Fresh install of Vista on a T61?

So I'm in need of a new laptop, my Z60m's battery completely quit charging and the powercord is splitting apart and the screen has a huge line across the middle I have to read around... it just seems like time. I'm probably an idiot to get another lenovo, but I am a damn sucker for the eraserhead the rest of the world seems happy to be rid of and well...

Anyway, one thing I detest about my z60 is all the crap that they put on there, which I see folks here understand. I'm wondering if anyone has been successful at installing a completely new Vista install on their T61 without encountering too many problems? I am trying to decide whether I'll downgrade the bundled vista to the cheapest and get a better version elsewhere or if I should keep the preinstalled version and save myself a world of hurt.

?

 

Check out Stallen's great thread about clean installs of Vista (32- or 64-bit)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=144783

 

Thanks, that's useful. I wanted to be sure it was possible.

 

Due to reasons beyond Stallens control I have successfully followed his guide 3 times in the last week (Vista64) and have been very happy with the results. Just not happy with my laptops inability to use 4gb of memory.

 

Weird, with a 64-bit OS, you should be seeing all 4GB of your memory, although I'm not completely familiar with the odds and ends of the R-series, whether its a hardware limitation or not.

 

It's not that vista 64 wont see the 4Gb, its more that when I put 4gb in my laptop it starts giving me a festival of blue (as in frequent random bsod's) 3gb work fine in Vista 64 and Vista 32 for that matter

 

Ah, that bites. I haven't bought extra memory for my ThinkPad yet, it's still running it's initial 1GB at the moment, just waiting for my next paycheck to roll in first, then it's off to Newegg.

 

The only inconveniences I experienced when following Stallen's guide are out of his hands. And they're the reason for the guide in the first place, to assist a newbie through that wilderness.

Took several hours to get it all done (it would go much faster the next time, even if I hadn't burned a backup image), but my T61p is much more responsive now. Most painful part was preparing the install disc, but that wasn't really a trial compared with, say, poverty or hunger.

 

Glad to hear it went well for you. I haven't got around to doing a clean install yet on mine, I'm still playing around with the inbuilt software, seeing what I want to keep and what I'm willing to ditch.

 

Any benefits of getting a higher version of vista than the home premium if cost wasn't a significant factor? I'm behind the times now a days sadly so I don't know what features are in ultimate, etc that would be useful.

 

Unless you need both the BitLocker Encryption and the Media Center options on the same machine, I'd stick with Home Premium. Vista Ultimate, unless you really need everything that you could possibly get through Vista, is decidedly overpriced, and the Vista Ultimate Extras are lacking, and not likely to get any better at this point.