What bloatware (if any) is useful on my Lenovo SL500?

December 6, 2009 9:59 AM

What bloatware (if any) is useful on my Lenovo SL500?

I recently bought my first Lenovo laptop, a ThinkPad SL500. It came with the usual bloatware, but I want to know if any of it is actually useful before I wipe it off. I think there is a Hard Drive anti-shock protection running, but is this bundled with Windows or is it a Lenovo issued app?

My main motivation for asking is that I am going to install Windows 7 to replace Vista. I am moving from 32-bit to 64 bit, so I will have to do a clean install, from what I understand. This will likely wipe all the bloatware (I purchased Win 7 seperately from the laptop since I bought it before Win 7 was released) but I want to know what I should try to transfer to the new OS.

posted by idyllhands to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

The hard drive antishock widget is a Lenovo app.
posted by deadmessenger at 10:10 AM on December 6, 2009

Best answer: I have had ThinkPads for years, and my most recent one, an X61, for almost two years. I never worried about removing any useful bloatware during a reinstall because it was all available from the ThinkPad web site. You might check if this is still the case, but they used to have a web page for each ThinkPad model with all the available downloadble drivers and utilities.
posted by grouse at 10:27 AM on December 6, 2009

Best answer: I have had multiple Thinkpads over the years, and just recently installed Win7 on my T500. Here is what you need to do:

1) Install Windows 7

2) Go download ThinkVantage System Update from the Lenovo Web site. This is a utility that automatically downloads all other relevant Lenovo drivers and software automatically.

3) You will want almost everything System Update lists as available, except that I personally choose to do without ThinkVantage Access Connections (Lenovo's replacement for the Windows WiFi connection UI) and Active Protection (which safes your HD when it detects movement, but tends to shut down drive access when you jiggle the laptop in my experience). There are a couple of Intel storage system drivers that you MUST install, or face wierd HD lockup issues.

All of these utilities have been updated for Win7, and System Update will find them for you.
posted by killdevil at 10:54 AM on December 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Lenovo machines don't have much bloatware, by the by. They're very "corporate" as configured by the factory, and so do without all of the crap installed by most manufacturers.
posted by killdevil at 10:55 AM on December 6, 2009

Here is Thinkvantage System Update 4.0 for Win7.

I just checked my own copy of the utility, and out of the 25 or so drivers and utilities it lists as available, the ones I have chosen not to install are:

- Thinkpad Bluetooth with Enhanced Data Rate (the Win7 bluetooth drivers work fine out of the box)

- ThinkVantage Active Protection System

That's it.
posted by killdevil at 10:59 AM on December 6, 2009

Response by poster: That's very cool. I didn't know you could selectively download the stuff from the website. I guess I just got used to inferior brands over the years where you couldn't do stuff like that =)
posted by idyllhands at 11:27 AM on December 6, 2009

I'd actually recommend keeping the Active Protection software. In my experience it works fairly well and is worth having despite the occasional hiccup when moving your laptop. (Honestly, I've never seen it actually cause a laptop to lock up, just slow down for a few seconds)

We ship the software on our corporate Windows image that is installed on over 50,000 laptops - just to put things into perspective.
posted by nokry56 at 10:22 PM on December 6, 2009 [1 favorite]