Home vs Professional Win 7

Just wondered whats the difference? On the UK site the price difference is 50 pounds (about $80).

If i got the home version and then being a student obtained the professional edition very cheap, could i simply update the drivers manually via the lenovo site?

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx

 

The drivers are the same between the different editions of Windows 7. You can easily use Lenovo's ThinkVantage System Update tool to get all the latest drivers if you do choose to do a clean install using Windows 7 Professional.

 

So i could install a non-Lenovo version of Win 7 Professional and still use ThinkVantage?

 

Sure, I'm doing that right now with my T500, running a retail copy of Windows 7 Professional x64. It came with Vista Business x64 installed. I'm using the ThinkVantage Power Manager and System Update (I have no need for any of the other tools).

 

Ah thats really good! I must admit i dont really use my Lenovo software much on my current x61.

 

Hi...

Just bought a R400 today and since it came with FreeDOS or something like that, I was given a Win 7 Pro with it. The Lenovo people installed it, but there are no ThinkVantage software on the machine.

Can I use this ThinkVantage software on the R400? I checked on the relevant Lenovo page, but don't find the R400 listed as being one of the machines on which this can be used.

Please advise. Thanks.

 

All Thinkpads can use the Thinkvantage Utility. It is best that you get the latest version from the Lenovo site from here. Just enter your Model and Thinkpad series to take you to the download page.

 

Thanks. But I tried that and what I get is a huge list of possible driver updates. What I was trying to do is to get the ThinkVantage Utility, which can (at least so I think) aggregate all the driver updates and download them in one shot rather than me doing it one at a time.

 

What is your model no (eg: 2983 -FT2) which can be found beneath your Thinkpad? And is your Windows 7 64bit or 32bit?

 

Hi...

The model is 7447-A26 and I am using Win 7 Pro 32bit.

Thanks

 

You can just type in the serial of the professional license in the "windows anytime upgrade" wizard and it upgrades after a short time with just one reboot. Thats how i upgraded a T61p with my MSDNAA license.

 

Ok, you can download it from here.

 

I am sorry, I don't quite follow. I was trying to see if I can install the ThinkVantage utility for my R400.

 

OK. Thanks. Let me give it a shot. I do appreciate your patience and help!

Edit: Downloading now! Let's see how this works. Hopefully, it will work well and I can update the necessary drivers etc as required through this utility. Thanks again. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

One other question: Do you think it wise if I skip the BIOS update if applicable? I ask because I was looking through the Lenovo forum and there are quite a lot of complaints about how the recent BIOS update messed up things and how folks had to rool back to the previous version.

 

BIOS updates are always to fix something that arent working right. Just download the ISO version and boot from it in order for the update to go well. Make sure you Load Default Configurations 1st to properly effect the update and fine tune it later.

 

OK. I'll give it a shot. Since I am on a relatively slow connection downloading the ThinkVantage utility from the link you provided is taking a bit of time.

 

Oh you already installed it? Never mind, that wizard is just if you want to upgrade within Windows 7 versions without a clean install.

 

I think you are talking about the thinkvantage system update.

I have done clean install several times and here is how i do it. After the clean install, I would first make sure drivers are installed for all the hardware, such as bluetooth, fingerprints and etc. Then I would install thinkvantange productivity centre, which can utilize the thinkvantange blue button under windows and acts as a shortcut for all installed thinkvantage programs. For thinkvantage softwares, I always get the power management, active protection (retracts the harddrive reader heads when it feels vibration, from internal accelerometer), fingerprint, and access connection (assign locations to different internet connections and apply setting when connected when at that location). Google and read the descriptions for thinkvantange softwares. Some of them will be helpful to some people.

After you installed all the desired thinkvantage softwares and drivers for all hardware components (not necessarily the most updated driver), install thinkvantage system update. Then just run the update and go take a nap. It should fix itself and update all drivers and thinkvantage softwares by itself.

 

Hi Myob...thanks for the detailed post. As of now, after the clean install, all the devices are working. I am assuming that Win 7 fixed that. But honestly, I have not gone to device manager to see if there are any exclamation marks against any of the devices. I mean Bluetooth, Wireless, Sound Card etc are all working fine as of now!

Some of the ThinkVantage utilities that I was thinking about are (1) power management (2) the active protection and (3) access connection.

I checked out the other utilities and find that I will rarely if ever use them.

But frankly speaking, these utilities are not strictly required are they?

Previously I used to use a Acer 5920 and Acer also has some utilities like ThinkVantage - there is some peculiar name to it - but there also I did a fresh install and I did not install the Acer utilities and I did not find myself hampered in any way - touch wood!

 

You are correct, a thinkpad without thinkvantage software would work just fine. none of them are required. simply put, thinkvantange softwares are essentially 3rd party softwares.

you may want to get system update just to update all the softwares. some say it would update the wrong driver, but i personally never had a problem with it.

 

OK. Thanks. This is good to know.

Edit: And anyways, they are all uninstallable I would assume. At least I hope so.

 

BTW, I could not find active protection through the ThinkVantage utility. Any ideas where it must be located? Or, should I just see if it is available off the Lenovo site?

 

The ThinkVantage utility now shows that there are three device drivers which are missing:

(1) Base System Device (this appears two times)
(2) PCI Simple Communications Controller.

I tried to get this using Windows, but it fails to either update or retrive the drivers from the Internet. Does this mean that I have to look for them from the Lenovo site and install them manually?

Thanks

Edit:

(1) It appears that the Base System Device drivers refers to the RICOH Card Reader
(2) The PCI Simple Communications Controller apparently refers to the INTEL AMT Management Engine (this one is a bit more complicated as the list on the Lenovo site shows that there are 3 elements to this. Does this mean that I should download all the three elements?)

 

Just a quick note to say that things worked out fine - as of now. The machine is humming along and I am very pleased with it thus far!

I wish I had a camera in which case I would have been able to take some pics and offer a semblance of a review!

Cheers!