Microsoft, Google, Apple, Ubuntu, et al. all make decent OSes that are designed to, um, work. I don't get why manufacturers don't get this simple fact and always have to tamper with stuff. For the less-technical people out there, can't we have a "Nexus" sort of PC manufacturer who prides themselves in selling with ONLY vanilla OSes and as-standard-as-possible hardware components?

I thought the real reason manufacturers do this is because they're in a very low margin industry. For computers they get some deal with software companies to pre-install their product, and similar for cell phones with service providers.

With that said, differentiating by custom UIs on top of the base platform (i.e. the Android approach) would be much better, and would be actually-useful differentiation rather than a matter of "well which company's going to fuck me over the least with their preinstalled shitware?".

This also isn't exactly universally true. HTC was pretty responsive in getting Lollipop out to my One M8, for example, even with its whole "Sense UI" shebang.

It's still only one sort of business strategy. Not every hardware company is necessarily pursuing this line.

Does that not void the warranty?

When the customer is not a consumer but a company, then things might be different (companies may be able to give away their rights in a way that consumers may not).

In EU countries, a manufacturer may offer a warranty, but this is just supposed to be an extra service; the seller is at least required to provide defect liability (i.e. a device must fixed if broken when it is sold and it must last for a reasonable time in reasonable use).

So I don't think changing a hard drive would void it. But also, I don't usually care about warranties. Things usually break only after the warranty expires, and for any electronic device, as long as it's a common enough model number it's usually possible to get spare parts on eBay when the time comes.

Also, Thinkpads all have a BIOS whitelist that prevents you from actually using the hardware you just easily installed.

For example, If your HDD fails under warranty, they'll ship you a new one with the simple instructions to replace it. Only tool needed is a small Philips screwdriver. :-)

When all vendors sell products running the same OS, with essentially the same keyboard, screen, processor, etc., their products become commodities and margins disappear; consumers will buy whatever costs least.

If consumers associate a special experience with your product, you might be able to charge a little more or at least have some brand loyalty.

One could also differentiate by focusing on a custom-tailored UI/UX. This is a bit harder to do with Windows than it is with Linux (including Android), though.

I have the same priorities, but how do you know which vendor's hardware is more reliable? All we have is anecdotal experiences. FWIW my experience is that HP's business product lines are most reliable, and Dell's business lines have relatively many quality issues. The HP Elite laptops have exceptional serviceability (better than any I've seen -- find a video and just look at how the laptop case opens for service) and tech support.

> I'm sure I'm not alone (though probably part of a minority of shoppers).

Consumers buy on price, but the priorities of business IT departments are similar to yours: reliability, serviceability, and support; the costs of downtime and skilled labor for repairs far exceed the savings from buying cheap machines. Each vendor sells consumer (e.g., Dell Inspiron), and business (e.g., Dell Latitude) product lines. Maybe try shopping the products they sell to corporate IT; those match your priorites. They cost more, but you get what you pay for.

Patently absurd, I know, but when you drink enough Kool-Aid...

And the great thing is that Lenovo is keeping all that stuff current to support an ancient-in-internet years piece of hardware. This isn't HP consumer machine crapware...this is the stuff that costs Lenovo money not something they get paid to pre-install.

That's what exposing BIOS settings are for.

if you don't put special software on your linux before you boot a live cd, your thinkpad t500 fries itself.

sure it does.

As far as I know, the power utility is the only thing I installed from Lenovo. The graphics drivers from nVidia came directly through Windows Update.

Should I be concerned? Should I uninstall the power management tools?

How would such a message come about? Do Lenovo pay Microsoft to put in error messages? Did it look for the answer to your problem online?

i'm having a hard time imagining a computer booting, without a cpu fan. OS: I'm starting up - so do all these things! as fast as possible!

- The CPU fan might be controlled via ACPI.

- The operating system is supposed to run ACPI code provided by the BIOS.

- A BIOS can specify different sets of ACPI code for different operating systems, so Linux might get different code from Windows.

- The ACPI code provided by the BIOS for Linux might be broken, or lacking fan control.

- The hardware vendor may have decided not to provide APCI controls for anything, relying instead on proprietary interfaces.

Section 1.9 of https://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2005/ols2005v1-pages-59-76.pd... looks like it might be related.

I am replying to this guy. Never spin up? Overheat? He's completely wrong.

I know full well how it works, I don't have it backwards.

That will usually "restore" the crap as well.

You might be better off installing a Free Software operating system from scratch. (e.g. OpenBSD for the security fanatics, or any other *BSD, or Solaris, or some Linux distro.)

Even better: Buy a laptop without any operating system. However, in some cases this may make the laptop more expensive. (e.g. what if Lenovo gets paid by crap providers for pre-installing?)

For those who don't know how, buy only "Signature Edition" PCs.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/category...

Depends. Some ship drivers and such on a separate disc, others don't.

And I don't know about Lenovo, but I know that on the Dell laptops I last dealt with could never get a stock Windows 7 install to be stable without downloading Dell's drivers for the video card at minimum.

The solution was to download an official Windows 8 copy from Microsoft's website - the Windows installer will get the license key from the EFI.

Not as good as a recovery disk, as you will need to download and install manually all drivers, but vetting everything is part of the point.

EDIT: for those looking, this is the link from where I downloaded the Windows 8 binary from Microsoft website: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-re...

[1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/save-yourself-from-yo...

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery

You would of course need to grab drivers from the manufacturer as well, but you can skip all of the bloatware (and borderline spy/malware) that comes with a retail machine.

I ended up putting a Microsoft Windows 8.1 iso on a flash drive using rufus. https://rufus.akeo.ie/

I don't understand why Microsoft won't just make the latest build of its operating system publicly accessible in ISO format for anyone to download. I mean I still have to enter a serial number and activate. Why not just let me download from a trusted source without jumping through a bunch of hoops?

With an image from microsoft and an easy to find, spy-ware free, super easy to use executable (I'll avoid mentioning names on here), it was way too easy to pirate windows.

Also, not sure why you still got bloatware with this method. Manufacturers typically offer all of the required drivers individually online. The drivers themselves are bloatware-free but maybe you got roped into installing a software pack for the machine or something?

Then install ThinkVantage System Update http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht080136

or

Dell Command Update http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/...

Be careful of The ThinkVantage System Update, you dont need all the suggested installations.

I hope Win10 brings in more control from MS. The status quo really sucks.

1) This particular malware may be removable by reformatting and installing from a clean copy of Windows (which may not even be available without a separate purchase, since it's likely that the recovery disc that comes with the laptop contains the same default software installation.)

2) Reformatting and reinstalling to remove the malware requires knowing that there's a problem, which you wouldn't have if the articles about it hadn't come out.