Thinkpads Forum

I'm about to receive an X61s from the Lenovo Outlet, with Vista on it. I want to replace it with XP, and know how to go through the process of a clean install.

However, to save some time, would it be possible simply to load an XP preload from a T61 on to the X61s? Is there enough hardware in common to allow this to work?

Any advice would be welcome.

I'd give it a shot...assuming that T61 has integrated video...personally, I'd try it anyway.

Should that fail, you may want to try to create restore media from T61 and then do a clean install on the X61s...

My $0.02 only...

From experience, a T recovery set won't work on a X. Windows will continually bluescreen on bootup (including in Safe Mode).

You can give it a shot, but I would start the process of acquiring a set of the appropriate recovery discs if I were you.

It is possible that you might get the T61 preload to work. If you are using recovery disks, I think the possibility is higher since the recovery disks seem to be made for a fairly wide range of hardware (at least within a series of machines) and to be able to adjust, on the fly, for varying hardware.

Another possibility is that you might give Vista a try. I resisted Vista for a very long time, about a year. I am now using Vista almost exclusively and actually prefer it to XP, although I'm not sure I could tell you why.

Vista boots up more slowly than XP, but once it is fully booted up (and especially if you limit which programs you allow to be booted up during the boot up phase using msconfig or other method of doing so) it seems to me to run at least as fast as XP.

There are many programs that supposedly will not run on Vista, but in my experience you can get a lot of them to run (all of them in my own personal experience) if you use a little common sense and perseverance. This includes such things as trying to install them in Vista (and ignoring warning messages) then going to the website of the producer and finding an update to install on top of the XP version you previously installed. This and similar strategies have worked for me, every time. Your own experience may vary.

Edward Mendelson wrote:I'm about to receive an X61s from the Lenovo Outlet, with Vista on it. I want to replace it with XP, and know how to go through the process of a clean install.

However, to save some time, would it be possible simply to load an XP preload from a T61 on to the X61s? Is there enough hardware in common to allow this to work?

Any advice would be welcome.

Rather than do a lot of extra work right off the bat, why not give Vista a little try? Ditch the fancy Vista animations and use the Classic mode. Set performance to Performance, rather than Let Windows Decide and set Windows Explorer to Classic.

You might be pleased with the result. I can run Vista even on a older R50p with plenty of speed and responsiveness.

Vista needs some time to index things, (which you can adjust)-it needs time to learn your habits via Superfetch.

Also, your computer may come with XP backup media. Mine did; the only way to get Vista media was to burn them from the

Custom install with Rescue and Recovery is another option if you want to give Vista a try. I've had Vista on my machine with a clean install. I'd mirror what others have said. It's not that bad if you clean out all the all the junk and unwanted startup programs. If you're running Vista Business or Ultimate it includes the right to downgrade to XP Pro if you can find a disc to install it.

yesterday i have recovered my x61s from T61/R61 WinXP disks.
everything work ok.

Thank you!