Anyone installed Windows 8 x64 from scratch ?

[henni]

by scratch, I mean, new DVD, reformat of drive and allow Windows 8 x64 to discover (or not) all hardware, drivers. etc ?

I recently installed several T420 Windows 7 Enterprise with 8gb ram, 256gb SSD drives and as soon as I added wireless networking manually from Lenovo site, all other drivers were found via Windows Update.

will that work with Windows 8 x64 ?

[zemlin]

I just loaded my T61p with W8x64 Consumer Preview - formatted my SSD - installed perfectly, as far as I can tell. Haven't found anything that didn't get drivers , although I haven't checked the SD card reader yet ... or the bluetooth ... I'm I'll think of other things I need to check out. Wireless came up during the install.

[QWERTY Andreas]

I have installed w8 x64 on a T61p too, and most Things seems to be working. However i dont use the laptop, so i cant tell.

I have loaded it to my W500 too, but i choose to install some drivers from lenovo since it gave better perfomance (ie. Graphics driver)

[johnp126]

i have very quick install on w700. after then installing some windows 7 drivers from lenovo all is working well. i selected classic shell to get back start orb and menu

[Easy Wind]

I recently changed my T60 15" machine over to a Frankenpad, complete with a SSD even. And no problems for me with installing W8 x64 from scratch.

The only things to note that I've noticed so far are:
1) no Power Manager utiltity
2) my "used to be" a good OEM 9 cell battery (in green and held a 2 hour charge) seemed to have died within a week after the install ....

[jdhurst]

I have not installed Windows 8 Full Retail yet.

I have a spare hard drive for my Thinkpad T61p. I formatted and installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. I updated the drivers to newest drivers for that model. I did not install any software.

From there, I upgraded to Windows 8 Pro 64-bit and that went very well. One or two inconsequential Lenovo applications did not go over, but Audio, Video, Wireless, Wired, Mouse, Power and so on all worked after the upgrade.

Then I started installing software I need such as Symantec Endpoint Protection, Printer driver, Adobe, password manager and such like. I have not yet installed Office but I have no question that it will work.

So on one hand, Windows 8 is working without issue, but on the other hand, it does not look like a keeper. I have put that hard drive aside and gone back to Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

.... JDH

[steveg47]

I have installed Windows 8 pro from dvd from scratch on my x220 and only encountered minor issues with Bluetooth and power management. Nothing that was intolerable. When I first installed win8 I hated it so much I reinstalled win7 after 3 days. A week later I decided to try it again and now after about 2 weeks I actually am starting to like it. What I like is the very fast bootup and the noticeably faster program starts. Power usage is also improved and win8 is msata/ssd aware and does not appear to require tuning. It even knows to trim not defrag the ssd. What I don't like is that my Bluetooth led is always lit even if I disable it with windows 8 Settings charm. After installing the latest Bluetooth driver from Broadcom the Bluetooth itself works fine but I would like that blankety-blank led to turn off correctly. I also don't like the fact that Lenovo is not supplying a win8 version of power manager though there is a win 8 power driver. I discovered that the win7 version of pwr mgr will install and work ok in compatibiliy mode. All in all aside from a few bonehead Microsoft decisions which I have been able to work around (no start button, wireless manager, etc) and Lenovo's failure to have some updated drivers and utility programs available I actually am liking Win8 and have no plans to downgrade again to Win7.

Steve G.

PS. I have had to abandon Symantec Ghost as my primary imaging software as it has not been updated to support win8; however the latest version of Acronis images win8 just fine. Office 10 also works fine.

[Easy Wind]

sorry to stray off topic, but is your W8 machine running the Ghost server portion? As I wouldn't think it would be an issue if you were to backup a Win8 client using Ghost (running on obviously not a W8 machine).....

[steveg47]

sorry to stray off topic, but is your W8 machine running the Ghost server portion? As I wouldn't think it would be an issue if you were to backup a Win8 client using Ghost (running on obviously not a W8 machine).....

Easy,
When I researched win8 / Symantec Ghost compatibility I came across this article from Symantec:

http://www.symantec.com/business/suppor ... TECH170255

After reading the above I decided that using Ghost to image win8 was very risky at best and since I had already converted to UEFI which uses GPT partitioning Ghost was definitely a nogo for me. Acronis on the otherhand supports win8 and GPT so it was a nobrainer. I test Acronis on my GPT Win8 which incidently was on a 128gb msata ssd and was able to image and restore offline with absolutely no problems and it was significantly faster then Ghost (Enterprise version 11.5.1).

Steve

[rollinstone157]

I have installed Windows 8 Pro on two Lenovo Machines--a W530 (64-bit processor and OS) and a T61p (64-bit Processor, 32-bit OS)

I used a USB key with an image on it to install windows 8, but here was my process:

1. Install W8P
2. Run Lenovo Software Update Utility 5 first THEN Windows Update to find other drivers
3. Intel Driver Update Utility (to get chipset drivers)

That should cover most everything, but if it doesn't...

4. I check device manager, see what doesn't have a driver (or just has a generic one) and then I'll go to the Lenovo Driver Matrix and pull what I need.

It took about an hour per machine, and I had a book on my lap anyway, so it's not a huge deal.

Honestly though, the new driver detection seems to be much better than anything I've ever seen before. I have a very specialized OBD-II cable used to program vehicles, and W8 got the proper driver and configured the cable correctly bang-on, on the first try! W7 had no idea what to do with it.

[Jason404]

I have installed Windows 8 Pro fresh on my X220.

I am using all the drivers that System Update pulled up, with the Win7 versions of Power Manager (but the Win8 power drivers), Access Connections, Communications Utility and Hotkey drivers.

Everything seems to be working fine, but:

[*] I cannot use System Update to update the Win7 software I've installed
[*] Battery life has been reduced considerably from over 6 hours to under 4.5 on a 6-cell (laptop is only a few weeks old)
[*] I occasionally have WiFi stop working and I have to disable and re-enable the WiFi adaptor to get it working again

[Easy Wind]

Yeah my process is real close to what is listed above, just in a slightly different order. Thanks for the W8+ghost info. I'm familiar with those imaging switches, just hadn't researched that just yet. So thanks for that information as it looks like I'll have to switch to a different imaging solution myself!!

Overall, I will have to say that I am a fan of Windows 8. After some tweaking to get it to my familiarity (liking), which did take a while, this OS is by far the best Windows OS to date. Little quirky yes, but it's really quick and snappy, especially with a SSD drive!!

For the record I guess, I double checked my install and it's actually Window 8 Enterprise, 64 bit

[barrywohl]

I installed Windows 8 Pro x64 from scratch on October 26th on an X230T tablet/laptop. I'm using almost all Windows 8 drivers. I've got three small issues.

I can't get the screen to auto-rotate when I switch from landscape to portrait.
I haven't gotten the Sierra Wireless MC8355 WAN card to work.
I haven't gotten the black key (like the ThinkVantage key) to work.

Overall I really like Windows 8.

[jdhurst]

I haven't gotten the Sierra Wireless MC8355 WAN card to work. <-- My Nokia CS-18 works fine.

I haven't gotten the black key (like the ThinkVantage key) to work. <-- I do not use this and did not check.

Overall I really like Windows 8 <-- I will ask for my money back.

... JDH

[Oglon3r]

I just loaded my T61p with W8x64 Consumer Preview - formatted my SSD - installed perfectly, as far as I can tell. Haven't found anything that didn't get drivers , although I haven't checked the SD card reader yet ... or the bluetooth ... I'm I'll think of other things I need to check out. Wireless came up during the install.

Did exactly the same played and worked fine. I was having trouble with my video driver crashing but after playing with both the latest nvidia and WDDM drivers for QuadroFX570M my problem was resolved. I stuck with the WDDM though.