New Lenovo - Reformat?

Hey guys,

Just got my new Thinkpad 410. Haven't opened it yet but I thought I'd shoot a question to you guys, having never owned a Lenovo before. I know Dell preloads your computer with a ton of junk. Does Lenovo do the same thing? Is a reformat and clean install a good idea to do right away?

My first thought is that it's important. Starts you off with a clean state, and I can add in the bare bones I need to get wireless, audio, etc, working. What preloaded Lenovo utilities (power management/etc) are useful or should I stay away from those entirely?

Much thanks. And of course, feel free to tell me if this is just way more trouble than it's worth. This is probably the most hassle-free time to reformat but it'll still make it quite a bit of a "set up" time compared to just plug and go.

 

Congratulatiosn on your T410. Turns out that the thinkpads do not have too much of crapware installed. The Only extra IMHO is the norton AV trial which I would replace with MSE (if you are going to use Win 7).

the utilities actually are pretty good - the power manager gives you a very fine grained control over many things. you might want to try them out before you uninstall.

Personally, for each laptop I've owned, the first thing I'd do was to take out the manufacturer supplied drive and store it safely. I'd then put in a replacement with just the stuff I need, along with my data. That way, you can be at peace when you send it in for repairs (I hope not ) or when you re-sell.

 

Lenovo adds a few stuff on their system installations but is not as bad in comparison compared to others (Acer, Sony etc.). Some of their Thinkvantage Tools are actually useful but you probably won't use all of it which adds unnecessary resources.

For me when I had the X201t it felt slow which is why I decided to clean install the system, I managed to cut system processes by 40% in the process and it does feel more snappier on startups then previous. If you do plan to do this then you can visit this thread for instructions on how to backup and restore the activation keys for your new install as well as obtaining the installation discs that most OEMs don't provide. Ideally also make a backup of Lenovo's system image by using Rescue & Recovery before you do the clean install as a safeguard.

 

The very first thing you should do is create the Factory Disk Image set with the Rescue and Recovery tools. If you have another hard drive, I would test the restore process on the second drive.

Usually the next thing I do is start looking carefully at the second drive and make some decisions on things I'd like to remove. Usually the first thing to go is the anti-virus anti-malware "offer" that is typically present. Followed by the Thinkvantage Connections thing and the Office trial.

The point is, experiment all you want after you know your factory image disk set works.