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Lenovo Announces ThinkPads Preloaded With XP
BBCWatcher writes "Lenovo just announced new ThinkPad T61 models preloaded with Microsoft Windows XP. Ironically they're called ThinkPad T61 'TopSeller' models. Lenovo says they're aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. The XP TopSellers are available immediately, and the part numbers are 6465-03U, 7658-04U, and 7664-06U (PDF links). "Lenovo recommends Windows Vista Business"? Not so much."
When you pull up their laptop page, there are two links. "Customize with Windows XP" and "Customize with Windows Vista". Same price.
Maybe I'm missing something, but we've been buying T61's with XP for months now, without any difficulty at all.
And we're not some large megacorp either -- we buy maybe 2-3 computers every 6 weeks.
Offtopic but it's going here anyway.
I still play a ton of older games that only allow ipx/spx for lan play. Yes everyone can get on the net and play but that doesn't work too well when you only have dialup available (yep, no cable, no fios, no dsl).
I've seen the hack for ipx/spx in vista 32bit but Red Alert 2 still doesn't show a network available and there seems to be no hacks to get it to work with 62bit vista.
Anyone know of a way to tunnel ipx/spx over tcp/ip maybe? Without an internet connection?
Personally, I'm just happy that they aren't jumping on the bandwagon and shoving Vista down our throats.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were capable of staying awake long enough.
So the news is that a company selling computers is selling something that the consumer's been asking for? Who'd've thought it? While I'm glad that another company, following Dell and some others, has bucked the Microsoft line, I'm not sure that it's particularly astounding.
On the other hand though, kudos to them for doing so. Now if only they'd lose the '$Company recommends Windows Vista $model' branding I'd be even more impressed. Why claim to recommend something that you fairly obviously don't? I'm aware that there are provisos from Microsoft for supplying lower-cost OEM software to these companies but, surely, at some point the marketing/PR departments are going to realise that trying to play on both sides of a particular game isn't going to look too good for them?
Ah, me and my optimism...
I am surprised that MS doesn't allow you to purchase a Vista license that allows the use of XP if you would rather. I bet then they could really beef up their Vista sales numbers, even if only on paper. Who would be able to say that 75% of users purchased Vista but installed XP instead? Looks like they could "win" the numbers game.
I'm sorry, maybe I just don't drink as much strong coffee as you, but that's not something that would motivate me to spend the time to write a review at Amazon. A 2 to 3 second delay in opening IE7? Terrible productivity issue for sure!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Haha! Microsoft will surely die now, what with all these companies choosing Windows XP instead of Vista!
Wait a minute....
throw new NoSignatureException();
I wish legislators would just get off their ass and prohibit Microsoft from charging different prices for the stand-alone OS and the OEM versions. Sure, if Microsoft were playing nice they should have the privilege to set prices as they see fit. Problem is that they haven't been playing nice, rather they have used their OEM discounts and other bribes ( yeas that is what they are ) to force suppliers into installing Windows on every machine.
The consequences should be obvious, if they abuse their privilege to set different prices for different customers, then they should lose that privilege, end of story. You don't even have to force the vendors to unbundle windows, if there is a demand for machines without Windows it will sort itself out once you stop Microsoft from preventing it. Simply put, if they can make a profit selling the OS to OEMs for X then they are abusing their monopoly if they demand 2X from regular customers.
At first I didn't really see the point. It is a laptop with windows XP. How was that news-worthy? Then I kind of remembered that vista is the new ME and it seems a lot of people think so too.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/VSTA-DWNGRD.html
.and hassles besides. Why does everyone insist XP is inferior compared to Vista? As far as the user eXPerience is concerned XP is way ahead of Vista, so it is an Upgrade.
The only downgrade from Vista to XP is the price..
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
If they offered a Thinkpad with Ubuntu pre-installed and everything working right I'd buy it tomorrow.
Sure you would -- just like the other 6.4 million loud-mouthed Linux zealots who suddenly vanish when it's time to back up those big words with big action. If even 50% of you guys actually put your money where your mouth is, Linux might matter.
I have a T61 (exact model is ThinkPad T61 7661-A12 ) since late September... best laptop I ever had, flying fast.
Has this happened before, a mass downgrading from the latest Windows to the previous version? Have to say, not to my knowledge. Many people have said this happens with every new version of Windows. Really? I personally wasn't happy with going from 2k to XP because XP didn't add anything and was all cute/telly tubby and was a bit slower. Like many, after being on 2K became a problem I moved (on work machines you don't always have a choice), I moaned but that was it. Once I turned off all the crap I was fine. From 9x to NT even though it was a big step I don't think there where many people thinking twice. NT was without question much much better/stable. But with Vista things do seam to be happening differently. As a programmer I'm noticing lots of min operating system : Vista for API calls in msdn that would be useful, so there is good stuff there. But there is the huge shadow of compatibility and poor performance which means work isn't even thinking of moving. Personal users fear the DRM and anti piracy tech, not to mention bad performance. The only thing I can see to resolve this is MS starting to take the stuff users don't want out. That already seams to be happening with the removing of the kill switch.
I just bought a Thinkpad in the last 3 months.
XP Professional was on many of the laptop configs. Just ask your salesmen if it wasnt. I just got the crappy Vista (home basic... whatever) and installed XP Pro and Ubuntu after fixing the partition map.
I think the only place NOT to recommend XP are the touchscreen models, as Vista has better touchscreen support.
I been using a ThinkPad X60 with Vista Business for six month. Generally I had no major issues and like how Vista works. Here are a few notes though:
1. By default the CPU is set to run at half the speed. My notebook came with a 1.8Ghz Core2 Duo, but by default the power settings are set to run it at 900Mhz. In fact thats the only speed the laptop does not get hot as hell. Even at the lower speed most desktop apps work fast enough.
2. I did a few tweaks myself like disable shadow copy and windows defender. I decided to leave the indexer on since I actually like what it provides.
3. With the most recent updates I think a few annoying things got fixed. The laptop comes out of sleep faster and copying seems to be faster.
4. Wireless networking sometimes is flaky. I don't know if Vista is responsible or its due to the interference where I live or its the lenovo wireless utils that are sluggish.
5. I really like the minor UI improvements in Vista like the new resource monitor. I don't see why it cant be back ported to XP.
You could always order a CTO Thinkpad T61 with Windows XP Professional preloaded. It cost a bit more than Vista Home Basic, but the same as Home Premium or Business.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
But I will tell you this. The thinkPad is one of the few machines that run pretty well with Vista. It's damn near tolerable. I kid I kid. Actually I'm becoming a convert as I learn the system. Some parts are really silly, but boy, what a beautiful face! It is unfortunate that so much time is spent uninstalling the crapware and disabling some "services", if that's what you call them. Don't know who they serve. And the ThinkPad still comes with that "button" mouse which beats the hell of a trackpad. The only to fly.
What?
Till the choice of GNU/Linux pre-loading is not available on 99% of the personal computers around the glob... not a chance for the free desktop.
Try looking for XP in a regular store. You will not be able to find it. I have asked about having XP placed on the computer instead of the crappy Vista and was told that it was impossible. If you want XP preloaded on a machine anymore, you need to go to a website based business it appears. By the way, it was Circuit City that told me it was Vista only. I told them no way, I would go with Linux long before I would go to Vista. They told me I could get a Mac in that case and I told them I wasn't made of money it was XP or no way. They said no way.
Dos 4
Windows 2
Bob
Me
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Can I buy one with neither and how well does Ubuntu run on it?
.inf file or something...
We just bought a Sony laptop with Vista and poor techie had to spend ages upgrading it to XP... Yes, I do mean upgrading... Seems Sony don't do XP graphics drivers for this model, you have to use Win 2k ones with a modified
He said at the end that there was a 3 second delay for opening each tab.
This is not an absurd productivity issue, but it's certainly annoying.
The marketing line is part of the OEM sales agreement. This is just like "We recommend Duracell batteries" which was required to get into the best pricing tiers. I don't know the exact deal Lenovo or Dell gets from Microsoft but I would say that if you were them you would probably do the exact same thing. When you become a publicly owned corporation your duty is to the shareholders, not to follow some ideological path which may or may not have some future goodwill benefit. Placing that line in the marketing materials has a tangible financial result yet does nothing to persuade anyone who has done due diligence to buy Vista.
I ran with the factory Vista Ultimate image on my T61p (Core Duo 2.4Ghz 2GB Ram) for a month, and couldn't take the performance hit compared to XP on my R52 (Single Core 1.8Ghz 2GB Ram).
After reading about the 1% perf increases of Vista SP1, I decided that wasn't good enough and nuked Vista, and installed XP - it's like I've weighed anchor and hoist ye misen mast.
Wow...... underclocking what a concept!
I just received my brand new Lenovo T61 preloaded with Vista home basic. What a disaster... but not because of Vista, but instead because of all the pre-loaded junk. The taskbar had 7 icons in the notification area in addition to the ones from the OS, plus a useless battery power gauge that took up another big chunk of real estate (this side-by-side with the already existing Vista power gage, so I'm getting duplicate data). I actually took a screenshot since I couldn't believe it. I did a quick registry check and counted 30 executables set to auto-start on login. On every log on I got nagging pop-ups about turning on some lenovo software. Launching IE brought up two tabs, one set to always load the lenovo page. It was a slow, annoying mess...
I flattened the machine and installed a fresh copy of Vista Ultimate. With the all the cruft gone, things are now flying on the machine, and I'm quite happy with the OS. The difference is astounding.
All these negative comments I kept hearing about Vista make sense now, but it's clear that at least some of the disenchanment is misdirected. Don't OEM's actually use the machines they send out?
but how on EARTH is this news... in all the years that I've been on slashdot I can't recall a single posting of mine that actually got accepted (I stopped trying a short while ago), and just about every day there is at least one article that simply should not have made the cut. it seriously pisses me off, even though tfm says that there is no point in griping about such things because it's normal. I think that if it's 'normal' that something is wrong.
MP3 Search Engine
The end of the Amazon post states that Lenovo refused to provide next day service even though it was clearly purchased. Ironically this also happened to me. I clearly bought next day service and they claimed to have no record of it.
+ informative
Vista Business and Vista Ultimate licenses allow a cost-free downgrade to Windows XP. Other vendors are shipping PCs with XP preloaded and free upgrade to Vista (Maxdata/Belinea for example).
That is actually a Windows Vista Business license for wich the vendor pre-applied the *DOWNgrade* option. I'm pretty sure that those machine are counted in the Windows Vista market share.
I am with Linus on this one.
So they are supposed to offer their computers with each different distribution pre-installed, or just your favorite?
c++;
The "brilliant" sales associates at Circuit City probably don't even know there's a difference between XP and Vista.
We have 4 Laptops with 2 different wireless cards (N and G) and both have problems with associating with wireless networks. I believe wireless networkings is seriously broken in Vista.
They already offer GNU/Linux preloads on select models but all of the vendors could do more. It would be nice if they offered a GNU/Linux certified option that gave you peace of mind and let you avoid the M$ tax on every model that had 100% free driver support. Imagine that. It also gets around the age old excuse of extra costs to the vendor. Models sold that way require nothing more than certification and would probably sell better than Vista. I hate giving people money for software I have no use for, M$, XP and Vista fall into this catagory.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
It's interesting how both accounts use the same writing style, do the same "M$" thing and even misspell the same words consistently.
Are you posting to Slashdot with two accounts? Is that even allowed?
I would also note that you could disable SpeedStep in the BIOS on older Thinkpads (and likely other makes & models too). Doing so would fix the processor at the lower speed (lest you think you're going to get it to run full-tilt all the time), but avoided some of the serious performance problems associated with the way Windows was managing SpeedStep, I don't know if that issue has since been fixed.
n/t
I'd be happy with a "No Operating System" option.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
How about one with both OSes installed that you can just dual boot from? Or maybe throw Ubuntu in there and tri-boot.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
You can buy a pre-assembled car with the options they have, or you can order one with only parts you want, but it will cost more. The other option is to buy all the parts yourself and build it yourself. The exact same situation with computers.
My work issued T61 came with Vista, but the I.T. guys wiped it for me and put XP on it instead. Getting XP pre-loaded would have saved us a bunch of time. I don't want to use XP and I.T. doesn't want to support it. Looks like everyone's happy.
... and that's what I do with Desktops. However, this week I bought my first laptop in 8 years (A Dell with XP). Building a laptop from parts is a little beyond me.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
Not me. I would look like a freak if I had boobs. I have facial hair.
Many stores were selling computers with XP away with discount so that they could start selling the same computers with Vista on them. And now, let me guess, they are doing the same with Vista computers, so that they could start selling XP preloaded computers again? Micro$oft really screwed things up with Vista, it seems. Anyway, many people don't really care which Windows comes preinstalled with the computer. Linux these days is a very viable option as well. The laptop I'm using now, Lenovo ThinkPad T60, came with Windows Vista Business. I didn't like it very much, so I installed Ubuntu and have been happy with it ever since.
Conveniently ignoring the fact that for each and every one of the 20,000 folks who flooded their online survey saying they wanted Linux, Dell has sold 2 systems by all accounts (Dell won't confirm publicly, but word is out). In the first 100 days.
You know what? Even the quality of the trolling has gone downhill since the Waggener Edstrom subcontractors started hanging around here. Why are they here? They must not be getting enough traction out of MySpace or Digg or something.
* * * * * *
Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth. —Dave Barry
I hope they still offer XP when the Penryn notebook platform comes out.
That also conveniently ignores the fact that the Linux offerings are more expensive and older technology. When I went to buy a new Dell I did the math and ended up just buying a Windows machine and blowing away the Windows install and putting SuSE on it.
Boy, that's a lot of frustrated people. Thank god they've never tried any other OS, otherwise they'd REALLY be sore.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
Great claim, but just how can Linux offerings be "more expensive"? Are we talking home computers, or are you just re-using the MS 'cherrypicked fact' ad concerning server technology?
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
Several months ago I had to buy a system from a store because the old system was dying but that system was preload with Vista and the application was running on it wasn't Vista compatible yet so I had to buy XP. I wanted a system preload with XP but they don't have that because MS was strong arming the hardware vendors to preload Vista and sent a ugly compliant to hardware manufacture and store. I wish that more hardware manufactures would allow the customers to buy the OS they wish on the system they want.
Vista uses as much memory with a single user as Mac OS X does for two logged in at the same time.
And yes, that's not counting cache/inactive memory.
That was my observation when I looked at Dell's web site several months ago. The linux.dell.com offerings were inferior and more expensive, at least for laptops. Probably why Dell hasn't gotten many takers.
And no, I'm not an MS fanboy. I've been a continuous Linux user for ~14 years.
A few weeks ago i purchased a T61. The Canadian Lenovo website is horrible. There are very few options available (compared to the US site). Still I managed to find a sneaky little link off to the side which contained a very unorganized list of a bunch of T61 package permutations, and found one that suited me closely enough. There were two listings with identical options (not placed side-by-side) I found for this. One with Vista and one with XP. I seem to recall the XP variation cost $30 more. I took it (albeit bitterly), despite that.
.ca customer service email address and got no response for days.
A few days later the Canadian Lenovo site changed, and that link was gone. Worried in case my order may be affected I called the number they provide. After getting forwarded to 3 different numbers (the last one of which didn't work at all), no one could find any trace of my order on their system. I tried emailing the
This was *extremely* frustrating. Finally many days later I got an email response confirming my order... and informing me that I'd selected a non-standard configuration so it would take 3-4 weeks to build. Frustrating. Very frustrating. I'm extremely tempted to cancel my order. I want to cancel, very much! But I also want the laptop... sigh. (And i don't want to think of the stress that'd be involved phoning them again to try to cancel the thing.)
Same thing for me at Fry's three months ago. Vista was the only option when I went to buy a new desktop for home. My wife uses it primarily, so I left it as-is.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
XP is faster than vista http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/11/windows-xp-serv.html/
It is currently serving as a stand for my XP based T40. Vista Business has been a disaster for me in terms of billable hours lost troubleshooting stuff that just works in XP (hibernate resume and wireless)(yes, compared to Vista XP's wireless is rock solid). The wireless networking has a nasty intermittent failure that takes reboot/reinstall driver/manually configure wireless network/sacrafice a goat to resolve, temporarily. As the T61p is a recent purchase, I have little more than Firefox and Putty on it on it, so at least it is relatively painless to wipe it (again, but last time I foolishly reinstalled Vista) and install XP. The only good thing I can say about Vista is that it's remote desktop works as well as XP's. Based on this experience, I have pointed my parents firmly at a Mac Mini for Christmas and am planning to clear out the few MS stocks in my retirement account. Vista is not a WindowsME level screwup, we're talking more like the love child of Microsoft Bob and Clippy on the aggravation scale.
You get to chose one or the other. Forever.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/f/4/5f4c83d3-833e-4f11-8cbd-699b0c164182/royaltyoemreferencesheet.pdf
"Q. Can end users return to Windows Vista
Business or Windows Vista Ultimate software
after they downgrade?
A. Yes. End users who downgrade may reinstall
the original software when they are ready to
migrate. For example, an end user who
downgrades to Windows XP Professional may
later return to Windows Vista Business software
provided that the end user deletes the Windows
XP Professional software from the PC."
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I thought this too but now I am not sure. For a long time the wireless took forever to reconnect after the laptop has woken up from sleep but recently it has been much faster. Its possibly that issue was resolved by updates.
Opps
Linux configured laptops, etc, were more expensive on the Dell website.
IIRC, prices were more or less the same between the windows and linux versions, but the linux configs got you less ram, hard drive space, etc.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Great, but why make it hard? Why force the deletion of one or the other instead of a smooth migration or -*gasp*- allowing both systems to access the same user data via dual boot or virtual machines. Mac and GNU/Linux pull this off.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
'Lenovo customers that have Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate "qualified systems" may purchase a Windows XP Recovery CD until July 31, 2008. Fees may vary.'
My T61 has been on back order for three weeks and just shipped yesterday. Now the wait and the 'variable fee' to upgrade.
-- Is it just me or does the new Recycle Bin look an awful lot like a shot glass. For some reason I feel as though I need a drink....
Um... no. Please provide a source to your ridiculous claim. Oh wait, you can't. But I have some.
:p
Vista's sales were 60% less than expected (comparing to XP's first week sales in October 2001), and 50% less than predicted by Microsoft. However, 30% of first week sales opted for the $400 Vista Ultimate, bringing the dollar value up to $207.13, 66% up from the initial selling price of XP. It should also be noted that PC sales were up 67% from the same week the previous year, making Vista sales look even worse.
As for actual total desktop market share, that's a tougher thing to measure. Linux users don't have to buy anything, meaning we can't judge them by sales numbers. You can't even look at download stats because the same disk image could be used throughout an organization (I myself have used the same CentOS disk on more than *200* machines). The numbers people quote most often come from advertising statistics, but that has it's own problems, mainly to do with a little something called an ad blocker. In 2002, only about 1-2% of users had adblocking software; in 2004, 21%; in 2006, 53%; and by the end of 2008, 80% are expected to have some form of adblock installed. That means that less than half of people's computers are actually reporting data back to advertisers for these OS market share statistics, with a disproportionate amount using something besides Windows. Meaning that Linux and Mac users are again shown in less than actual percentages.
Anyway, here are the numbers for the month of December 2006 from netapplications.com (the most quoted source):
XP - 85.30%
Mac - 5.67%
Linux - 0.68%
Vista - 0.37%
Other factors to keep in mind concerning advertising statistics are the large and growing number of dual boot and VM configurations, not just Linux-Windows, but Linux-Mac and Mac-Windows and the fact that most advertising statistics are usually limited to one country or even just major cities in a country. Also the fact that these numbers only account for (some) desktop systems, not servers or most embedded devices (of which Linux now boasts 20+% and 49% market share respectively as of April 2007).
Sources:
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9011360&intsrc=hm_list
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=10&qpmr=24&qpdt=1&qpct=3&qpcal=1&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=95
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7065740528.html
Wow. That ended up WAY longer than I thought it'd be. Sorry.
Oh, one last thing. If you go to the second link I gave and look up the stats for last month, you'll see that Vista is already at 9%. Not bad, but not great, either, considering how hard Microsoft's been pushing it for the last year (think about all those stories about retailers selling XP since no one with half a brain tech-wise wants Vista).
Sorry if this is kind of off-topic, but i remember that when IBM sold it's PC department to Lenovo (even though Lenovo was actually producing the machines before that, anyhow), folks were very afraid that the great ThinkPad would fall in quality and robustness and all the things that make ThinkPads great - does anyone have anectodal evidence whether this actually happens, or are ThinkPads still the laptop-of-choice for the people that value quality over the bling-factor?
I have a lenovo that had to be "rescued by the penguin". Before that, I was "using" the Vista Business preload, and I wholeheartedly agree with you. I had problems connecting to any network, wired or otherwise, and the search never worked right for me. Say what you will about that, but I actually found it easier to get things working in Ubuntu(but still hard as hell). If Vista is trying to copy the Mac's "It just works" claim, they have a long way to go.
They need to admit vista was a huge disaster and cut their losses and start from scratch. Vista wasn't close to a fresh start. What happens when u put crap and a fancy sheet on a pile of crap? u get a bigger pile that looks nice but still smells.
Windows on a mac is Windows under Supervision. - Frank Soltis(Chief Scientist/Designer of AS400)
I'm sure it is. I used an HP Pavilion with their Broadcom card. After the first few connections, it refused to take dhcp from the server. But running under Linux with ndiswrapper (same exact driver), I had no problems at all. And this was just a few months ago.
Google it and you see endless "advices", and multiple unclear tech-notes.
And people complain about wireless on Linux - makes me laugh! With little manufacturer support, you can get it to work, but the million that are thrown in by MS and device manufacturers and they can't get the kinks out for Vista.
Ask Dell. How could the Linux offerings be just as or more expensive than Windows?
But run their "customize options" pages and get a comparable machine. I recall finding that the 1420 with Ubuntu or Windows came to the same price, but the Windows version had some extra bells and whistles. Bettor off buying the Windows version and stripping it - anyhow, I'm sure that Dell pays per unit so you're paying the MS tax either way - they're pro-rating it across their entire line.
Well, there's your whole problem right there.
I was part of the committee to make sure the "Lenovo recommends" blurbs were included on every page. As you might imagine, it's done for the discount, nothing more.
Wait a second here - are you talking about "cost" according to a retailer's offerings - not the value of the computer/OS itself, but how he chooses to sell? If I understand the above, the retailer is in this case choosing to configure his hardware - to the OS? Sure, there's some "readiness" involved (preparing for a more cumbersome OS), but really. The thought of someone being obliged to buy an OS he doesn't want just to get better/cheaper hardware is frankly ridiculous. And if I do do that and return the unwanted OS, would it still be more expensive? I think not. I fail to see the logic in this.
Were it a question of good 'ol quality/price fair-marketing and the table really level, no such manoeuvering would be needed. Why not just directly sell me a virgin machine (of my choice), without the OS pricetag, and let me install my own flavour/distribution of OS?
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
I run Vista on my HP Compaq nc8430 but I had to buy it with XP because Vista had only been out for a few months. Apparently 5 years and a few months notice wasn't enough for HP to get it ready in time. I ordered another one yesterday and I still can't buy one with Vista. I have to get XP and pay an upgrade license to run Vista. To recap this situation, HP knows Vista sucks and won't supply it despite recommending it (for the discount only). I pay Microsoft extra to run Vista because it sucks! HP get a better profit margin with their discount for recommending a sucky product. I wish my boss would pay me extra for screwing up and turing out work that's late and sucks! (P.S. It my job to run Vista and work out when its ready for corporate deployment. There's no way I want 250 people ringin me up with the kind of crap that I put up with from Vista bugz. Vista SP1 had better be something outa this world!).
Although I wish they'd follow Dell's lead and offer Linux as an OS option.
I had been looking at a ThinkPad T61 for months but finally splurged because they recently dropped by price by about $300. I've been using it for a couple weeks and man, this is a nice laptop. It reeks of thoughtful engineering and quality construction. It runs Linux perfectly, as long as you choose the right wifi and video cards. The best part? A midrange ThinkPad actually costs less than their competitors' flimsy equivalents. I don't mean for this to sound so much like an advertisement, but I just really love this machine.
So shave - this is slashdot
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
yep- I was lucky when I got my lenovo at a comp usa (one of the few in store core duo xp laptops at the time)- it was a sealed box return, so it couldn't go back to the distributor to be swapped for a vista machine- I got it for less than cost- $450- everything else at the time was vista in the store
Most of such utilities are crap (autoruns usually takes care of them), but the one that I've found to actually increase functionality is Toshiba's power management utility, which is a lot more useful than the default XP one.
Well, I think that might be a matter of individual taste. Personally, I find them pretty revolting, supporting a company as morally bankrupt and actively obstructionist as Microsoft.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Going from XP to Vista is hard. Going the other way is a huge pain in the ass. No, you can't dual boot. Information does not move smoothly. This is by design, so they can force people along and create the illusion that moving to free software is even more difficult.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
You got it. It's the "market cost" not the wholesale cost. And since they'll sell you a sub-par system without Windows, you'd better be ready for a huge fight if you want to get your money back for Windows - they'll simply argue that they have a supported system you should have bought.
If it was an actual free market, there'd be close to no advertising, so you can tell how close we are to that!
Although I don't agree with the practice, I'm glad to see the facts laid out so clearly. I'm not so sure about the advertising part though - but I suppose that's another discussion : )
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader