Thinkpads Forum

Assuming I can solve my battery dilemna (other thread), and can get my 600E to boot from CD to install an OS, I was wondering which of the various updates available from IBM are essential.

The machine will be used only for basic operations - 99% word processing and spreadsheet, so I'm wondering if I really need to update the BIOS, video drivers, etc, or if just the basic vanilla install of WIN 98 with MS Office or Open Office will suffice. I'm not even going to config it for internet access.

I have no problem doing the updates, but since I'm keeping this laptop strictly "off-line", it does involve some annoying transfering of files from my main machine which I would just as soon avoid.

So, are any of the updates absolutely essential or can I just leave the BIOS etc as I find it?

Cheers
John

Per the description of the job you are going to use the machine for, I believe the drivers and updates are not absolutely necessary to accomplish them. However, I strongly opine that you should at least install the correct video driver to work with ease as you view your documents and spreadsheets. The video drivers are not that large (they fit into a 1.44mb floppy) so the little one time inconvenience of transferring them from your desktop to the Thinkpad is nothing compared to the added health that can be possibly realized for your eyesight. Just my two cents

You can leave the BIOS as you find it, unless you are adding a larger hard drive or more than 288mb ram. Although, updating the BIOS is VERY easy on a thinkpad, as long as you have a battery and CD-rom.

As for the drivers, I would recommend at a minimum: video, sound, and battery maximizer (I have experienced wierd power problems).

Depending on your OS, in your case Win98, I would recommend some of the Win98 Supplement files. Just read through the .txt files for each supplement and see if it relates to what you need.

Not updating the BIOS can cause problems later, and it's easy to do. Save yourself some possible headaches later and update everyting while you're setting it up, even the modem driver. You stated you don't intend to use it for Internet access, but that's now... what if youre desktop goes down? May as well set it up for contingencies. It's a lot easier to update everything with nothing but the basic OS on there. That way you know there are no possible conflicts, and on the off chance that a big mistake is made and you need to reinstall the OS or reformat (very unlikely!!), there's little to mess with.

If you do decide to sell it later or give it to someone, everything's ready to go too -- less headaches for them!

One more piece of advice -- make a disk image once you have it set up. It's worth buying something like Ghost to do that. If there is a problem latr, or the HD is upgraded, it's just a matter of installing the image and then your software -- you don't have the hassle of going through all the upgrades again.