Think (Vantage) utilities in Vista 64-bit / x64?

[ZPrime]

I just got a shiny new W500 through work to replace my T60p. It came with one 2gb stick of RAM, I added a second 2GB so I have 4. The preload was XP Pro, which only saw 3 GB of RAM, presumably due to the 512MB for the video and other address-space used by the turbomemory and such.

Presumably Vista 32-bit will lose a GB as well, so I wanted to run x64.

Loaded it up fine (volume license, Vista Enterprise x64 edition with SP1) and it sees my ram, but obviously no Drivers. I threw on just enough to join my domain so I could take it home for the night and customize. Imagine my surprise when System Update doesn't show anything for a good portion of the machine. The Battery Utility, Fingerprint software, etc all seem to be missing from System Update. Granted, I don't have drivers installed for these devices yet, but a cursory look over the driver page shows that most of the utilities don't claim to support x64.

Anyone else running Vista 64-bit, can you tell me what Think utilities you have working? The only stuff I care about is:
Battery utility
Hotkey controls
Access Connections
HDD Shock sensor

System Update did offer me a few drivers (System Interface, some other stuff) but NOT the list of applications I was expecting. I don't want to waste my time loading up these drivers if I'm going to have to go back to 32-bit anyway for the utilities I want...

Quick replies are much appreciated as I'd like to get this machine staged up tonight, my T60p has to be cleaned off for another user ASAP.

[bill bolton]

I don't want to waste my time loading up these drivers if I'm going to have to go back to 32-bit anyway for the utilities I want...

You may want to rethink your strategy as there really isn't much x64 stuff around as yet for anything, let alone ThinkVantage specific utilities!

Cheers,

Bill B.

[msb0b]

I think the problem may be due to the new W500 model or Vista Enterprise, which is only available through volume licensing channel. My T60 with Vista Business x64 had no problem getting all the drivers and ThinkVantage applications through TVSU.

Anyways, the drivers are on the support site. I could not find a driver matrix page however.

Battery utility: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67216
Hotkey controls: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-68000
Access Connections: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67283
HDD Shock sensor: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67046

I would also install the chipset drivers and system interface driver before all others. You may also need to install the Lenovo customized wireless driver for your system in order to use Access Connection.

It is a good idea to get a head start on 64-bit OS on a new system now. 32-bit OS's days are numbered.

[tinue]

I think the problem may be due to the new W500 model or Vista Enterprise, which is only available through volume licensing channel. My T60 with Vista Business x64 had no problem getting all the drivers and ThinkVantage applications through TVSU.

In the early days, the software updater also missed at least half of the stuff for my X61s with Vista Ultimate 64. I never used the tool again, and instead found and installed all drivers and updates manually.
As you showed very well: The drivers do exist even if they are not shown in the software updater, and newer Thinkpads run extermely well on Vista 64. I would never go back to Vista 32 on my X61s!

Regards, Martin

[ZPrime]

Interesting, I bet Vista Enterprise was the real culprit.

I could've used Business just as easily, but I wanted the option to turn on bitlocker later if I decided to encrypt the system... Seems like using Business would've been "safer" though.

I did get everything manually downloaded and installed (took too long!) but I'm still hitting one roadblock - the driver page for the ATI FireGL driver for the W500 is broken and I can't grab the file.

Due to this, I'm getting bluescreens when I come off of AC power (The power manager is trying to screw with the active display and since there's no working driver for the ATI it gets very confused). I also don't get any output on the dock's video connectors, so that answers any questions about how the external display connectors are wired (All of them go to the ATI controller, only the internal display is on both Intel & ATI).

Anyone have the drivers for Vista that they can throw on Rapidshare or upload to an FTP site if I supply one? I'm completely screwed without these...

[ZPrime]

Vista Enterprise was preventing me from seeing everything with System Update. I just reloaded with Business (still x64) and it pulled nearly everything in. The ATI drivers still aren't up, but someone from the Lenovo forums put them up on RapidShare. Huzzah!

[LIVE4SPD]

Not sure if you guys have already figured this out, but it seems that all the utilities should be available now. A bunch just came out this week.