Thinkpad X61Tablet and Vista.

Later edit:

After I installed XP Tablet edition on my Thinkpad X61T, all the problems are gone... Is been a week now since I started the notebook with XP Tablet edition and I used only hibernation instead of shuting it down.

I miss Vista Look but there are some "interface emulators" that makes the XP to look like a Vista OS but i do not want to put that garbage on my PC...

On the Vista, the Tablet drivers seems to be more rafinate than in XP Tablet edition. One of this differences is the ability tu put the Tablet Input Panel everywhere on the screen instead the two options under Tablet Edition (docking Upscreen or Downscreen)

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Most IBM (now Lenovo) ThinkPad laptops no longer come with recovery cds or even operating system installation cd-roms. Replacing the cds, on the expense of ThinkPad users, is a hidden service partition that contains all the recovery images and files, and provides interactive rescue and recovery predesktop workspace, which is an operating environment specifically designed for rescue and recovery operations independent of the Windows operating system.

Factory preinstalled is Vista. Mine was prealoaded with Vista Business Edition.

I must say that I was very dissapointed because a main feature was not functioning as expected: The sleep/hibernation.

The notebook never get fully functional after restoring from hibernation or sleeping. Some applications stops responding making my life miserable. I need to quick deploy my notebook (I'm a lawyer) and the hibernation is the perfect compromise between quick access to informations and long life on battery.

I didn't find a solution, not even after Microsoft relase SP1 for Vista so I decided to get back to old XP as i own a T43 and a X40 (for Ham Radio purposes) and i'm very pleased about how it work.

A friend of mine give me a XP Tablet installation CD.

The problems with the ThinkPad’s service partition are that it’s easily taking out some 4 to 5 GB of precious hard disk space. Beside, since it’s residing on the harddisk itself, when the harddisk is spoilt, the recovery partition will be gone too. If you change the hard drive, the Rescue and Recovery partition will not be available on the new harddisk too, so there is no way to restore the ThinkPad to the original factory state pre-load only just as when it was manufactured.

So it’s wise to create the ThinkPad product recovery cd.

VERY IMPORTANT: First step is to download the proper drivers from Lenovo Support in order to have at least Ethernet. Is very important to have a functional internet connection after installing XP! Copy the Ethernet driver on a USB Stick or a CD (I used a CD with a combination of drivers: video, WiFi, Power management, ethernet and some other non important stuff).

I installed the XP Tablet Edition with SP1, activate it (as the Vista Business EULA state that a downgrade is possible) and fully upgrade to SP3 and Thinkvantage productivity software. Of course, i used System Upgrade to have all the needed drivers on the HDD.
After I tested and the OS was up to date, I used Thinkvantage Rescue and recovery for creating a CD (Startup Disk RR) and 2 DVD's (data recovery). The first media will be just for boot so a CD is enough but the second is recomandable to be a DVD as the amount of data is around 7Gb.

The optical unit was a USB external DVD-R>RW from LG (Slim Line). Is posible to use the dock but that piece is at my office and i made the "operation" at home.

The decision was radical and cost me a lot of time; before this definitive installation, I made a test by installing the Tablet edition in paralell with Vista B Ed. in order to be sure that it works. After that, i made a full backup of data by simple copy on a few DVD's and proceeded to a clean XP installation.

So, this is my experience with Vista Business Ed. It looks fine (Aero is very cool) but is no use in a "real" environment. I am not the only one to complain about this hibernations problem. Some of the other guys manage to solve the mistery, some 9as myself0 did not so I decide to make a radical stept before it was almost impossible.

G|ood luck!
Adrian
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