IBM app software on T60

Got new T60. Was finding the amount of IBM apps installed to be overwheling, especially the apps that keep prompting for configuration (like security). Asked someone to turn off security apps, and they removed all of them from start-up. So, two questions:

1. Which do you find worth keeping (i.e., useful, don't eat up too much resource or keep bugging you)
2. How would I reinstate them?

Thanks

Saul

 

I personally just left them on mine. The software is available for download from Lenovo's site.

 

i uninstalled the client security app. I didn't feel that was doing anything useful for me. I just use the standalone fingerprint software. Besides that I think the ibm apps are generally pretty good.

 

I would suggest visiting lenovo.com and read about them. I use a T42p, which has many of the same apps, and I haven't removed any of them.

ThinkVantage Technologies

 

The only ThinkVantage software which I removed were R&R, CSS and Away Manager. I've found everything else pretty much more useful than what Windows has/or cannot offer.

 

were you able to free up disk space used/reserved by R&R? How?

 

i have kept al of mine, google dekstop and other 3rd party apps not included.
But well now i have around 70 processes after start-up(anti-virus and firewall included) is this normal for a thinkpad? Cause well, i have the idea it could all go a lot faster.

 

If you unhide protected operating system files (from folder options), you should be able to see the hidden folder where R&R stores its backups, which you can subsequently delete (afte uninstalling R&R).

I ofcourse reformatted and did a fresh install.

I think it is pretty much a misconception that reducing the number of processes you have running in the background will speed things up. With most systems having upwards of 1Gb, the lack of RAM certainly isn't an issue. The processor time taken up by these background processes is negligible.

As long as you know/are aware of what exactly you're running in the background, and you keep it reigned in moderation, then it is highly unlikely you're going to notice any performance increase by stopping a couple of processes running in the background.

 

How many processes do you have right now?

I thought it's because of the context switches that the OS must do make things slow. For example if you have 100 processes then your OS have to context switch 10 times more often than a system with only 10 processes running.

 

i got my new T60 today..
was playing around with it a lil bit whole day..
but had some probs after trying to update...

i took care of almost all of them..
but... system updater is still giving me hard time...
i even uninstalled it.. dl it from web.. reinstalled it...
but.. it says..
"system updater is updating itself... please wait while system updater restart utself"
and when i press OK after this msg box.. it goes away.. and never comes back...

if i click on it again.. it says its running.. can't run two instance togethar
but if its running why doesn't it come back?
anyone had this problem ?
any possible solutions?

 

I've got 60 on a fresh startup, 62 now.

//-----Start rant-------

It depends on what all those processes are doing in the background. If you're running a defrag, on-demand Antivirus scan, SETI, protein folding, things will obviously be slow. But if all you've got is background processes which use minimal CPU time (Windows Defender, AntiVirus shield, AdMuncher, Firewall, most of the ThinkVantage software), you're not going to experiences any slow downs. If I'm just idling, my System Idle Process hovers around 90%. So, most of the time, 90% of your processor is idling, doing nothing. Let's say you have some music playing in the backgroud (~5% CPU usage), you're surfing the web (~1% while idling, occasionally 20-30% if you come to a java/flash heavy site), you've got Word open writing your thesis (~1% while idling up to 10% if you're doing heavy formatting with tables etc), you've still got more than half your CPU doing nothing most of the time.

The same goes for RAM usage. Most users are getting 1Gb and upwards for their new notebooks. At a maximum you're only going to be using a few hundred megs, the rest of it is completely wasted.

Then, you may argue that because all these processes are taking up that miniscule amount of CPU time/RAM, if and when (on the rare occasion) that you do something CPU/RAM intensive, you will be slowed down, how much of a delay will you notice? You will probably only lose out on a few hundred processor cycles, which in real life, is less than a few micro seconds. And now with dual core processors, you will still have more than enough CPU to do most everyday tasks while still having all those running processes. You mean to say that you are willing to forgo all the benefits of the ThinkVantage software (and others such as AV/Firewalls/AntiSpyware/monitoring apps/etc) just so that you can save a few microseconds? Come on!!

Back when we were still running on the P4 chips (before Centrino) and only had 512Mb RAM, there probably was a need to keep the number of processes you had in check. But now with the CoreDuo (and the upcoming Core2Duo) and the oodles of RAM on many machines, why bother, when there are so many more benefits of having such software running in the background? Unless you are obsessive-compulsive about having absolutely the bare minimum of processes, or you are preparing to run XP on a PII or PIII box with 128Mb RAM (which is entirely doable), why bother? If you are indeed so compulsive, why bother getting the latest CoreDuo with so much RAM if you're not going to make the best use of it?

Gah!!

//------end rant-----

@ShamuaL,
I think IBM is still trying to work out the kinks in System Updater. In the mean time, I don't see too much of a problem to actually manually download the updates. After all, there isn't a need to update all that often, unless you're actually having a problem, or if new features are being released ever so often. I'm still sticking with Software Installer for the installation/uninstallation of updates (which I manually check every 2 weeks or so and download into the appropriate folder in C:\Drivers\), until System Updater has been fixed.

cheers!