Please help me free my thinkpad for unpredictable stuff

I bought a thinkpad z61t and it is by far the most sexy notebook I have ever had.

But I'm unhappy with the preinstalled crap. I use the computer for backing tracks for live performances with my band, so I need to remove everything that suddently would affect the permance of my sequencer and make the music skip/stutter.

I guess the best solution would be a clean xp install, but I don't want to do that, since I've already spent too much time installing and configuring stuff.

What would I need to remove? As I said, it is unpredictable stuff that is the problem. Thinks like pop-ups, automatic updates and sudden intensive cpu or harddisk peaks. I already configured xp using guide I found, so it's only the thinkpad specific programs I need to consider.

Also, if I remove some of the thinkvantage programs, can I get them back without completely reverting to factory configuration?

 

All the apps and drivers for your machine are located in the IBMTools folder which will allow you to re-install them at a later date should the need arise. You can also of course download it from Lenovo's website.

Was there some app in particular you were wondering about? CCleaner is a good app which amongst other things allows you to turn off unwanted programs from turning on with Windows.

I really liked the Z series as well. The Z61m I wrote the review for was built like a tank.

 

There wasn't any particular app that worried me. Because I don't really know what's going on. I took a look at the task manager and found alot of processes I didn't knew. So I'm more interested in hearing which apps might cause trouble. I've already bumped into one automatic update pop-up, but I wasn't able to find out what caused that (other than it was some thinkvantage stuff)

I downloadet ccleaner, but to me it seemed more like a cleaner than a start-up manager.

 

When you open CCleaner, click Tools then Startup and it will give a list of applications that turn on with Windows. You can delete any you wish. If you are unsure what they are, google them. You might want to look at the ThinkVnatage Software Guide.