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Lenovo’s Matt Kohut, over at the Lenovo blog Inside the Box, recently put up a post talking about how Lenovo’s suite of ThinkVantage Technology tools would fare with Windows 7. A number of tools have gone away in favor of built-in functionality, but a surprising number remain.
The concern is that as Windows advances, many of the usability shortcomings of previous generations are being resolved: multi-monitor setup (including projectors), network connections, backups, and more. Lenovo/IBM had always stood out against the crowd with their suite of ThinkVantage Technology productivity tools that allowed for users and IT admins to configure and administer their system to a highly granular level.
As remote management of IT assets increases and the demand for uber-control of the system decreases, combined with the increase in Windows functionality, many of Lenovo’s ThinkVantage Technologies were in essence redundant. Matt had previously alluded to the duplication of ThinkVantage tools and now that Windows 7 is imminent, he is able to share with us what made the cut and what didn’t. In a nutshell:
| Continued | Discontinued |
Access Connections | Presentation Director |
Rescue & Recovery | GPS & Camera apps |
Power Manager | Productivity Center |
System Update | EasyEject |
Lenovo System Toolbox | Screen Magnifier |
System Migration Assistant & ImageUltra Builder | Keyboard Mapper |
Hardware Password Manager |
I highly recommend you check out Matt’s blog post for more explanation on why some things made it through and others didn’t. I’m not terribly surprised by what was cut, although I am very disappointed in the loss of Presentation Director.
One-click functionality to enable specific display profiles aside, it also was able to customize things like your background image, automatically open a file, turn on the ThinkLight, and most important to me: orient where the external monitor was in relation to the notebook. This matter because if your secondary LCD is to the left, it would make sense that if you move your mouse to the left it will spill over onto the other LCD. I’ve not used Windows 7 and don’t know if that functionality is there – if you know, leave a comment. I’ll be playing with Win7 very soon with some juicy feedback for you all.
Source: [Inside the Box]
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I’m running Windows 7 on a T500. I keep the secondary screen to the left of my notebook, and the built-in display manager remembers the position when I dock. It keeps coming up in duplicate display mode, but when I switch to extended display it is on the correct side.
So what if the secondary screen is on the right? Is there a way to change it?
Hello,
I’m running Windows 7 RTM – I wanted to install the ThinkVantage Password Manager so I tried installing the Vista version but it looks like it’s preventing the install because it’s Windows 7.
Does anyone know if the Windows 7 version of this specific ThinkVantage application is available?
Even in Beta?
Thank You
I would suggest you visit Lenovo Forums’ Win7 section here.
Hi,
I’m using a ThinkPad T61p with Windows 7 64-bit.
I’m trying to connect an external display but when I try to detect another screen (in Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Display\Screen Resolution) nothing happens
Can anyone help me?
I’m probably missing a driver but I have no idea!
Thanks,
Danielle
Well I would triple check the cable and connection, but try pressing Fn+F7. If that doesn’t work, head over to http://forums.lenovo.com – they have a section there specifically for Win7 stuff.
Or you could wait another month for the official drivers
[...] and customization, not more generic crap. I may have lamented the passing of one of my favorite ThinkVantage utilities, but it’s clear Lenovo is still committed to making the ThinkPad a unique device in an [...]
[...] Lenovo’s excellent Access Connections network management and Power Manager utilities are included and have a slick integration with the new Windows 7 taskbar. You can take a look at a list of what Lenovo utilities made the cut into Windows 7 here. [...]
I’m very disappointed that Presentation Director has been discontinued in Windows 7. That was one of the prime reasons I have been buying Thinkpads. Windows 7 built-in version is far from being ready for prime time.