Lenovo T400 Windows XP Recovery CD's

Anyone else think that charging for "downgrading" to Windows XP from Vista is bull crap? I found a way around this, and i'm using my Windows XP Recovery CD's for the T60 and T61p. I did the whole restore to factory settings, and updated the drivers and applications via Lenovo's website. It seems to be working great. I'm thoroughly pissed off that Lenovo's customer service sucks, and they wouldn't accomodate my request for Windows XP. I don't think it's right what Lenovo and others are doing.

Is it just me, or does anyone else agree?

 

Which version of Vista did you get? ThinkPads haven't offered free CDs for quite some time.

 

I got free Windows XP Professional recovery disks with my T500 (with Vista Business 64).

 

Really? How'd you get that?? I was trying to get them to send me the Windows XP recovery CD's, and they kept wanting to charge me.

 

It was an option when I ordered - it was something like "Windows XP Recovery Disk Set" with a bubble next to it, and an added cost of $0. I thought, why not, so I bubbled it. They sent me a 2 disc set, one "Product Recovery Disk" and one "Rescure and Recovery Disk".

 

Sick. Does it say Product Recovery CD for T400 as well?

 

Vista Home. I can't stand that OS.

 

It's only I suspect because you ordered a machine with the XP downgrade, either Business or Ultimate. If you had ordered Home Basic or Premium you would have had to burn off the recovery discs. I think they stopped handing free upon request recovery discs with the T42 and sometime before that they stopped they stopped handing out discs, which they did back in the day.

 

Home Premium does not include the right to downgrade to XP Pro. If you want XP, you'll have to buy it. We have a low tolerance for piracy here. Tread lightly.

I used to dislike Vista very much as well when it first came out, but with SP1 it got better. Hopefully SP2 will be even better. There are still some things about Vista like networking which need work. A clean install can help a lot too.

 

I've been using Thinkpads for 10 years since IBM. After the rude experience i've had with Lenovo, this is the last Thinkpad i'm getting. It's not just my experience with the XP downgrade, but their customer service and ridiculous price match policies just blow. They couldn't understand customer service if it was spelled out for them. And Vista just flat out blows. I can't believe you're actually supporting that POS.

By the way, sorry about the rant. I've just had the worst customer experience ever with Lenovo.

 

Yes, sadly Lenovo has slipped some in the customer service area. Don't know if that's cause they're selling more consumer notebooks or what. Just my own personal opinion here, as a long time ThinkPad user you should know that the prices for ThinkPads has decreased greatly. I don't know what you paid for your T400, but I'd bet money your ThinkPad of yore cost a lot more. My own T41, which was bottom of the barrel configuration wise with a CD-ROM and no WiFi, cost $1,500. $1,500 buys a very good ThinkPad now. At the end of the day you can't have it all. That's not an excuse, but reality. I don't know that anyone else is significantly better, maybe Panasonics, but they cost a lot more. If I were in the market today, I'd be looking at the e6400. I think it offers the best value of anything out there now. Good deals in the Dell Outlet too.

 

How do you feel about Thinkpad T400? Is it good for business? What are pros & cons with this laptop? If anyone who are using it, pls let me know.
I'm from Vietnam and plan to buy new laptop Thinkpad T400...
So as far as i know, it is hard to get warranty service in Vietnam? Am i right?
Thnk you very much

 

Well, so far, I like it. The new LCD lit LED is not for me, though. The screen almost looks washed out. I would not recommend getting the LCD lit LED if I were you. Also, it comes with Vista Home, which, IMHO, is bad. And Lenovo's customer service is not good either.

I wouldn't get one again. I would have gotten an Apple instead.

 

If you buying a machine here, I'd make sure you get one with IWS and the warranty is valid in Vietnam.

 

Vista Home cannot be downgraded to XP.
So you are basically asking for a free WinXp, do you think it's possible?
Lenovo has to pay for each copy(SN) of Windows to Microsoft

 

I've got an update. I've been using my T400 since March and it's a pretty good laptop. I like it. I did have to downgrade Vista to make it usable. Anyways, the other day I did something that screwed up my OS. I couldn't even reboot without the BSOD. I think it was a virus. Anyways, no big deal, since I had a ghost image of my original XP build. I re-ghosted the image, and tried to reboot, but I kept getting the BSOD. ? So, I deleted the old partition, and recreated it, and rebooted. Seemed ok since it did not find any OS. I redid the Ghost, and now it was giving me a disk read error on reboot. Hmmmm... So, I decided to use the Rescue and Recovery partition. I said to restore the factory default OS, and not save any files. It started the restore process, and everything was going fine, until I realized it was restoring a factory Windows XP install. Huh? Anyways, it seems as if there might be a bunch of T400's that are shipped with Vista Home as the primary OS, but with an XP build as the recovery OS. If you guys are wanting to switch out of Vista on your T400's, it might be interesting to back up your files, and reboot into F11's Rescue and Recovery. Then do a complete factory restore and see if it installs XP for you. Working great for me so far!