Software Installer

[DennisGordon]

Another T43 noob question...

I'm finishing setting up the laptop to give my wife tomorrow, and ran the Software Installer for the first time. It found a whole bunch of stuff. I said OK. Afterwards, it updated the BIOS to 1.28 easy enough.

A few questions:

Upon reboot the "logon to use fingerprint..." icon appears on the top of the startup screen. I had disabled the nag screen in the previous version. How do I get rid of it now?

After the reboot, I ran the Software Installer again to see if I missed anything. The first scrren was blank, but the next one showed a dozen programs waiting to be installed. I was about to install them all, but my fear of sudden bloatware stopped me. Are there anythings I should not install? Most look like useful utilities, but I don't know what might be hiding in there.

I wish the new Intel video driver hadn't reset my color scheme. I had it just right. Now I'll need another 45 seconds to get it going again...

I probably could figure out a lot more on my own, if I didn't have to keep hiding this from her. I'm gonna hate to give this thing up...

[t41user]

i think many users can best answer for themselves whether they need one or another update. is something going wrong with your system? does some new piece of hardware not work right? if so, check and see if you need any driver particular updates for those particular issues. otherwise, why go ahead and retrieve blind updates? or if they're not blind and you know exactly what they do, why get them unless they meet some particular need that you and/or your system have? many updates are just compatibility adjustments for new computers and hardware that may have no practical application to your system or how you use it.

that's become part of my old-fashioned attitude toward updates.

[DennisGordon]

Well since this is brand new, if I see an Ultra Nav or Touchpad update I figure what the heck. I lost my wireless briefly, until I relogged onto the network, and the updated video lost my custom color settings, but nothing calamitous so far. I figure a system restore would set things straight anyways, if something gets bollixed. I'm more concerned with adding unnecessary junk to the system. I really like how few applications came with this. Of course, the first thing I did was dump Nortons and replace with AVG...

[Paul Unger]

Dennis,

I've got a T42 and, for the most part, I've enjoyed the ThinkPad utilities--they're smart and fairly tidy.

One recent lively thread (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=32675) cautioned against PC Doctor 5. You might want to refer to said thread before installing it.

Glad you're enjoying "your" new machine!

Paul

[GomJabbar]

Also, if you upgrade Access Connections or the wireless driver, be sure and do the following first. Uninstall Access Connections, then uninstall the wireless driver software. Install the wireless driver upgrade before installing or reinstalling Access Connections. Always install Access Connections last, and remove it before upgrading the wireless driver software. This should help you avoid a lot of problems.

[DennisGordon]

I installed both PC Doctor 5 and the wireless driver from the list before I knew that. I'll keep an eye out for problems. Can the installer rollback to the previous versions if necessary?

[GomJabbar]

The PC Doctor 5 issue only affected some users. Besides, the problem with it should have been fixed by now. Go to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs. If the entries look normal, then you are OK with PC Doctor 5.

Software Installer generally will let you uninstall existing drivers or IBM/Lenovo software. Some of us like to download the updates from the Driver Matrix page for our model ThinkPad to a common folder. We then extract the driver package by executing the downloaded file (you can double-click on the file to execute it). Finally we launch Software Installer, choose Install or upgrade driver(s) or software, click Next, then uncheck box: Retrieve latest information on the internet. Click Next and follow the prompts. This way, we always have a copy of all the older software and drivers in case we wish to revert to a previous version that is no longer available. Additionally, we have occasionally been able to help forum members who wanted an out-of-date version of one of these driver/software packages.

[DennisGordon]

Everything seems to have updated smoothly, except for one MS security patch, KB927978, that wants to be installed repeatedly. A quick google found others with this problem; the solution being to delete the corrupted log files and then uninstall the patch in Add/Remove programs. The problem is that the XP Updates are not showing up in the control panel (I've checked Show Updates). A minor annoyance, but I want to fix it obviously. Any idea why the Windows Updates wouldn't be displayed? Otherwise things seem OK.

[DennisGordon]

Oh, never mind...

I was looking under W. The listing started with MX. Deleted and reinstalled the patch and things are swell. Everything running good. Put a bow on it and it's done...

[DennisGordon]

Well it's gone; gifted; well received (sniff). The missus was shocked that I would get her an IBM. She knows nothing about laptops, but enough to know that IBM means something.

Now she'll take it away, and I won't get to play on it again... until she loads it up with spyware and virii in a few months and I need to fix it. That's something to look forward to, I guess...

[jdhurst]

<snip>... until she loads it up with spyware and virii in a few months and I need to fix it. That's something to look forward to, I guess...

So put Ad-Aware Pro on it (paid version) and a good AntiVirus (Symantec Corporate is excellent in class) and set them to run automatically, daily, and there should be few problems.
... JD Hurst

[DennisGordon]

Oh, I've already put Adaware, XoftSpy and AVG on it, as well as Perfect Disk 8. But it's been my experience with many people who bring their laptops to me at work, saying they "stopped working" that they don't run or update them regularly enough to be effective.

Actually, I was just being ironic, as there is no chance that I would ever allow a computer in my house to get in that shape in the first place. The real problem is now I want my own. I bought my son the Z61m for college; the wife gets the T43 for email, and I sit with my big ol' immobile desktop and no laptop. It ain't fair I tell ya...