x220t Windows 8 issues

[Lucky#Slevin]

Hi folks!

After spending 3 hours of setting up Windows8 on my X220t and trying to get it to work exactly as under Windows 7 I got down to these problems. I have looked for quite some time on the internet for solutions, but I am afraid, that none of these can be resolved. If one of you does in fact know a solution, please tell me (and the rest of the world) about it!

The problems:
- The power management software cannot be installed, thus the battery options like "charge up to xx%" and "begin charging only if battery is below xx%" are not available.
- The Tablet Shortcut Menu can be installed, but does not do everything it should. The orientation that is being switched to, when flipping the screen, could be set in the control panel under Win7. In Win8 the icon in the control panel is missing entirely.
- The touch screen (finger) does not seem to have the correct drivers. I cannot disable "Enable boundary feedback for pan gestures" under "Pen and Touch", because it is simply not available. The feature (boundary feedback) is enabled though - which annoys me.

[Bánh mì]

Hi folks!

After spending 3 hours of setting up Windows8 on my X220t and trying to get it to work exactly as under Windows 7 I got down to these problems. I have looked for quite some time on the internet for solutions, but I am afraid, that none of these can be resolved. If one of you does in fact know a solution, please tell me (and the rest of the world) about it!

The problems:
- The power management software cannot be installed, thus the battery options like "charge up to xx%" and "begin charging only if battery is below xx%" are not available.
- The Tablet Shortcut Menu can be installed, but does not do everything it should. The orientation that is being switched to, when flipping the screen, could be set in the control panel under Win7. In Win8 the icon in the control panel is missing entirely.
- The touch screen (finger) does not seem to have the correct drivers. I cannot disable "Enable boundary feedback for pan gestures" under "Pen and Touch", because it is simply not available. The feature (boundary feedback) is enabled though - which annoys me.

W8 sounds like a complete disaster. But have you tried the Lenovo Newly Released Drivers page to see if there are any new patches/software upgrades which might help?

[Lucky#Slevin]

W8 sounds like a complete disaster. But have you tried the Lenovo Newly Released Drivers page to see if there are any new patches/software upgrades which might help?

Well, it is not the complete disaster I thought it to be. Though I must admit, that I only managed to do it with the help of some "hacks". For starters: I had to install a digitizer driver version which someone posted as a direct download link off the wacom website, which was not able to be found through their website. Weird. Well, it worked - I am not going to question it any further.

I did manage to solve two of my three problems stated in the opening post, but you are not going to believe how: With the "troubleshoot compatibility"-feature of Windows. That way I could properly install the tablet shortcut menu as well as the power manager. Trying to install the multitouch drivers does still result in an error message stating that no suitabe tablet could be found in the system.

I also took a look at the newly released drivers, but none of those were of any help to me.

[Lucky#Slevin]

What works:
Bluetooth
Works very well, pairing with my phone and my bluetooth headset was very easy, and quicker than under Win7.

Wireless LAN
Works as expected, but I had far less trouble signing into my university network. While I had to set a certificate and a couple settings under Win7 I only had to provide my user details under Win8.

Dual monitors
Slight critique: When I plugged in a 1280x1024 VGA Display, it automatically switched to "clone" mode and showed a 3:4 ratio image on the laptop's screen. This could of course quickly be changed. I would prefer to have the standard setting to be "do not change anything until I tell you to".
I am the kind of person that does not like to aim for the little x that closes a program, I just prefer to move my mouse onto the very top-right pixel of the screen and click. This obviously only works, if the mouse actually stops there. Under Win7 I had to put my smaller display to the right of my larger display (desktop PC) and adjust it, so that the top 176 pixels of the left screen have a right boundary. This is not necessary under windows 8 anymore. Since the top right corner pops up the charms bar, they probably decided to put an invisible boundary along a couple pixels at the top right of the screen, so you could still bring up the charms bar, when using a monitor to the right of your main screen. Nicely done, Microsoft!

Cardreader, Hotkeys, Pen-Input, Audio, Webcam, Power Manager
All of those work pretty much as expected, even though their setup was not always easy.

Fingerprint reader
This works just as well as under Win7, but unfortunately I am much faster entering the password instead of waiting for the fingerprint reader to activate in the log-in screen.

What doesn't work:
Touch input
Well, it does work, just not like it should. I am very certain I am missing the correct drivers, since only 2 fingers are supported and at least 5 should be, if I am not mistaken.

What I haven't tested:
- LAN (why shouldn't it work)
- WWAN (never used it, and probably never will, but the driver installed nicely)
- GPS (the driver installed nicely)

What I am not sure about yet:
There are a lot of aspects of usability, which I did not have a chance of trying yet, but I will just have to wait and see. For example, I have a completely redesigned on-screen keyboard now. I am also not sure about the metro apps.

My verdict:
It is definitely worth it, as long as I don't find a program that won't run anymore.

[Timpel_800]

could you share the way you've got the powermanger working? I've just downloaded the latest driver from lenovo and installed it, but the program is just nowhere :S

[Lucky#Slevin]

could you share the way you've got the powermanger working? I've just downloaded the latest driver from lenovo and installed it, but the program is just nowhere :S

The PowerManager is a different program, you simply installed the driver. What you need to do is to get the power manager software for Windows7, which you can download at the lenovo site. Then you unpack it as usual and when the window asks "install power manager now" (or something the like) you uncheck that and quit. Then you search for the unpack location, which defaults to "C:\SWTOOLS\readyapps\pwrmgrv" and right-click setup.exe. Select "troubleshoot compatibility" and run the program as if it were installing under Windows7. Everything should be the usual after that.

This answer also applies to the Hotkeys and the Tablet Shortcut Manager.

[piledriver]

Did you manage to get the Fn key OSD working?

Powermanager works great, but could not convince the Hotkey/Fn OSD to work using same procedure.
(admittedly on X300 and X200T, but same driver)

[GomJabbar]

Did you manage to get the Fn key OSD working?

Powermanager works great, but could not convince the Hotkey/Fn OSD to work using same procedure.
(admittedly on X300 and X200T, but same driver)

I got the Fn key OSD working on my X220 by using version 3.81 of the Hotkey Features Integration for Windows 7 driver. You can download that version from a table at the bottom of the page below. For some reason, the newer 3.84 version at the top of the page breaks the Fn OSD in Windows 8.

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS014985

[piledriver]

Profuse thanks, but no joy, even tried uninstalling everything and then deleting the existing HOTKEY dir/contents just in case there were stale files.

Tried with win7 and vista compatibility.