Still lovin the Z60t

[jobooth321]

Just got done wiping and totally rebuilding my aging Z60t. It's running much faster and cleaner now. I'm still really digging this machine.

Gotta love the Thinkpads!

[dorronto]

OK......can you tell us what you did...how did you rebuild it and what did you find that was out of the ordinary if anything....

I just picked up a nice z60t and was wondering what more can be done...


Thanks,
Ron

[jobooth321]

You asked, here you go!

~~DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK~~
I build my laptop clean. I remove all the Lenovo "bloatware" and only load what I need/want. This is what I do. I'm not saying it's the best, but it works for me. Take it or leave it.

1) I backed up all my files, music, pics, docs, bookmarks...
2) I download all necessary drivers and software from Lenovo that I want back on my laptop. I'll list these below. It's good to have them ready after you re-install XP. You might need to check your device manager to verify what hardware you have vs. what is listed on Lenovo's site. Sometimes they install different hardware in different versions of the Thinkpads. Make sure you get 'em right.
3) I then double and triple checked to make sure I had everything stashed safely away in two locations
4) Boot off the XP cd (not the recover disk, mind you. I use a Windows XP disk.)
I have to start with XP SP1 because the registration key supplied with my Z60t is for that level.
5) I remove ALL partitions and create 1 partition. I am still running on the original 40GB HD, so I don't have room for multiple partitions. If I had a larger HD, I would partition it differently. This will wipe out the recovery partition supplied by Lenovo. I have no use for it.
6) Format it to NTFS (not quick. Takes longer but is more thorough)
and do your install.
**Note: you will be offline. I consider this the "danger time" as your machine is running base OS with no anti-virus and no protection. Keep it off the Internet!
7) Start loading up the drivers you downloaded earlier. There will be lots of reboots. Don't worry about the software yet, just do drivers. Some of the software packages rely on .Net updates that you do not have installed yet.

Once the drivers are installed, get your machine on the Internet and start updating. Update Update Update. SP2, SP3, IE8, every security related fix...
9) Once updated install your anti virus. I use AVG because it's free.
10) Make sure the Windows firewall is turned ON
11) I then load up the Thinkpad softwares that I like.
12) I then load up all my miscellaneous softwares listed below.
13) After doing so, I start configuring my laptop to my liking by:
moving the taskbar to the top of the screen
removing the language and quick start bars
organizing my start menu, gettings things alphabetical (drag and drop the items)
turn off indexing on my hard drive
open windows explorer, right click your C:\ drive, properties, uncheck the indexing box and approve for ALL folders
Go to your display properties and enable the windows classic theme, remove desktop wallpaper
tweak your screensaver and power settings to your liking
right click "My Computer" - properties - Advanced tab - Performance Section - Settings button - enable best performance then check "show window contents while dragging" and "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop" cause they really annoy me. OK it.
14) Do a Hard Drive cleanup and several defrags. I usually defrag like 3 times in a row. 1 time isn't enough at this stage. The hard drive is pretty trashed after installing all this stuff.

You should be running pretty smoothly now. Here is where I take it a step further. Most people can stop here if they want. If you're comfy, hit http://www.blackviper.com and check out his tweaks. He will have your computer running faster than it's run in a long time. I use the "safe" customization file with a few tweaks of my own so that I can still manually hit Microsoft Update. I don't like having automatic updates.

Thinkpad software:
Hard Drive Active Protection System
Hotkeys
Keyboard Customizer
Easy Eject
Thinkpad Configuration
Magnifier
Power Manager (driver and utility)
Fingerprint software
UltraNav Utility (driver was loaded earlier)

Miscellaneous Software that I install:
7Zip
CDBurnerXP
Spybot Search & Destroy (update and immunize)
Little Registry Optimizer
Little Registry Cleaner
Firefox
Audacity (audio editing)
with the LAME plugin
IrfanView (picture editing)
SUPER (video conversions. Useful for my mobile, iPods, iPhones...)
OpenOffice.org
Pidgin
DVD Shrink, DVD Decryptor, DVD43, Handbrake (yeah yeah yeah I know)
MediaMonkey
VLC or Media Player Classic (not to be confused with Windows Media Player)
K++ media codec pack (codecs for DIVX and XVID)
Vuze
taskbarshuffle
freeram xp pro

[Neil]

my aging Z60t

Considering the age of all my Thinkpads, I would think of a Z60t as a nearly new baby. Just can't think of it as old, or even "aging".

totally rebuilding

So not really any "rebuilding", just format and reinstall software. I usually think of that differently from rebuilding, which I see as totally disassembling the machine and rebuilding it with new or upgraded parts. I dunno, maybe that's just one of my many quirks.

[Louis]

I'm still loving mine as well. I decided to ditch Windows and put Ubunutu linux and my Z60t is running like a champ!