Installing drivers w/Thinkpad Installer

[krosenstein]

When doing a clean install and installing the drivers, the TP installer prompts to reboot.

My question is can all the drivers be installed at the same time or is it better to install one, reboot, install the next one, reboot, etc.?

[kjarrett]

Reboots may not be necessary but they sure can't hurt if you have the time.

Usually if it's required the install routine will tel you.

-kj-

[manixc]

from the clean install guide: it's easier to tell which driver mess up if you install one by one.

[acz]

I have always followed the rule of doing one at a time. It takes longer, but seems less likely to lead to any difficulty. I've only ever had one problem, and that was my own fault since I downloaded the wrong driver (got one for a different machine).

[s0larian]

doing all driver and software at once worked very well for me.

[Leon]

Seems it would be good if someone with knowledge of the "internals" of how these types of installs work would be good. Aside from the issue that installing one-at-a-time might be a better idea, does anyone think it is a BAD idea to do all-at-once. When windows still has "things to do" after an install that require a reboot, does installing another before reboot just add nicely to the "to do" list for reboot, or is it possible that another install can "mess up" what was supposed to be done for another? Then we can make judgment of whether the time & effort in doing each install separately (especially when doing a complete rebuild) is worth the risk.

I think that would come closer to answering krosenstein's original question. If not, mine!

[krosenstein]

It appears that the TP installer automatically prompts for a reboot whenever it oversees the installation of a driver package. I can't tell whether the individual packages, if installed without the TP utility, would actually require it or whether there is in fact some sort of communication between the driver package and the utility.

I guess I could install a package without the utility and see what happens. That prompts another question. Does the TP install utility provide some real benefit other than providing a convenient interface for keeping track of drivers?

[ehsu]

I didn't use/install the Software Installer when I installed my drivers after a fresh XP insall. I just went to the IBM site and downloaded all the latest drivers available. Software Installer is only good when you don't want the latest drivers. Other than that, it's a hassle to deal with when you want to install a 3rd party driver, i.e. Omega driver for Radeon, the Software Installer would totally mess you up.

[krosenstein]

Software Installer is only good when you don't want the latest drivers.

That's not exactly true. The TP installer will install whatever driver it finds in the driver directory. So, if you download the latest version of a driver, unzip it into the driver director, and then open the installer, it will install that driver.