Is there a good Windows7 Primer for T60?

[Marc_G]

Hi folks,

Planning to do a fresh Win7 Pro-32 bit installation on my wife's T60 1953-E4U. Is there a good primer on finding the right drivers to work in Windows 7 for this somewhat older model?

The Lenovo site lists some W7 drivers for this model but video and audio seem conspicuously missing. I've poked around the forums some and see there are some issues there and there though many people have it working.

What I would really love ois the idiot's guide:
Install Windows 7, then:
-Add this driver
-Add that driver
and so on. I want to make sure I ge tthe hotkey/access connections/power manager working properly and I remember there is a big deal about order of installation.

What's the best resource?

Marc

[Marin85]

Search the Windows 7 subforum! Everything you want to know has been explained here multiple times.

[mgo]

Hi folks,

Planning to do a fresh Win7 Pro-32 bit installation on my wife's T60 1953-E4U.

Marc

copy these two folders from Vista (or XP, if that's what you are running now) to a USB drive or other external location:

They are about 1.5 gig in size...

C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore
C:\Windows\System32\drivers

Often times you can point your Windows 7 Device Driver update to one of those folders (most likely DriverStore) for any drivers that cannot be found elsewhere, for example IR driver. (yes, those older drivers will work; Windows 7 is still using the Vista kernel.)

===================================================
After installing Windows 7, run Windows Update with the "Change Settings-other recommended updates, etc"
Run it a couple or three times. Many of the drivers you will need for Windows 7 will be on Windows Update. (nice of them to do that!)

===================================

Other drivers and utilities can also be found at:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... -HOME.html
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... -BETA.html
These are the souces for Hot Key features, etc.

Some of those features will install right away, rather than moving the install files to the old C:\Drivers folder, some may move them to the old location. You may have to check.

Some of this can be a little confusing, but if you get it wrong at first, disaster will not strike, you'll just have to try again.

Generally, installing Windows 7 is pretty painless. Some features, like Access Connections are no longer supported on Windows 7.

If you want to be extra super-safe, image your existing setup, then install Windows 7, or install it on a brand new HDD, since it is so easy to swap drives in a T60.

I'm running Windows 7 on three different T60s. Works great, no unpleasant after taste.

[ARD]

Access Connections 5.42 is suppported in Windows 7.
I should know. I installed it on my T60.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-73682

[mgo]

Access Connections 5.42 is suppported in Windows 7.
I should know. I installed it on my T60.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-73682

I stand corrected...

[Colonel O'Neill]

I installed a bunch of the beta drivers on a T60 before W7 was released... And I found out the CPU isn't 64-bit capable in the process. T__T But I digress, I had trouble with the hotkey stuff, but that was all.

Running System Update 4 would probably be easier now that Lenovo's released that.

As a side note, I found the GPU temperature to be a bit higher in 7 than XP, possibly due to the aero interface.

[dsvochak]

copy these two folders from Vista (or XP, if that's what you are running now)

If you're using any of the installed software, like the dvd player or burner, you should also copy c:\swtools. That folder contains the setup files for the preinstalled software.

[slaterlp]

Hi,

I have only ever run XP pro sp2 on my T60, and that works so trouble free that I havent changed it. But as there is talk of XP becoming unsupported soon, I thought i should find out sooner rather then later if I can run W7 on my T60, and what I might need to do in order to be able to.

What is the minimum spec for windows 7 on a T60?

How can i tell if my ThinkPad T60 1952-A97 will run windows7 64?

I have 2GB ram, and and Intel T2500 Core duo 2GHz CPU

Should I run 64 or 32bit version?

Thanks.

[ARD]

A Core Duo cannot run 64 bit.
A Core 2 Duo most certainly can.
Since I have a Core Duo on my T60, I installed Windows 7 32-bit.
All you ned to do is simply install Windows 7 32-bit, it will install the ethernet and wireless drivers (among others), go to lenovo.com and download all the Windows 7 drivers that were not installed during the installation process, and you are good to go. Thats it.
That is what I did for my T60.
It was a smooth install.

[Marc_G]

Thanks for your feedback everyone. Since I didn't see all the expected drivers on the Lenovo site when I went to my product type download page, I got nervous. Mostly they had just XP/Vista listed with about 5 Win7 drivers total. But I'll use the resources listed above and get it sorted out. W7 supposedly arrives today (I bought the 32 bit Professional OEM version).

Will post results in due course!

Marc

[Marc_G]

To cap off this thread for anyone that is interested, here's what I did on my Wife's T60:

0. Made an Acronis image backup to my server, pulled her old slow drive, replaced with newer 7200 RPM 250 GB Hitatchi.

1. Used the bootable .iso to update the firmware to 2.25
2. Plugged in an ethernet cable. Installed W7 Pro 32 bit OEM. This went perfectly smoothly. Activated it no problem using built-in drivers for ethernet. All of this took less than half an hour.
3. Ran Windows Update. This pulled in updated graphics and audio drivers which work fine, among other stuff.
4. Installed the Monitor.inf update from the Lenovo site.
5. Installed System Interface Driver
6. Installed Power Managemeng Driver (was a bit worried, as T60 W7 compatibility isn't specifically listed).
7. Installed Hotkey driver.
8. Installed Power Manager.
9. Can't remember but I believe the wireless drivers from Windows update were the correct ones.
10. Installed Access Connections. Set it up. Works perfectly on my WPA2 home network, and does a quick job of switching between ethernet and wireless automatically; much better than prior incarnations did IMHO.
11. Installed Ultranav driver and then utility.
12. Installed Thinkpad Active Protection system. Thanks to folks who pointed me to the control panel where the settings are. I got worried when I didn't see it n my system tray.
13. Installed the reg patch for printer icons.
14. Installed the matrix storage manager, but not sure if I will ever need to use it.
15.Didn't install client security or fingerprint software; probably won't use them (wife's computer!).

At this point it seems to be fully functional. I tweaked some power manager settings and so forth. All seems well.

It's surprisingly zippy on 1 GB RAM, but I ordered a Crucial 2GB stick for her to give this thing some legs for the next couple years.

Thanks to all for your help.

Marc

[JessicaD]

Marc_G,

You can also use Windows Vista drivers in many cases until Windows 7 drivers are made readily available. Also, for further assistance and feedback, Microsoft does have an official Windows 7 Support Forum located here http://tinyurl.com/9fhdl5 . It is supported by product specialists as well as engineers and support teams.

Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team

[slaterlp]

Well, thats all the information i could have asked for.

Marc_G

Just a couple of questions though.

Did you install the Lenovo Rescue and Recovery partion?
Does your T60 still respond to the Blue Thinkvantage button at startup?

Thanks