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I think it was Andrew who pointed me to Soluto as a method of improving boot times on Windows PCs.

I have mentioned before that my Vista-running X61 tablet takes a while to boot. Soluto measured boot time at just over 10 minutes. I followed its advice, and through delaying and removing various crapware and legitimate startup programs I got boot time down to 5 minutes and 10 seconds.

Emboldened, this weekend I took some advice from Ian’s comments on my last post and shelled out AU$300 for a copy of Windows 7 Professional (upgrade).

Now, with a few tweaks recommended by Soluto I’m recording a consistent boot time of 1 minute 35 seconds.

My aging tablet feels like new again (during boot).

Update: Actually, it feels pretty snappy all over since the Windows 7 makeover and some hybrid SSD drive loving. Boot time is now a shade under a minute and application launches are snappier then they’ve ever been.

In a previous post I had talked about the rate of decay and the usefulness of a fairly shiny new X61 tablet. Now three years later it’s time for a quick update on how it’s travelling.

As you can see, the tablet is pretty much the same as it was at 3 months old. There are legends about how hard-wearing ThinkPads are. After lugging it back and forth from work, and on vacations, for three years it’s looking like a role model for laptop longevity.

The screen is a bit blotchy with grease now, I haven’t found a good cleaner that I trust to not melt or damage the surface, so I put up with a dirty screen. The screen is also pulled away at the bottom exposing some glue that picks up dust and won’t let it go, but the problem is just aesthetic.

The pen is still held together by sticky tape.

The hard disk is now a 500GB Seagate 7200rpm drive, and I have added 4GB of RAM. The battery is now a non-Lenovo battery that works fine except that the Lenovo power management software courteously questions my commitment to safety and morality every time I log in. The original battery went stone cold dead with error messages from the power management system along the lines of “Get this battery thing outta me NOW! Stat!” when it was just over 2 years old.

None of the keys have come off the keyboard. The marvellous screen-rotating and reversing hinge feels as firm as the day it came out of the box.

The biggest problem is still Vista and the load of Lenovo crapware required to keep it alive. It has always taken a long while to boot and get settled (5-10 minutes), so I’m tempted to start from scratch with Windows 7, but haven’t made the investment in time yet.