The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Lenovo drivers/optimization for generic Win 7 installation

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by crunchytheory, Aug 5, 2011.

  1. crunchytheory

    crunchytheory Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    So, long story short, I was playing around with Linux and installed it on the wrong hard drive, the one that came with my ThinkPad x220 and consequently blew away my stock Lenovo Windows 7 installation.

    I've tried to rectify this by installing a generic copy of Windows 7 Professional. It's mostly functional, however it's missing support and doesn't behave quite the same. It's obviously missing Lenovo-specific drivers and the ThinkVantage software.

    My question is: is there a simple way that I might have overlooked to revert my system back to the stock Lenovo-optimized setup? The best I could find was a list of all the X220's latest drivers on Lenovo's website, but it's a giant list and it would take a long time to go through each one and install manually. I'd also still be missing the ThinkVantage software. I'm hoping there's some utility that will download/install the missing software as a batch process or something. Thanks in advance!
     
  2. thetoast

    thetoast Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    70
    Messages:
    364
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I recently did a clean install of Windows on my machine, and simply did this:

    -download the wifi driver, and ThinkVantage System Update
    -after the Windows install, load the wifi driver and the system update software
    -connect to the internet, and let the system update software do its thing
    -after rebooting, run Windows Update
     
  3. crunchytheory

    crunchytheory Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Ah, perfect! This sounds exactly like what I'm looking for. Thanks!
     
  4. mrpeaches

    mrpeaches Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    45
    Messages:
    162
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    31
    This is exaclty what I did too and my machine is running perfectly
     
  5. thetoast

    thetoast Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    70
    Messages:
    364
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    great to hear :)
     
  6. rjan_

    rjan_ Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    6
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Given that thetoast's method relies on System Update, which itself provides some outdated drivers (e.g. Intel HD Graphics 3000, ThinkPad b/g/n, etc.), you may want to manually update some (generic) drivers yourself through their respective providers.
     
  7. thetoast

    thetoast Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    70
    Messages:
    364
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    sure, of course..