Thinkpads Forum

Hi I am a happy owner of a brand new t61p (dual core duo t9300 @ 2.5 ghz). I am a beginner to intermediate user. Could you someone please enlighten me and ramp me up:
(1) checklist of things to do and load and removing any 3rd party crap that came with it?
(2) I have an old laptop (hpq nc6230). It would be nice if I could get most of my settings for most things, programs, templates without trying to do an image of hard disk (reason i can't do an image is because the hard disk is damaged..it allows copying to an external drive though). So I want to see what files, folders i need to bring over without messing things up with the new laptop.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Krish

One suggestion to transfer your settings from your old machine, it's a Microsoft utility:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... ber12.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306186

Warning, it's not a clink-and-be-done thing, you have to make a few selections to git it to work. There's also a guide linked on the RH side of the first page, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... t.10).aspx -- Copy the entire URL, the "( )"s are throwing off the link parser.

Be sure to create Product Recovery disks:

How to create recovery media using ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery.

Afterwards remove the programs that don't interest you based on your requirement, following thread has some very helpful links and info. about ThinkVantage software:

List of what each ThinkVantage product does?.

Be sure to search for other threads with the same question.

stkris wrote:Be sure to search for other threads with the same question.

I was going to say that too, because this general question comes up a lot.

I second the vote about creating recovery disks. Regarding the 3rd party "crap", IMO Lenovo doesn't load too much of this (have you ever used a Sony? ) so you shouldn't have too much of problem. Most people tend to trim down some of the Thinkvantage utilities. I would recommend you hold off removing anything unless you're absolutely sure you won't/don't need it. Play around with things for a while and if after a few weeks or a month you find you're not using something, go ahead and remove it.

There are plenty of threads on this forum asking questions about what can be removed, especially what Thinkvantage utilities can be deleted, so you may want to do some searching.

Enjoy the new toy!

As far as the "Bloat" goes, I personally didn't find half of them particularly useful. What I ended up doing with my recovery discs was use them to create my own OEM XP install CD with SP3 slipstreamed in using nLite, and customized the drivers specific to my T60. Afterwards, I downloaded *everything* off the IBM download page listed for my machine and tried everything out one by one, jotting down a list of stuff to keep and stuff to toss.

After that, another fresh install and only installed the "to keep" apps and I'm running well

Thank you very much to all of you who replied! This was very helpful!! I do have a dumb follow up. I went ahead and created the "rescue and recovery" disks. Do I need to create a separate "bootable disk" as well just in case?? Is it different from rescue and recovery disks? And if so, then what is the difference?

thanks
Krish

kkrathi wrote:snip.....Do I need to create a separate "bootable disk" as well just in case?? Is it different from rescue and recovery disks? And if so, then what is the difference?....snip

Nope, recovery disks are all that you need, the first disk in the set is bootable.

Thank you all very much. One of my first posts as a newbie and I loved how cooperative everyone is. thanks again

Krish

" What I ended up doing with my recovery discs was use them to create my own OEM XP install CD with SP3 slipstreamed in using nLite, "

How can i create an oem xp install cd with the recovery disc?

This thread has a step-by-step guide to creating your own OEM Windows disc:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=3827

I think the guide focuses only on SP1 and SP2, so you may to ask around about SP3 but I don't think the process will be much different or difficult.

Superego is correct, the process is very much the same.

After a bit of testing various settings, I managed to get it working in not very long.

The main link in that thread appears to be down though, so here's quick walkthrough:

1. I actually stumbled across this site, and I followed much of what was written in this guide: http://kylefarnung.com/index.php/2007/0 ... tom_oem_wi

2. I downloaded nLite off the main site.

3. Downloaded SP3 network installation file off MSDN.

4. Downloaded relevant drivers off IBM/Lenovo.

5. Pull I386 directory off the recovery disc or your laptop if it's there.

6. Start up nLite and point to where I386 folder is.

7. Slipstream SP3 into folder.

8. Slipstream Intel Matrix Storage, Ethernet and Wireless drivers.
**NOTE** I only added these in my final attempt because I included every driver in my previous tests and it caused some problems. Perhaps I was not setting them up properly, because even slipstreaming in IE7 didn't work. It would install but when I tried to launch it, it would just crash immediately. I decided to only install the most crucial drivers first (Need a way of getting online to download the rest, of course) and decided on these. You may try adding the others, but YMMV.

9. Set up install/startup/misc options in nlite.

10. Burn Image and install.

There were quite a few problems I encountered though, but that link should clear up most of them. There's one point I want to make but I'm unsure of its legality as it involves IBM's OEM key. If someone is interested, I'll PM a mod to see if it's OK to post.

Thanks very much for the links and the instructions. I will try it out