A while ago, Lenovo pulled the plug on the old ThinkVantage System Update (TVSU) infrastructure and announed that they would return in the beginning of May with a new and improved system. While I am all for improvement and progress, I questioned why Lenovo had to completely remove the old (somewhat) working driver repository before the "new and improved" system was in place. I was willing to live with that, as long as we got a new and improved system in place. I was, in fact, looking forward to see what Lenovo was up to.
Today, I was pointed to this little gem on the Lenovo site
Lenovo is changing the way customers obtain updates for their PCs and Servers.
- For our PC customers, automatic updates via ThinkVantage System Update (TVSU) are being discontinued. Customers can continue to download updates by accessing the Lenovo support site at Lenovo Support & downloads. Lenovo is pursuing alternative solutions for system updates and future offerings will be communicated through the new Lenovo Message Center Plus.
I'm sorry Lenovo, but completely discontinuing TVSU is not "changing the way customers obtain updates", it's telling your users that you don't value their time. Sadly, this is not the first time I've had that experience with Lenovo. I know this is pretty harsh, but consider the following scenario:
- You run an IT-department when you standardize on Lenovo Thinkpads for your mobile workforce.
- As a consequence of your standardization efforts you set up several deployment methods for these Thinkpads
- Seeing that your preferred vendor provides you with tools like ThinkVantage® ImageUltra™ Builder, and ThinkVantage® System Update you decide to spend considerable time investigating and perfecting your deployment methods based on these vendor supplied tools that actually adds value to your hardware investments. It's kind of magic, but it works!
- Lenovo then pulls the rug from under your feet and you basically have to start over.
This is the scenario I'm currently facing. Newer Thinkpad models, like the t400 and t500, are (naturally) not supported by the aging ThinkVantage® ImageUltra™ Builder (The readme for the trial download was last updated in 2007). Since we use it for deploying our base business OS and a minimal set of drivers this was a problem for us. After investigating a bit, we decided to try and give Lenovo a call and see if someone could help us out getting it to work on newer models.
I still can't believe how incredibly difficult it as to get support for that particular piece of software. Calling Lenovo support was useless, they didn't even know what product we were talking about. To this date, we have been unable to contact anyone in Lenovo, or IBM for that matter, that can help us with technical issues with it. No one. None. Zero! We did manage to get the basic drivers working inside the deployment image we have after quite a bit of investigation and trial and error on our own, no thanks to Lenovo.
So, where does ThinkVantage® System Update enter the picture? Well, we followed best practices and setup a minimal image that basically only includes networking drivers for the Thinkpad models we have. Then, and here's the magic part, the image installed ThinkVantage® System Update that connected to a local copy of the TVSU that contained the drivers we need for the rest of the devices. In reality, it's brilliant. Or, I should say that it was brilliant.
Now that Lenovo has yanked the foundation for our ImageUltra based installation services away from us, and we don't get support for it in the first place, what are we supposed to do? Manually download drivers and place it in the repository and hope the old TVSU client will find them?
Lenovo, I'm sorry, but this was not what you were supposed to be doing when you were "improving" the service. I've been a strong advocate for TVSU for a few years, even used it as a selling point when our business invests in hardware. Your most recent move has left me stranded, and now I need to start over setting up a distribution mechanism all over again. I know there are good alternatives to ImageUltra and, trust me, I know it has weaknesses, but I was willing to live with them as long as TVSU did the grunt work with regards to drivers. Right now Windows Deployment Services springs to mind, but that still leaves the problem with driver installation and management. TVSU sorted out that bit for us, and I'm sure Lenovo has other customers with similar stories.
I would really like to see the reasoning behind this decision, it sure doesn't make sense to me. But then again, I'm just a lowly user that actually utilized the very system Lenovo made available to me. How incredibly stupid of me.
Update 03. June 2009
: Lenovo reverses decision discontinue TVSU. Good one, Lenovo!
15 Comments so far
Torbjørn Mohn, on May 5, 2009 at 12:20am, said:
I just emailed Lenovo the following:
Thanks and Good Bye!
I have for a few years purchased Lenovo ONLY laptops and desktop computers for my company. Your discontinuation and abandonment of the Systems Update tool is a complete disgrace, and leaves me with no other option, but to STOP BYUING LENOVO EQUIPMENT. I have no time to spend updating every computer manually when I purchase them (they always seem to be delivered with old BIOS, old drivers and old tools). This blog post indicates exactly how I feel: http://tinyurl.com/d6c8rd
So, my relationship with your products is now over, and I'm moving on to other systems with better support. Thanks. It was nice knowing your products, but no thanks, not for me any more.
rgds
Torbjørn Mohn
IT Manager
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Stig-Erik Halvorsen, on May 5, 2009 at 9:25am, said:
All of the above goes for me too !
Such behaviour from Lenovo must of course result in most serious customers moving away from their products.
Too bad we invested so much in building logic based on their (missing) service....
Stig-Erik Halvorsen
IT Manager
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Gerry, on May 6, 2009 at 6:22am, said:
As an IT Manager I am devistated.
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Anonymous, on May 10, 2009 at 9:42am, said:
I'm very surprised to hear the discontinuation from lenovo! The TSVU is one of the nice things to have that get me buying from IBM thinkpad till the Lenovo thinkpad now.
From my experiences in laptop, many or almost all laptop except Lenovo(up till now) do not provide services such as the TSVU. Try getting a 5-10 years old laptop, and if you can still find the driver( or updated drivers), you're VERY lucky.
I always do laptop purchases (be it used or new)and my first priority is always(until now) Lenovo Thinkpad (or IBM thinkpad) because I know that there is indeed value in it, and that support is not an issue (from the most updated software to hardware).
Unlike other laptops that go for the more fancy design and so on, I still stick to my Lenovo Thinkpad mainly because of this reason. But now I guess Lenovo free me from Thinkpad. I can go for other laptop with more fancy design.
Perhaps Lenovo can rethink and try to outsource someone out-there, or any advanced programmers, would like build a similar software to cater for this needs again.
Just maybe if COST(for TSVU) is an issue to Lenovo, then try to outsource it out! Personally, I think this will cause all the Lenovo Thinkpad customers to rethink the premium cost they are paying for a thinkpad eventually. Cutting Cost = Cutting customers away???
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Hank Rouse, on May 11, 2009 at 8:53pm, said:
Just download ThinkVantage Update Retriever 3.0 (TVUR). Very similar to WSUS, can be controlled via GPO (ADM template is provided) and a registry hack.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Lenovo\System Update\Preferences\UserSettings\Scheduler]
"SchedulerLock"=-
"NotifyOptions"=-
"SchedulerAbility"=-
"SearchMode"=-
"Frequency"=-
"RunOn"=-
"RunAt"=-
"SchedulerLock"="SHOW"
"NotifyOptions"="DOWNLOAD"
"SchedulerAbility"="YES"
"SearchMode"="ALL"
"Frequency"="WEEKLY"
"RunOn"="MONDAY"
"RunAt"="10:00"
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=TVAN-ADMIN#ur
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Christian Mohn (h0bbel), on May 11, 2009 at 9:04pm, said:
@Hank Rouse: We use TVUR already to update our local repository, but losing TVUS is still a big loss for us.
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Anonymous, on May 18, 2009 at 10:18pm, said:
Someone started a petition, pass it around:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/TVSU/
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Josh Sanderson, on May 24, 2009 at 12:19am, said:
thanks for posting this thread.
is there any news on whether or not they are actually rolling out something to replace the old system? why would they do this? they aren't morons (okay maybe they are) but why tear down an old highway that is used by so many people without the replacement being up and running? is there any official lenovo news of the new system? it's late may and it seems like they were just BS-ing us...
Lenovo?? Are you there?? Do you have nobody on your team monitoring user feedback on this topic?? Get you butt in gear guys or you're going to lose all of our business!!!
/jds
15-yr thinkpad user
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Anton G., on May 24, 2009 at 7:38pm, said:
I agree...
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Bruce Roemmelt, on May 29, 2009 at 8:41pm, said:
this is yet again an affirmation of my decision to switch to Macs. the Lenovo is arguably the best laptop but compared to my MacBook Pro it pales in comparison. the auto update feature of my Macs works just fine.
i just putter with my old T60p which i've handed down to my wife and this is yet another blow to customer service committment. how sad that the once great IBM has fallen so far ;-(
b
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Austin P., on May 30, 2009 at 1:02am, said:
If you will not be buying Lenovo laptops anymore then what kind of laptops are you GOING to buy?
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Klavs, on June 1, 2009 at 1:02pm, said:
I totally agree with the above points.
It's a total disaster ! I've been buying
Lenovo WAKE UP !!
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Jerry, on June 2, 2009 at 1:29am, said:
What a disgrace !
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Anonymous, on June 2, 2009 at 3:38am, said:
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – May 30, 2009:
Recently, Lenovo announced that we were changing the way we handled system updates going forward.
Basically, we were discontinuing TVSU for individual use and directing those customers to our public support site for driver and BIOS updates. Never removed was the ability for business customers in managed environments to access, download to their network, and then apply these updates as required.
There were several business reasons for this change.
Regular scheduled update requests were being sent to the Lenovo servers with the subsequent downloading causing very high traffic - yielding performance issues and, in cases, causing a decline in the customer's TVSU experience and confidence. Balancing the high cost of that already existing solution and the additional investment required improving performance and reliability for our customers has been a difficult process and led to a more difficult decision which resulted in disabling of TVSU on April 1.
Following our announcement, however, we heard from many customers on our blogs and forums. We've heard clearly that our individual and business customer’s alike value TVSU highly. Therefore, we are adjusting course based on your feedback, and are releasing a new version of TVSU June 1st.
In addition, we have made some backend investments which should indeed improve system performance.
This version can be launched by the customer and it will find and install applicable updates for their system, as before. We also have a new tool, Message Center Plus, which we encourage you to download, as it provides a fast conduit to important advisory messages and helpful information about our products and services.
We value our customers' feedback, and we hope the deployment of this new version of TVSU proves that.
Thanks for your partnership with us, and the loyalty you have shown to TVSU and the other services we provide to our customers.
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MomCat, on August 29, 2009 at 9:02pm, said:
And this is exactly why I'm switching to a Mac. I had much better service with IBM before Lenovo jumped onboard. Since then, I've had less than satisfactory service.
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