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Lenovo has turned 180° and brought ThinkVantage System Update (TVSU) back from the dead. In a blog post on "Inside the Box" called "ThinkVantage System Update Returns", Matt Kohut, Global Lenovo Strategist, announces that System Update has been revived.

He goes on to explain that customer reactions, both blog posts and forum postings, has had such a big impact that it has caused Lenovo to rethink their decision.

Following our announcement, however, we heard from many customers on our blogs and forums. We’ve heard clearly that our individual and business customers alike value TVSU highly. Therefore, we are adjusting course based on your feedback, and have released a new version of TVSU on May 31st. In addition, we have made some backend investments which should indeed improve system performance.

As I posted about this issue a little while back, outlining my reaction to the discontinuation, I'm very happy to see that this gets reversed. TVSU is a valuable tool, and hopefully will continue to be so in the future.

At least it does seem like the downloads go a lot quicker now than before, but I fear that might just be temporary until "everyone" starts using TVSU again. I hope the investments Lenovo has put into the backend of things work out, also in the long run.

Re-reading my previous critical post about this, I realize that I probably was a bit ambiguous with regards to how we use TVSU in my organization though. We only use TVSU on the computers that doesn't get their updates from our own local repository that gets it's updates through the ThinkVantage Update Retriever (TVUR), and this has worked as expected through the period when TVSU wasn't available.

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!

Microsoft did something good today. Today's press release announcing the new and updated licensing schemes for server products running in virtualized environments brings them right back into touch with their customers and with their own Hyper-V virtualization technology they frankly had no choice.

The new licensing scheme basically allows migrations between physical hosts, without having to license each of the hosts as well. In an enterprise setting this is how it has to be, and I sincerely doubt that anyone has really handled this differently before, regardless of the licensing limitation that has been in place until now.

The press release also mentions that extended support for their server products running in virtualized environments, as long as the virtualization vendors validate their products through the Server Virtualization Validation Program

Well done Microsoft. even though it's about time you got it right.

Welcome to the post I never thought I'd write. I'll just come right out and say it out loud;

I Love Microsoft Vista.

There. I said it, and I'm not being sarcastic at all. After running Vista Business on my Lenovo T60, and Vista Ultimate on my old home built desktop I never thought I would be writing this post at all. My initial experience with those two installs left me with a very poor taste in my mouth and after a couple of months I returned to running Windows XP on the laptop.

I really thought the Lenovo T60 would be able to handle Vista properly. It has a fancy Windows Vista sticker on it, it came preinstalled with Vista and the system specifications seemed to be adequate. Sadly that wasn't the case, and XP does a much better job on that particular piece of hardware.

As for the home desktop, a home built box sporting an old Pentium 4 3.0Ghz HT CPU and 3GB ram and a ATI x1900 GPU, Vista was a real drag. That box ran sluggishly and was pretty much just annoying. I tried sticking to Vista on it though, if for nothing else to get to know it properly. Then faith, karma, or whatever other system you might place your trust in, stepped in and that box silently died one afternoon when I was at work.

I promptly started looking for new components and to start rebuilding the desktop at home. I ended up with the following:

• ABIT IP35 PRO, P35, Socket-775, ATX, Silent Otes2, 2xGbLAN, DDR2, 2xPCI-Ex16
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Socket LGA775, 8MB
• Corsair TWIN2X 6400C4DHX DDR2, 2048MB - Kit w/two CL4 1GB Dimm's, E.P.P and DHX
• Antec Performance One P180 Miditower, Black Aluminum
  

Luckily it was my old mainboard that died, not my HDDs so I didn't lose any data (at least not this time around. Remember kids, backups are very handy!). After rebuilding the system I decided to give Vista another chance of convincing me of it's right to existence. Since I went for a Core 2 Quad, I decided that Vista x64 was the way to go. And was I ever surprised?

I've been using the newly built system now for about a week and so far I'm loving it. It is extremely responsive and I couldn't be more happy with it. I have yet to try out some of the heavy duty things I want to use the system for, like running VMware Server to test Gallery on IIS7/IIS8 and so on, but by the looks of it this won't be much of a problem at all.

As for deciding to run both 64bit and Vista, I have yet to experience any driver issues at all. The only software issue I've had so far was that Virtual Clonedrive doesn't run on 64bit Vista, but there are alternatives for it available that does work. All drivers that I have had a use for are available for Vista x64, no problems there at all.

Now, I'm sure a lot of the Vista skeptics out there will come at me saying "If Vista runs smoothly on that system, just imagine what Windows XP or Linux would do on the same hardware". Well, sure. I'm sure that both would run great, but that is not my point. Vista runs so well on now that there is no way I am moving back. to XP. And as far as I'm concerned, running Linux on my desktop is a non-issue. I use Linux servers every day, even manage a few, but in my view it's just not ready to be a desktop OS. It might be some day, but now? No way (Sorry Ubuntu).

As for all the Vista eyecandy, well, I love that too now. Now that my hardware is good enough it works really well. On the old setup it was really annoying, now it's great. It's quick, stable and I've yet to have any issues with it at all.

My conclusion has to be that Vista is excellent, as long as you have the hardware to support it. Never mind the minimum requirements, those are not to be even considered. Go flat our and spend some real money on your setup if you want to use Vista. If you do have a hardware setup similar to the one I have, your Vista experience will be something completely different than what you might be experienced before. For home usage, it's just about perfect. At least for me, now that I have the hardware to support it.

There is of course still issues with Vista. Corporations looking to roll it out on a mass scale in their enterprise are facing huge issues with it. I know that there is no way the company I work for will be able to do a rollout of Vista any time soon. When we buy hardware for our users, we don't buy top of the line items. As everyone else we are looking to minimize cost, and lots of our desktop computers run on Celeron D CPUs with mainboard integrated graphics and a small amount of RAM. After all, the sole purpose of these machines is to enable our users to do their job. Most of the time that consists of running Office, Lotus Notes and various other applications that doesn't put that much of a strain on the local CPU. We are looking for manageability, stability and and basically "getting the job done" features. Vista doesn't give us much in that department, nor does the hardware requirements it sports.

If it was up to me, Microsoft would go the same route with desktop OS' as they are doing with Windows Server 2008. They should provide a full "bells and whistles" version for the Home market and a stripped down low hardware requirement version for the enterprise. Base them on the same kernel and stability/security model, but remove all non-essential features and let the enterprises build their own versions based on their particular needs. I am not suggesting the current model of Home, Business and Ultimate in various incarnations, but rather a much more modular setup that provides a very basic set of OS functionality that can be modified to include other modules depending on need.

I would love to be able to roll out a Vista version that was customized to actually do what I need, in a corporate environment but the versions available to be at this moment in time will not let me be able to do that. Given that the trend seems to be going towards a virtualization of the desktop in corporate environments, I think Microsoft needs to take a long hard look at the monolithic model they currently use.  Perhaps they are even thinking like this already, by implementing virtualization in the core of Server 2008, thus enabling running former kernel level services in their own virtualized layer that could be dynamically started as needed. I don't know what the future of desktop operating system holds, but I do think that the time for monolithic releases has passed. It's time to start rethinking the desktop operating system and how we install, maintain and customize it. Especially in an enterprise environment.

So, to summarize this whole post in two simple statements;

•  Vista at Home: Excellent if you have the hardware.
•  Vista in the Enterprise: Not there yet, nor will it be for a very long time.