Thinkpads Forum

I ran a System Update check today, and it came up with two updates: ThinkVantage Fingerprint Software and Multimedia Center Think Offerings. The thing is, I've downloaded and installed these updates every day for the past week. I checked their versions, which are exactly the same. Am I doing something wrong, making them not get installed or something?

Well, System Update still seems to have its problems. Here some of the most common ones:
1. System update shows updates that don´t apply to your computer (either because they have been already installed or they are not meant for your system at all). As to why System Update would do that, remains a mystery.
2. The updates apply to your computer but they wouldn´t install because you don´t have some particular OS or software fixes that are required by these updates to install and operate (for example you don´t even have SP1 with Windows XP).
3. The update is applicable for your computer but there is a program or an OS element (like some fix) or it´s the OS itself that prevents this particular update from installing or operating (for instance, onscreen display won´t work in Server 2008 under any circumstances for now).
So, the best thing you can do is just to go to Lenovo website and manually download and install all applicable updates. Believe me, you won´t be the first one doing this. Apart from this, System Update doesn´t always show the most up-to-date updates from Lenovo (which might for example resolve compatibility issues), hence the chances for them of being incompatible for some reason with your current system are even greater. And last but not least, my personal experience with System Update is if it once fails at some of the above described points, it will always fail in this way unless you reinstall it or manually update it (after completely uninstalling it).

Hope this answers your questions

Marin

Okay. I'm not very computer literate though, so how do I know which updates my computer need and which it doesn't? I searched for updates for my model, and there were about 100 or so. How can I tell which are important, needed, etc.?

Have you filtered based on your OS?

If you have Vista you don't need to worry about XP updates, if you have XP you don't need to worry about Vista updates...

How are you using your computer? If you never watch DVDs then chances are you don't need to worry about WinDVD. Do you have a fingerprint reader? If you don't again you most likely don't need to worry about this software. If you do, and you are running Vista I find the new software useful. It seems to work better on my 64 bit system, and it has the Vista 'look" in my opinion .