Replace Thinkpad Win7 w/OEM Win7?

[halw]

Thinking of replacing the win7 version that came with my T420 with an OEM version.

Reason is all the Lenovo BS that came loaded. Seems like a PITA to try to pick trough everything and delete the stuff.

Any unforeseen issues that need to be considered?

 

[evident]

Tbh it's not worth it. Just uninstall whatever Lenovo apps you won't use and you'll be fine. The reason why I say this is because on my x220 I get considerably less battery life with a clean install of win 7 vs using the Lenovo recovery image.

 

[goobee]

Doesn't hurt to try if you have a spare copy lying around. If you have to buy a copy, I'd say no.

 

[CoolRunnings]

Tried it both ways. The Lenovo pre-load actually does start up faster! I wouldn't bother...

 

[halw]

Thanks for all of your advice. The issue I'm having is I just tried to do a Windows update and it's failing. This after getting rid of some of the Lenovo stuff. Contacted what was thought to be their tech support and got some guy that wanted to load Macafee on my system. "Hell no".

Just did a Security Essentials quick scan and everything is clean. Not sure what to do except reload Windows. So thought I might as well do it with the MS vs. Lenovo version.

 

[corkyg]

The Lenovo Toolbox has some very good utilities. Bad idea. Failing Windows update can be many things including a lack of Active-X. Is this failure in the automatic or manual mode? You may have gotten rid of a key thing in your zeal to get rid of Lenovo "stuff." Can you boot F11 and restore your system?

"Any unforeseen issues that need to be considered?

I think you found one.

 

[rsutoratosu]

Lenovo has some tweaks they put into their oem image.. I like the older t61 system restore where you can UNCHECK all the bloat ware. Now I just restore their image and uninstall what I dont use and ghost an image of that..

 

[halw]

Figured out what was going on with the windows update. Settings were to update every day at 3 am. Found this out as I was up at that time trying to figure things out. Finally got the updates done. Whew!

Have changed the setting now to notify when updates are available so I can just manually do them myself. Also got rid of a bunch of the Lenovo stuff. Win7 desktop now looks more like the plain vanilla system I was looking for and am using the window utilities rather than the ones supplied by Lenova.

 

[Tsavo]

Tried it both ways. The Lenovo pre-load actually does start up faster! I wouldn't bother...

Same here. The Lenovo utilities are quite useful, too...and not at all bloated.