Newbie: First "Real" Laptop T61

Hi Guys

I am new here. After spending weeks reading and learning I finally made my first order for a real laptop. After using a Toshiba Satellite for 8 years !! I made the decision to get T61. I was on a student budget but decided to go for what I could afford.
I read about XP clean install on the forum here....is that a must? Will it void my warranty? Can I order an XP CD from Lenovo? Thanks for the help.
Vishnu

ThinkPad T61 with nVIDIA Graphics
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T8300 (2.4GHz 800MHz 3MBL2)
Genuine Windows XP Professional
14.1 WXGA TFT, w/ Camera
nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M
2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)
100GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim
ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless LAN Mini-PCIe US/EMEA/LA/ANZ
9 cell Li-Ion Battery
7662: 1 Year Depot Warranty - Express
41C9170 3 year depot 9x5 Next Business Day

Total: 1228 Shipped (including taxes) with 3 year warranty

 

The clean install is not a must (but highly recommended) and it will not void your warranty. Unfortunately, you cannot order an XP CD from Lenovo but since you are a student, you can go to your campus IT department and inquire about a purchase. They usually sell Student Edition XP (identical to Professional) that will work just as well.

 

Congratulations, btw!

 

Congratulations! That looks very similar to my build (see sig). You'll find that it will be a very powerful machine. Enjoy!

 

Thanks a lot guys. I will go down to the IT department and ask for Windows XP CD if they have one. Will any XP CD do? I have a bunch of them lying around that came with some school desktops.

 

Burn off a set of recovery discs. The newest versions of Rescue and Recovery allow you to essentially do a clean install, putting on only the progrmas you wish. Then you can burn off a new set of recovery discs set up the way you like. I'd also suggest making a copy of the SWTools folder from the C:\ drive. It contain all the drivers and applications installed on your machine.

 

Congratulations! The first thing you should do when you get the laptop is to create a set of Recovery Disks! Once that is done, you can blow away the OS and do a clean reinstall either using the Rescue & Recovery or by using your own copy of Win XP/Vista.

 

Cool. Thanks a lot for the help guys. I will do as suggested as the first thing when my laptop arrives. Right now it says expected shipping is April 4th.
Vishnu

 

hey watusp man. i would like to welcome you to the ThinkPad family. they really great computers. i love mine i have been using my for like 8months it great. i just love.

i dont have to do a fresh installation the reason is because the thinkpad doesnt come with any bloat ware. the only 2 things that it comes with is the norton anti-virus and picasa. just delete them. and if you still feel you want to have a clean os you can go into the recovery partition by hitting the ThinkVantage button during startup and you can restore you computer to windows standards meaning that your computer would have windows and all of the ThinkVantage utility.