Windows 7 New Beta drivers

[dickchailey]

Downloaded the new Thinkpad Windows 7 Beta drivers today. Wished I had left things as they were! The System and Power drivers seem OK but the Power Management driver caused a blue screen crash as soon as I clicked on the Battery Gauge. I uninstalled in Safe Mode and all seemed OK but I am now getting a blue screen if I try to update a device driver.
I did get a far is installing the new Hotkey application but it failed to cure the Wireless FnF5 not switching the wireless card issue.
If Windows 7 is working with XP drivers leave well alone - that's my experience with a X31!

[Harryc]

Windows 7 is not set up to work with XP drivers. Use Vista drivers if no others exist. Also, had you installed any other drivers manually before installing the BETA drivers? On my T60P, I had a clean W7 install and used all of the BETA drivers. Everything works fine.

[K0LO]

I had good luck with the following four Lenovo beta drivers for Win7 -- System Interface, ACPI Power Management, Active Protection, and Hotkey Features after first uninstalling the older versions (all from Vista except Active Protection) then installing the beta drivers. The beta Hotkey driver seems to finally work properly, although I had to tweak it to remove the Fn+F6 feature (Webcam/Mic control) that is not supported on the X61T. Details here if anyone is interested.

[dfumento]

I have an X200s and I suspect this applies to T400/500, X200(s,t), X301 -- the newer models that have the AuthenTec fingerprint reader.

Instead of the Lenovo reader the Windows Update loads the Authentic driver but I coiuldn't get the enrollment to work.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/02/2 ... windows-7/

Has a reference and instructions. After uninstalling the AuthenTec Driver and letting it re-install then it worked.

[defor]

I had a massive pile of problems installing the new beta drivers in Win 7 after the vista drivers had already been installed- even an uninstall left Hotkey, Power, and Access Connections in an unusable state-
A nice clean install of 7 and the Beta drivers solved all this and I can't be happier!
Only vista driver holdovers are GPS, Modem, ATSC Tuner, and Rescue and Recovery, and so far, none of them seem to have any issues- made a nice restore disc set as soon as I got the x200 loaded up.

Hoping Lenovo makes a small icon version of the Access Connections toolbar as it's nice, but it resizes the bar to large icon size if enabled...

[donzoomik]

I can also confirm - new drivers fixed all current problems. Ericsson WWAN could use updating though to natively support W7.

[defor]

Seems to have been updated for my build-in SE WWAN in X200...
check HSPA Wireless WAN - 7uwc46ww

[MrBean]

I can confirm all new W7 beta-drivers (except ultranav) work fine on my no-so-clean install.

edit: Just got m new LCD cable, which supports the fingerprint reader in my new bezel, and the FP software is complaining it cannot find the reader - in hindsight, loading the FP software and drivers left the driver in ? state, and I had to search the driver online - Biometric Processor now installed, but FP software still not working.

Pretty happy for most part, thank you Lenovo.

[averkiev]

After installing the Fingerprint driver, the fingerprint no longer works. It used to work just fine prior to that.
System X300 with Windows 7 RC1

[dickchailey]

Tried again on my X31 after restoring to the time before I started installing the beta drivers.
The power management driver dies not work with the X31. Blue screen as soon as you click on the battery level. The new OSD software together with vista wireless driver is working great and I can now switch the BT and wireless card from FnF5. Finding the best wireless driver is key - if the wireless light at the bottom of the screen is off find a different driver! Once it is lit the FnF5 worked.

[GomJabbar]

Note that there are two similarly named drivers:
1) Power Management Driver (for general power management - ACPI)
2) ThinkPad Power Manager (for monitoring batteries)

AFAIK, the "ThinkPad Power Manager" does not support models older than the T43 (such as your X31).

[dickchailey]

You are correct - the names are confusing. I used the Vista ACPI driver. Sleep and wake worked fine. It was the Thinkpad Power manager I gave up with. As Win7 comes with battery change monitor I only lose the ability to interogate the battery condition. I could try the Vista battery monitor but why bother.
I need to try the dock with a second battery. Not sure what Win7 will make of that!

[Gridstop]

This stuff worked great on my x60t, but I'm clearly missing whatever is responsible for auto rotate when I go to tablet mode.

[pae77]

My problems were solved by these beta drivers. Although it took a couple of reboots to get everything running well.

I also did an upgrade install to the latest leaked version of W.7 which is 7137. All is good.

[K0LO]

This stuff worked great on my x60t, but I'm clearly missing whatever is responsible for auto rotate when I go to tablet mode.

Gridstop:

You need the Tablet Shortcut Menu. The link is to the Vista version. If you can do without auto-rotate, don't install the Tablet Shortcut Menu. Instead, map the button to the Windows Mobility Center, which is more useful than Lenovo's menu.

[Gridstop]

Gridstop:

You need the Tablet Shortcut Menu. The link is to the Vista version. If you can do without auto-rotate, don't install the Tablet Shortcut Menu. Instead, map the button to the Windows Mobility Center, which is more useful than Lenovo's menu.

Thanks! I had removed the two orientations I didn't use from the list, so the rotate button was just a toggle, but the Mobility Center works great too, and I can pin it to the taskbar which frees up one of the tablet buttons. Party.