What thinkpad programs/utilities are essential?

I want to pretty much get rid of all of them, since from what I have seen the programs I can get a replacement, or I just dont need them. However I am just worried about the utilities, I am not sure which ones I actually need. Also just curious which one allows the volume buttons to work? For what it matters I am using a T61

 

Alright I have it down to these. I cant find any details on them really and was hoping some of you could help tell me if it is safe to remove them.
Thinkpad easy eject utility
TP fullscreen magnifier
TP mobility center customization
TP modem
TP power management driver
TP power manager
TP ultranav driver, and utility
TP active protection system

 

Going down the list...

Fullscreen Magnifier is supposed to do just what it's name states. I tried it but didn't really get how it's supposed to work. I uninstalled it.

Mobility Center Customization just adds a few T6x specific panes (just shortcuts really) to the Windows Mobility Center. I left it as it doesn't really cause any harm.

TP Modem is just the modem driver and any support resources it uses. Pretty sure you need it if you want the modem to work properly.

Power Management Driver is required for the TP Power Manager to work I'm pretty sure. I left it as it may also supply a handful of Lenovo specific ACPI tweaks/drivers.

Power Manager is just the ThinkPad interface for power management. It provides basically the same customizability that Vista's power settings do, with the addition of that neat battery gauge in the taskbar and detailed battery info (current capacity, design capacity, draw, temp, etc...). Currently I have it uninstalled as I didn't really have need for two battery gauges.

UltraNav Driver and Utility you want to keep as those provide the advanced options for the TrackPoint and TouchPad. The driver is basically a Synaptics driver suite, utility I think is the configuration stuff for the TrackPoint. Utility needs Driver to run itself.

Active Protection System provides control and usage of the HDD sudden motion sensor. I uninstalled it as it was parking the HDD from just slow, basic movement of the laptop even after tweaking the motion sensitivity and was interrupting disk access frequently (music, video would abruptly stop/start when moving around while playing).

Oh, and just in case you uninstall something that you want in the future, you should be able to re-download the ThinkVantage applications (and a bunch of other stuff) from System Update. Lenovo also has them available in their downloads section.

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks!

 

Thanks a bunch. I was on the fence about some of those but sounds like I was generally along the right lines. Thanks again.

 

Instead of installing their stuff, I would point windows to find the driver you need in the directory and see if it finds it. For many things that has helped sidestep having to install junk.

 

Why Access Connections isn't in the list? How can I turn on/off bluetooth without access connections (Fn + F5 won't work without this)

 

Ah yes, Access Connections. I left that one out just because the OP didn't mention it.

Depending on how you have it set in the BIOS, Fn+F5 should still work to turn Bluetooth/Wi-Fi on and off (at least on my T60), but Access Connections is a bit more convenient as you don't have to cycle through radios.

 

Can you let me know how to set this up in the BIOS?

 

Sure! I'm assuming it works the same way for both T60 and T61 (as I'm not sure which you have) so I'll just check how mine is set the next time I reboot. It'll probably be later tonight, if not then by tomorrow. I would do it now, but I'm working on something at the moment.

 

You can use Thinkpad BIOS simulator:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=TPAD-SIMS