Windows Vista Review

I just installed Windows Vista Home Premium on my Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad Z61t. Yes, after many months, I finally got fed up with XP and decided to dive into Vista with a fresh install, deleting my previous partition and starting off new. It was a fairly smooth experience, and I definitely like what Microsoft has done with Vista over XP.

Two gripes:

• Internet Explorer 7 is automatically installed, no questions asked.
• Homepage is set to MSN.com by default. Thus, virtually every single person in the world will see MSN.com, no matter what.

I have had one crash so far, occurring when I tried to get the computer out of sleep mode after shutting down with the “power” button in the Start Menu. This was after installing the latest BIOS update from Lenovo. Something during the startup process caused the computer to reboot. Things seem fine now.

Interestingly, the ThinkVantage System Update utility offers this as a “Recommended Update”:

PC-Doctor 5 for Windows diagnostics
for Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP and Vista (32 and 64 bit)
Version 5.00.4559.00
Installation Readme
This package installs the full version of PC-Doctor 5 for Windows.
This version of PC-Doctor for Windows includes the Lenovo
Troubleshooting Center that will help you fix problems with your
computer.

This package requires approximately 150MB of space on your hard
drive.

Print this file so that you can refer to it during the installation.

[… Instructions to install PC-Doctor 5 …] 

Trademarks
==========
Lenovo, NetVista, ThinkCentre, and ThinkPad are trademarks of the
Lenovo Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in
the United States, other countries, or both.

PC-Doctor is a trademark of PC-Doctor, Inc., Reno, NV.
All PC-Doctor products are protected by one or more of the following
patents:
6,742,148; 6,792,562; 6,829,726; 7,036,129. Other patents pending.

Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or
service marks of others.

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.
LENOVO DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND MERCHANTABILITY WITH RESPECT TO THE
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.  BY FURNISHING THIS DOCUMENT, LENOVO
GRANTS NO LICENSES TO ANY PATENTS OR COPYRIGHTS.

Copyright (c) Lenovo 2007, all rights reserved

Am I the only one who finds this a little strange?

Also, there is the Lenovo Power Manager. How good is this? What advantages does it offer over what Vista includes?