can recover that space easily, I live with it in case I need the restore points.

Every major application I use runs great, except I haven't yet purchased the Vista version of pcAnywhere. Outlook 2007 is much more trouble free than Outlook 2003. Word 2007 seems a bit easier than 2003. I like the idea of document.docx vs doucment.docm where the .docx have no macros.

I purchased the XP downgrade disks for this laptop in case I choose to go back to XP, but I have no reason to yet.

I think the quirks of XP we've grown accustomed to compared to Vista. For example, even though I keep my XP application free of spyware and such, half the time I boot to XP, half of my taskbar processes don't load, and I have to "log off" and "log on" to get them to work.

I can't speak to the clocking issue. I know my T61p runs cooler than my R50p.

I use both every day.

clean install of vista ultimate x64 here... zero blue screens, zero slow-downs, and only three application failures according to the reliability monitor.   it's been running fast, efficient, and doesn't leave me guessing whatsoever.

the biggest key to vista right now is in doing a clean installation and reading up on how to optimize it.   it's not an out-of-the-box OS for the masses given how many complaints i've read about slower speed and above-average hard drive access times.   if you're having issues and still want to use vista then do a clean installation.

fwiw, an optimized installation of vista with aero turned off is just as fast as XP and server 2003.   i've tested this myself and have absolutely no reason to believe otherwise.   i leave aero turned on because i actually like the improved visuals -- it makes using my computer every day much less boring.

my boot times are fast, too, at around 40 seconds on average according to the Event Viewer.   these can be viewed at Administrative Tools > Event Viewer > Application and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics-Performance > Operational > then click on any event with an event ID of 100 for startup and 200 for shutdown.

vista is based off of the server 2003 platform.   i'm finding vista easier to manage, set up, and tweak compared to 2003.   i also like IIS 7 quite a bit more than IIS 6.

I'll eat my own bile before I go back to XP.

Vista x64 is the best OS MS has ever put out. Period.

The only catch is, you MUST have a minimum of 2GB of RAM for it to run smoothly (i.e. Superfetch cache to be efficient).


In 14 months of using the OS (including Beta 1, 2, RC1, RC2), I have never had it blue screen on me. NEVER.


System specs in sig:

i have just one question , how 64 bit OS works on 32bit CPU ?
i thought you need 64 bit CPU to run that ....?

Core TWO Duo's are ALL 64bit.

haha ok .... so they have no problems running 32bit OS ??

Core 2 Duo cpus can run 32 bit OS.

Hmm, all this talk about Vista 64 bit got me wondering so I installed it and I must say I am eating my words. It is quite the speed demon.

Question though, can you install 32bit apps on vista 64? If so how do you know they are 32 bit or 64 bit when installed?

T23_Owner wrote:Question though, can you install 32bit apps on vista 64? If so how do you know they are 32 bit or 64 bit when installed?

all of your 32-bit apps will install into "%SystemRoot%\Program Files (x86)" and some control panels will install under the "View 32-bit Control Panel Items" panel.

Maybe the 64 bit version is just that much better than the 32 bit version?

My t61p came with Vista Business 64 bit. I did a clean install. It runs very very very fast. Much faster than XP 32 bit runs on my home PC, even though my home PC has about the same specs.

T23_Owner wrote:Hmm, all this talk about Vista 64 bit got me wondering so I installed it and I must say I am eating my words. It is quite the speed demon.

Question though, can you install 32bit apps on vista 64? If so how do you know they are 32 bit or 64 bit when installed?

Vista64 is actually 2 OSes in one.

First, there is the native 64-bit kernel (which, if you haven't tried it, is FAR superior to the 32-bit kernel in XP and Vista32). That runs anything 64-bit.

Second, there is a 32-bit "wrapper" that loads when you boot that "encapsulates" any 32-bit application you run in it's own address space (i.e. it's own little 32-bit world, within the 64-bit environment).

The wrapper has 2 primary functions - 1) compatibility with your 32-bit applicaitons. 2) protect your 64-bit environment from rogue 32-bit apps. This second function turns out to work so-so (and doesn't work at all if you turn UAC off).


Because the 64-bit kernel loads up the 32-bit wrapper, you essentially have 2 OSes running at once (and you can tell this from the memory usage).

But it is worth it. Vista64 simply SCREAMS.

Oh, and except for not finding a driver for my 6-year old scanner, driver support has been just as good as with the 32-bit version.

Thanks for explaining about the 32 bit wrapper! That is good to know.

Fortunately for me, I run 4 gigs of RAM so my machine can handle the extra memory demands

so as a regular user , what benefits the 64 got on the 32 ?

i know about the 4G ram Vs 3G. but what else ?

danny_isr wrote:so as a regular user , what benefits the 64 got on the 32 ?

i know about the 4G ram Vs 3G. but what else ?

Faster. See:
http://64-bit-computers.com/windows-vis ... hmark.html

About 10.9% faster.

HOWEVER... This test was done on a budget piece of crap computer with only 512 megs of RAM.

I believe the difference will be even greater if done on a faster machine.

Also, this is off topic a little but, some tests have shown that Vista is up to 30% faster than XP when using a dual-core CPU. This is probably because Vista was written to better make use of both cores whereas XP was written before dual core CPU's were widespread. In your face, people who bash Vista and say XP is faster!

My experience as a non-technical user of Vista is somewhat mixed but overall positive.

I have a T60 that came with XP Pro. Needless to say, XP Pro worked flawlessly- not a single complaint on my part.

When I received the Vista Business upgrade, I installed it and had to do a clean install, as the upgrade installation was totally screwed up. Long story short, after a couple of BSODs due to powermanager (coming out of hybernation while still on battery power; this topic has been amply discussed in this forum), Vista started working the way it was supposed to.

So, I am happy and Vista works flawlessly. I haven't had any issues after the updates that fixed the BSODs. Vista is a lot faster when opening up programs, it's more stable when many programs are open at the same time, and overall it's more secure (all those prompts that people complain about before running a program are exactly designed, as I understand it, to stop any malicious activity on its tracks).

The one complaint I have about Vista is that the network manager is more complicated than it has to be. I understand that many of the "features" of the manager are designed to make it more secure, but the interface to get into the advanced properties is not very intuitive, to put it mildly.

Other than that, I am very happy. Please keep in mind that I am a not a computer engineer, or an engineer of any kind for that matter. I am in literature, and I just happen to like good computers.
Just my two cents.

Well I am knee deep into my Vista 64bit install and I must say the T61 screams with it vs all other OSes I have tried. Its definately 10x faster than 32 bit vista business that came with it.

Problem is now the software. I have been able to find 64bit drivers for all my hardware which is amazing but finding applications that are 64 bit are just impossible.

You see I am moving from mac to pc again. So sick and tired of that [censored] ugly [censored] overpriced macbook pro and drooling over Thinkpad widescreens I said screw it. Now I am stuck with tons of h.264 content and iphone and ipod ect. What to do? I installed the quicktime alternative and it works even though it shuts down Windows aero which Is totally lame. Aero is not compatible with crap so I am running vista basic look now. Big woop. Need some 64 bit music player though. Still looking.

T23_Owner wrote:Problem is now the software. I have been able to find 64bit drivers for all my hardware which is amazing but finding applications that are 64 bit are just impossible.

autocad 2008 x64 is the only major 64-bit app i have.   the rest are 32-bit.   you don't have to use 64-bit apps under vista.   besides, it'll probably be another year before we see more 64-bit-native apps anyway.

Aero is not compatible with crap so I am running vista basic look now. Big woop. Need some 64 bit music player though. Still looking.

i haven't had any issues with aero so far.   what do you have that isn't compatible?

for music i use itunes and the gear software driver to work with my DVD-RAM drive.   the newest version of itunes may not need the driver but it did as of mid-september.

erik wrote:

T23_Owner wrote:

I have the NV140 Nvidia Graphics and under XP Pro it crashed when installing itunes and playing anything apple with quicktime. Looked into it and turned out to be the drivers from Nvidia causing incompatibility. So I Started using my Vista 32bit business install on my T61 but it was very buggy and slow. I then broke out my Vista Ultimate DVD and installed Vista 64bit Ultimate on a new drive and everything works great. Except Itunes not compatible. NOW you say it is huh?

What machine do you have? Can you view quicktime movies without error? Does ipod work with itunes? How about iphone?

Itunes has worked with the 64-bit version of Vista since version 7.1 IIRC.

It's not 64-bit, but it is compatible.


(at least the AUDIO - I've never used itunes for video)

T23_Owner wrote:Except Itunes not compatible. NOW you say it is huh?

What machine do you have? Can you view quicktime movies without error? Does ipod work with itunes? How about iphone?

itunes works fine under x64.   i'm on the latest version, 7.4.3.1, and the gear software driver linked above.   on a previous version of itunes i had to install itunes first then install the gear driver to make the DVD burner error message go away.   7.4.3.1 might have fixed this.

quicktime works fine and i can view embedded QT movies on apple.com -- and web use is really all i use QT for.   my 16GB ipod touch and 4GB nano (the original one) both sync up with no problems.   i don't have an iphone and cannot comment on that.

my thinkpad is a T61p 6459-CTO.   specs are in my signature.

erik wrote:

T23_Owner wrote:Except Itunes not compatible. NOW you say it is huh?

What machine do you have? Can you view quicktime movies without error? Does ipod work with itunes? How about iphone?

itunes works fine under x64. i'm on the latest version, 7.4.3.1, and the gear software driver linked above. on a previous version of itunes i had to install itunes first then install the gear driver to make the DVD burner error message go away. 7.4.3.1 might have fixed this.

quicktime works fine and i can view embedded QT movies on apple.com -- and web use is really all i use QT for. my 16GB ipod touch and 4GB nano (the original one) both sync up with no problems. i don't have an iphone and cannot comment on that.

my thinkpad is a T61p 6459-CTO. specs are in my signature.

But what graphic card do you have. I am still getting crashes when I view quicktime video in firefox.

brentpresley wrote:I'll eat my own bile before I go back to XP.

Vista x64 is the best OS MS has ever put out. Period.

The only catch is, you MUST have a minimum of 2GB of RAM for it to run smoothly (i.e. Superfetch cache to be efficient).


In 14 months of using the OS (including Beta 1, 2, RC1, RC2), I have never had it blue screen on me. NEVER.


System specs in sig:

Actually, I wouldn't believe this if I don't test it out myself.
But after trying Vista X64 out, I am convinced. It is really fast and reponsive compared to both XP Pro and Vista X86. The battery life also goes up compared with XP Pro. I now get 3 hour and 22 minutes on a 6 cell battery on T61 with Nvidia graphic.
One drawback is that my CAD Designer does not work but I have an X60s to use it on so it doesn't matter that much.

T23_Owner wrote:But what graphic card do you have. I am still getting crashes when I view quicktime video in firefox.

all current T61p models have the nvidia quadro FX 570M.

i'm running firefox 2.0.0.8, itunes 7.4.3.1, and quicktime 7.2.0.240 -- all of which work together as advertised.   as a quick example, i can watch the ipod touch intro video either embedded or separate in firefox with no hangups whatsoever.

So when you guys saying 64bit which version exactly you referring too (name wise) ? there Business 64 and Vista Ultimate .

will Lenovo (or Microsoft) upgrade me from 32 to 64 and any idea how much that cost ?

thanks Dan