New T42, can preloaded programs really be uninstalled?

[Zip]

My new T42 (2373-K1U) arrived a week ago and after getting the recovery disks burned, and perusing many of the threads here, I'm somewhat stumped as to just what is the best way to continue.

Couple of basics first:

A) what I want - absolute reliability (as much as one can get anyway, lol) I use my laptop for business and don't have any need to play games, play "the chicken dance" mp3's or watch "Gigli" I have other computers which I can mess around with, but this one is my bread & butter, so I want stability & immunity from bugs.

B) what it will be used for - business & engineering apps (Office Pro 2K, Project 98, Visio Technical, Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat 5, a couple of CAD viewers, Outlook & a browser - have always used IE but many tell me to go Firefox & Dragon Naturally Speaking Pro

3) the HD now is the 40G (not really 40G) and 512M of memory is installed (mulling over whether to get another 512M or spring for a 1G module)

The T42 came preloaded with XP SP2 & Norton AV 2004 & Adobe reader 6

Possible dilemmas:

1) XP SP2 I guess I can live with (my other computers are Win2K or older, so I don't have any experience with it) - anything bad about SP2 or is it pretty much ok?

2) Norton I am much more concerned about, in the old days Norton was great, seems the last few years it has gotten buggier & buggier, is Norton AV 2004 a liability in the T42? (I am not about to give Symantec another dime after what Norton Internet Security did to two other machines, so after 6 months it's either no updates or install another AV program) - I hear Norton also never completely uninstalls, any thoughts (or suggestions for best AV & Firewall SW? I do have my official copy of Zone Alarm Suite which I could move over to the T42)

3) Acrobat - Dang if the T42 doesn't come with Acrobat 6 reader & I want to install my full Acrobat 5 (will not upgrade to Acrobat 7 due to fundamental dislike of SW Activation, and Acrobat 6 is slooooooow) - any ideas if Acro 6 reader does a full clean uninstall?

bottom line - can Norton & Acrobat be yanked out or will it lead to mucking about in the registry and causing all sorts of other ills, and if they cannot be fully extracted, are there issues with wiping the drive (or putting a 5K100 in!) and trying to selectively install XP (without locking up the security chip or doing something else horrid - yes, I am paranoid about rendering a new machine unusable)

Chronological nightmare in emoticons:

New T42 arrives!

Uh oh, it has Norton & Acrobat 6

Can I uninstall them forever & permanently?

What if the Security system seizes up?

I will ask the Laptop Dalai Lamas @ Thinkpads.com

Any and all advice is most appreciated.

Thanks again!

Craig

[Kenn]

Bottom line, yes. You can nix both, and while they'll each keep entries in the registry (in case you install them again), they shouldn't affect stability or speed. When I first gor my TP, I junked NAV first thing. I swear that thing has a 50% speed penalty on all activities. My system didn't come with Acrobat, but you can nuke that as well without worrying about stability.

[jdhurst]

I use my T41 with XP Pro as a business machine (like you - no games). I have achieved stability and freedom from bugs (as much as is possible in the changing world of software). Neither my IBM XP desktop nor XP laptop ever crash. The desktop has been running non-stop for over 2 years now. That said, you might consider some changes:

1. Office 2000 and Project 98 are getting old. Consider Office XP at least and Office 2003 preferrably. I use Office 2003 and it works a treat.
2. Acrobat is now at version 7. I am at version 6 (Standard on the Laptop and Free Reader on the Desktop). V5 Standard works unreliably in XP - you need V6 at least. I am going to upgrade to V7.
3. Use Firefox if you wish, but IE fully patched and secured (lock down Active-X) and used responsibly causes me zero issues.
4. If you have the bucks, a 7200 rpm drive will advance performance much more than another 512Mb of ram. When not using virtual machines, I could easily fit in 512, my super fast drive makes this laptop run very fast.
4. I can make NAV / NIS 2003 work and NAV /NIS 2005 work. I ditched 2004 and got a refund. If you have some Corporate pull, get Symantec Client Security 2.0. Vastly, vastly, orders of magnitude superior to *any* retail Norton product.
5. There is not a reason in the world to avoid SP2 on an IBM ThinkPad (regardless of what you might have heard). Make sure all the IBM drivers and applications are at their newest revisions, make sure Windows is fully updated, and you will be fine.

So my fundamental counsel for your new box is to upgrade your suite of applications if you are really looking for reliability.
... JD Hurst

[Zip]

Thanks for the feedback! A couple of thoughts:

I've been buying MS & Adobe sw since the days of Win 3.0 & even DOS and after going through upgrades of Office, Project, Acrobat, Pagemaker & others, it started to get to the point where I am just not seeing dramatic jumps in productivity (at least not enough to justify some of the upgrade prices - remember, on most of these I have already paid for the original sw + as many as four or five upgrades along the way). To be perfectly honest, most of the work I do in Word or Excel I could probably do in Office 97, or even 95. I'm just not convinced that spending another $1 or 2K in SW upgrades buys me features I need or will put to practical use. Are they faster or some other productivity enhancement that I am missing? Or are the upgrades simply necessary for stability with Redmond's latest & greatest OS? (XP Pro)

What does rather chafe is this infernal software activation "feature", I understand & respect the need for sw companies to protect their products from piracy, but am quite concerned about having to sit on hold for aeons, and then debate some "support" person about why I need to reload my sw for the 7th time (and believe me, I have had to reload EVERYTHING on my old desktop more than a few times, thanks to Norton & a few other programs gone bad). I do not wish to pay for that "privilege". Right now, the only program where I need activation is my new Dragon Naturally Speaking Pro 8, where the higher recognition efficiency warrants the hassle of activation.

It doesn't mean I will never upgrade, just that after years of coughing up dough for the "new version that fixes all bugs and will do everything" I am starting to get a little tired of the sw companies' annual pitch. Terrible declines in customer support quality only aggravate the situation (Outstanding support is one of the reasons that brings me back to Thinkpads, and why I recommend them to others)

If Acrobat 5 is indeed buggy under XP, then I suppose I shall have to upgrade to Acrobat 7 (wonder how many versions of older software will suddenly become "buggy" under the next version of Windows... all of them? Coincidence?) and will take a look at the improvements in Project & Office. Just the business side of me sees sw as a razor blade business and the companies seem to be selling the same stuff (now with 50% more bloatware!) over & over. I mean seriously, how much improvement is there in writing a letter in Word XP/2005/whatever and Word 95? Heck, I'm typing this reply on the 770ED, and it's running Windows 95! In all honesty, if Adobe & MS dropped activation, I would likely upgrade everything, but after paying both companies thousands and thousands of dollars over the years, I really resent having to call in and ask their permission to use something I paid for. (Not to mention it's just one more thing to go wrong)

I would consider Client Security, but after having some awful Norton products mess up both my & my parents computers, I have a very hard time giving them another penny. The old "fool me once, fool me twice" deal. If it is the only game in town (for reliability) guess I could give it a shot, but would really like to be Symantec free.

If XP has been running crash-free for 2 years, then that's quite an endorsement, I look forward to getting similar performance.

Sorry for the wordiness, I should know better than to post before morning coffee!



Thanks again for the advice & shall consider it strongly.

[jdhurst]

If XP has been running crash-free for 2 years, then that's quite an endorsement, I look forward to getting similar performance.

My statement was true, but I don't wish to mislead anyone. I do have to restart the machine whenever I do most Windows patches and other major software upgrades. And I have shut it down on occasion for 30 seconds to effect clean restarts. So there is normal maintenance on the box. That said, it is always running problem free the rest of the time 24x7.
... JD Hurst

[slagmi]

Zip

It's pretty easy to speed up Acrobat 6 _a lot_ by simply moving unneeded plugins. Search google for Acrobat 6 remove plugins for details!

[JHEM]

Zip,

For what's probably the first time in living memory, I'm going to disagree with JD!

Office2K runs just fine on all of my boxes under XP and I've never felt an urgent need to upgrade, even though I have OfficeXP and 2003 to hand as part of my MSDN subscription. This is more due to inherent laziness on my part and not caring to deal with my learning curve with "upgrades" rather than any fear of the M$ "phone home" features.

If you use the Rapid Restore console to re-install XP you will not be asked to activate the program.

Better yet, see the thread about making your own recovery CDs in the T Series Forum.

I'm also running Adobe5 without any problems or "glitches" under XP, but I also have the latest Reader installed for those times I just want to keep some .PDFs open without a lot of overhead, such as keeping several of the IBM *book.pdf docs available for reference.

Spend the ~$150 or so for a 7K60 HD, you''l be surprised at the performance increase. http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... ode=100519

Like you, I consider Peter norton a pariah and won't use any of his products. Consider getting a subscription to McAfee, that's what I primarily use. BUT! You also want ZoneAlarm Pro installed.

Welcome to the Forums.

Regards,

James

[jdhurst]

I agree that Office 2k runs fine (didn't mean to suggest that it didn't) but I like Office 2003 and Outlook 2003 and was happy to have paid for the upgrade. Any of Office 2000, XP and 2003 are decent products.

I tried to install Acrobat 5 Standard on a friend's XP Pro laptop. It installed, but it crashed when running it. We got a copy of Acrobat 6, uninstalled 5, rebooted, and installed 6. I think that Acrobat 5 Reader works fine in XP. Still, I may have made an installation error.

... JD Hurst

[Leon]

You also want ZoneAlarm Pro installed.

Regards,

James

James:

I've historically been of the mind that if you run a statefull inspection hardware firewall, run a good AntiVirus, have a good Anti Spyware, and practice "Safe Surfing", that a software firewall (like ZoneAlarm) is not worth the extra overhead for the small chance of an "outbound" virus sneaking in. Over the years, I have never had reason to question my judgment.

That being said, I have always had reason to respect your judgment. I would welcome comments from you (and others) on my "stand", as well as your comments on why the "Pro" version of ZoneAlarm.

[Zip]

whoops! looks like I had this thread in the wrong place to start (over in the T forum) sorry about that (I was worried about locking the security part up & have been reluctant to fiddle with the fingerprint reader until I fully understand the new machine, sorta figured that was T-specific but no problemo!)

First thing I did after receiving the machine was make the recovery disks, I wanted to get input on which way to go before I just started loading up programs, and the thing that I want to avoid is messing up a perfectly good machine by removing programs which don't like to be removed or leave bits & pieces behind. From what I've read here, it looks like uninstalling Norton 2004 is straightforward? (I didn't activate it or register it or do anything with it) Same with Acrobat? (I suppose I could do the Acrobat 7 upgrade, 5 is fine on the other machine and 6 got less than stellar reviews - just wondering what the machine will do if I yank 6, then try to install 5 (before installing the 7 upgrade) - I can just see a fatal error message and another nightmarish call to technical support "you cannot install an prior version without a version downgrade waiver, we will transfer you now to our Neptune Customer service center, your call is important, please listen to all messages before making a selection, have your computer on, your registration number and birth certificate ready, please press 3E7Ah if you'd like to hear this message again *click* Arrrrrgh

Of course if 5 works fine, and can coexist with the 7 reader, then that would be great.

Presuming I successfully extract Acrobat 6 and punt Norton out of my laptop once and forever, I should like to try Acrobat 5 first (have to anyway to upgrade to 7 pro) then that leaves antivirus & firewall protection... I do have ZoneAlarm Security Suite v5.1 + all the usual AdAware, Spybot, Spyware Blaster & MS AntiSpyware (though I heard the last was hacked and now may be a liability?) - any thoughts on the ZA suite vs. the ZA firewall + a separate AV program like PC-cillin or AVG?

The 7K60 upgrade sure does sound tempting, (although the 5K100 has almost as high a transfer rate: 493Mb/sec for the 5K100 vs. 518 (Mbits/sec) for the 7K60) but there are two additional areas of concern: higher power dissipation for the 7K60 & higher noise level (worried that it might upset Dragon Naturally Speaking) - any other pros or cons?

If Project 98 runs OK I think I will stick with that (unless a client needs some new feature on one of the newer versions) Usually my Gantt charts are enough to put people to sleep anyway, lol

thanks again guys!

[JHEM]

I've historically been of the mind that if you run a statefull inspection hardware firewall, run a good AntiVirus, have a good Anti Spyware, and practice "Safe Surfing", that a software firewall (like ZoneAlarm) is not worth the extra overhead for the small chance of an "outbound" virus sneaking in. Over the years, I have never had reason to question my judgment.

That being said, I have always had reason to respect your judgment. I would welcome comments from you (and others) on my "stand", as well as your comments on why the "Pro" version of ZoneAlarm.

Because when we're on the road we are too often at risk WRT how well or how poorly the WAP we're accessing is protected by a hardware based firewall.

Hence, I prefer a "belt and suspenders" approach to security and maintain a software based Firewall (ZA) on my systems.

I prefer ZA Pro to the ZA Suite because I'm not one to put all of my eggs in one basket, e.g. rely on one software solution for Firewall, Anti-Spam, Adware blocking, Anti-virus, etc.

You should never have to feel the need to justify asking me a question Leon.

Well, except for my time with the CIA!

Regards,

James

[Leon]

ok, then, as a follow-up, actually I was asking why ZA Pro as opposed to the free version (unless it's just because you use it in a commercial environment).

I've watched your posts from the start of this forum. Thanks again for your valuable insights, both on a personal level and for the ongoing value that you add for others here!