x220: what software is worthwhile?

So I got my x220 the other day, and promptly wiped the HDD and installed Windows 7 Ultimate. I hate bloatware. What software of Lenovo's is worth reinstalling (i.e. contains useful features above and beyond what the built-in Windows software is capable of doing)?

 

Power Management is the only thing I install on my Thinkpad.

 

Bad move, niplfsh. You've probably just needlessly lost battery life. I would try to revert to the factory load if possible-- the new factory load is really pretty stripped-down.

 

+1 and ultranav utility/finger print soft

 

Did you try to use Lenovo's stock image? I've never had an issue with Lenovo's stock image, they are business oriented, so none of the stuff you find on like Acer and eMachines.

As the others have stated, and I recommend most of the ThinkVantage suite, they have some pretty useful stuff.

Note you will not be able to install Rescue and Recovery without a recovery partition.

 

I got great battery with a fresh install of Win 7 Pro.

 

I've installed the UltraNav, the Fingerprint software, and the Power Management software. The Power Management software in particular is pretty impressive; I've got a pretty nice profile set up. I like how it shuts off Aero on battery.

My factory build was Windows 7 Home and I owned Ultimate so I figured I'd just throw that on. What would I lose with regards to battery life with a clean install plus the power management software compared to the factory build?

I'm not really concerned with the recovery stuff. I'm going to create an image of the drive and store it on my desktop. Gonna need it anyway, since I'm waiting for an mSATA drive on backorder.

 

... which would probably have been even better with the factory load. Better revert if you can.

 

Any particular reason why the factory load would have better battery life than a clean install with the same power management software and drivers installed?

 

On some machines it's possible to install the drivers in the wrong order. I'm not sure about the x220.

 

While many people are convinced that a factory install gives the best battery life, I am very happy with a custom install.

For a custom install you don't need any additional Lenovo software. You can specify drivers during the installation of Win7 at the point where you have to choose the HDD/SSD you wish to install to. With unpacked drivers you can add

- chipset
- AHCI
- Intel RST
- Intel IGP
- WLAN
- Hotkey

Assuming you don't need ethernet and deactivated it, the only driver "missing" is the Intel AMT, but I deactivated it under Windows - for some reason cannot deactivate that in BIOS.

If you had the PowerManager and set thresholds for charging, they are still remembered by the machine and you do not necessarily need to install the PowerManager again. In my case, I find Windows does an adequate job.

At the moment, I cannot give any numbers on how much power this install draws, but my previous install drew surprisingly little power - something around 4 or 5 watts idle, if I remember correctly. So about a watt less some factory installs on X220 machines.

 

Certain laptops have to have graphics drivers from the respective manufacturer to be able to do Fn + adjust brightness levels. Found out my Latitude 13 is one of those.