Clean install with new Window

[mwillems]

After trying for a month to clean up Windows, I wiped the drive and out a whole new (purchased!) Windows on the box. I just did this on TWO of my thinkpads: a z60m (XP) and t60p (Vista).

The result is amazing.

On the Vista machine, I went from 80 tasks running to 50. Went from 1.1 GB RAM taken by "stuff" to 700 MB. Went from frequent crashes and hangs to none. And went from delays (e.g. in booting or in going to logon web pages) to no delays. Definitely worth the $380+tax I paid. That I should not have had to pay. But whatever!

Lenovo OSs have a lot of OEM bloatware, which comes in two flavours: commerceware (hard to remove “trial editions” of MS Office, Norton Antivirus, MsSQL, Diskeeper Defragger, etc) and grandeurware (Lenovo Access Connections, Lenovo Client Security Solution, Thinkpad EasyEject, Thinkvantage Productivity Center Manager, Thinkvantage Message Center, and dozens of other applications that are unnecessary or replace perfectly good MS applications by typically slower and buggier Lenovo equivalents).

Removing them is not really an option. Many of the applications are hard to remove services. Many involve the registry; even the applications. When I deleted Client Security Solution it broke Firefox (even after a re-install). When I called Lenovo back they were no help at all (”why are you not using Internet Explorer?” type questions).

The only solution: install a fresh Windows.

Both MS and Lenovo try to prevent this:

* Lenovo does not supply any Windows image except one with all the bloatware included, and no you cannot choose to NOT install it.

* Microsoft does not allow a Lenovo license key to be used with an OEM (bought separately) copy of Vista.

* Microsoft does not allow OEM copies of Windows to be sold without hardware. You can only buy “upgrades” or full versions.

Catch-22.

What the manufacturers (Lenovo is not alone: HP, Dell and the rest are even worse) and MS are doing is certainly very sharp business practice.

In any case: after $380 plus tax extra I finally have the Lenovo PC I want - and it is very good.

[jdhurst]

It seems that the newer machines have more gratuitous software installed than machines from 2 or 3 years ago. I have to uninstall more than I used to uninstall from newer ThinkCenter Desktops.

However, I do have a T41 running with all the applications provided except:

Uninstalled Norton AV; installed Symantec Client Security Corporate.
Uninstalled Software Updatel; use Software Installer instead.
Disbabled Access IBM Message Center.

The rest of it is all installed, all running, and all up-to-date. Access Connections is apparently a love-it or hate-it relationship. V4.23 works fine for me and is much better than the Windows approach (YMMV). I routinely have 85 processes running and the machine is as fast as it can be in daily operation. Typically my machine uses about 450Mb leaving 320Mb free most of the time. Neither my ThinkPad or my NetVista crash - XP is extremely stable.

What I find more important is keeping Windows and Windows Applications running smoothly (minimize temporary files, turn auto updates to identify-only or manual rather than auto-update, keep IE cache really small).

So, at least for the T2x, t3x and T4x series, you can take a machine out of the box, uninstall 2 or 3 applications, update it, tune it and run it fast, reliably and smoothly for years on end. YMMV.

The Vista stories seem different, but I have to wait for vendor updates before getting a new Vista ThinkPad.
... JDH

[mwillems]

It seems that the newer machines have more gratuitous software installed than machines from 2 or 3 years ago.

[snip]

So, at least for the T2x, t3x and T4x series, you can take a machine out of the box, uninstall 2 or 3 applications, update it, tune it and run it fast, reliably and smoothly for years on end. YMMV.

Yes, indeed, my mileage varied.

On the XT Lenovo z60m I went from 60 tasks to 35 (and with all the same things working!), while on the Vista t60p I went from 80 to 50 tasks. And less confusion (Windows runs it all) and fewer crashes and errors.

Removing client security solution killed Firefox. That was the last straw. And I am delighted I did it!