Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox goes live
Begining today, customers in the US who have Lenovo Message Center Plus installed and active on their systems will receive notification that the new Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox is available for installation. In coming weeks, these notifications will roll out in other languages and other countries.
We listened to a lot of feedback from customers and have made some updates to ensure that message prompts won’t occur if a user is in presentation mode, or if a number of other “politeness check” conditions are not met. An additional change ensures that no matter how many user IDs are on the system, this message does not show again if a user closes it out.
Here is an example of what customers with MCP installed and active will see on their systems when the Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox is offered…
Users electing to install the new Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox will click the install now button in the lower right corner of the MCP notification. The install should go smoothly, with a few acceptance boxes and the usual progress indicators typical of most application installations.
The install completes, and the new ThinkVantage Toolbox introduces itself…
For those customers who are not running Message Center Plus, Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox can be downloaded directly from our support site. Here are the links for the 32 bit and 64 bit versions.
I’ll delve into what’s new and improved over the prior Lenovo System Toolbox that debuted last November in an upcoming post…
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 2
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
November 24th, 2009 10:55 am
I am a bit confused as my Toolbox updated itself about two weeks ago and the new version looks exactly like the version in the picture above.
November 24th, 2009 11:57 am
Hi,
I like the new tool but please oh please let me get rid of the icon in my taskbar… that’s a complete deal-breaker.
-Jan
November 24th, 2009 11:58 am
Hi Mark,
Please have to developer team check if the warranty status check works or not.
The Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox shows that my warranty is expired, but I have it renewed this summer, and on lenovo website, it is showing that my computer IS still IN warranty until some time in 2010.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/supp.....-WARNTY#sw
- Nicolo
November 24th, 2009 12:15 pm
How do I remove this from my taskbar. I assumed I was updating existing software not installing somethign new that sits unwanted and unrequested in my taskbar. If I need this I’ll run it from the start menu.
November 24th, 2009 3:11 pm
Why would this installation be causing Microsoft Domain accounts to be getting locked out?
November 24th, 2009 3:32 pm
I’ve been a satisfied user of the Toolbox in the past, but in my opinion this version makes the fatal error of having no setting in the preferences to prevent it from launching at startup, and no way to exit the program. I want to use the toolbox when I need it; I don’t want it to load at launch. That verges on junkware, and I’m going to remove it from my system. Furthermore it’s warning me that I have no virus protection software or firewall, when in fact an up to date version of Norton is installed and working just fine. I’m really disappointed.
November 24th, 2009 4:04 pm
Please, oh, please.. how do I rid myself of the icon that now appears by the System Tray? I can’t find the option anyway, and will be forced to uninstall.
November 24th, 2009 4:20 pm
On our two A31p running XP Pro SP3, we installed the new toolbox OK. One of the diagnostics (on both machines) said it could not read out battery level unless we install a power utility (which in fact I believe already is installed). I opted to install anyway and clicked on that button. I was taken to a Lenova page with that software, but on the list of Thinkpads for which the software is written, there are no A (legacy?) machines? It seems this is a bug in the toolbox. I chose to ignore this diagnostic.
I too am surprised there is no Exit button, or setting to not startup on boot or restart. Is there any useful monitoring that this toolbox is doing while it occupies tray space?
Thanks.
Lester
November 24th, 2009 5:02 pm
I would also like to see a setting to disable launching at startup. I want a clean system that doesn’t have load of applications starting up by themselves. I think I would only use the ThinkVantage Toolbox once a month.
Also, the taskbar icon is too big if you set the taskbar to be small size.
November 24th, 2009 5:17 pm
In reply to Eudoxus’ post (post #1)…
Eudoxus, if you’re running Windows 7 you had version 6.0.5387.31 which was released earlier this month and was just for Windows 7, on 11/23/09 they released version 6.0.5449.29 which is for 7, Vista & XP, that’s probably why they look the same.
In reply to brad’s post (post #2)…
Hope this helps:
The toolbox functions as a toolbar, it does not launch at startup.
To confirm this:
1) click on the start globe and then type “msconfig” (without the quotes) in the search field and press “Enter.”
2) Click on the “Startup” tab.
look for Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox – it’s not there
also when you right click on the icon in the taskbar there’s an option to Launch Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox for when you wish to use it
additionally if you don’t want the icon taking up space in the taskbar area simply right click the taskbar go to toolbars and deselect Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox
then when you wish to use it either reenable the toolbar, right click on the icon and launch the application by clicking on Launch Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox or launch it through all programs in the start menu – I’m running Vista Home Premium SP2 and mine is located in All Programs>ThinkVantage>Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox
November 24th, 2009 7:58 pm
This thing is a pain. First off, I thought I was updating software, not installing new software. Secondly, it’s full of “messages” which are actually spam…trying to get you to buy accessories or software. I really would rather have the old version installed. This is just garbage.
November 25th, 2009 10:34 am
I get “this version of Lenovo thinkvantage toolbox is not licensed to work on this system” when trying to start the application
November 25th, 2009 10:50 am
When I run the Drive Space Manager the scan stops at about 80k files, with less than half the drive being scanned.
Any ideas?
Running XP SP3 on an R61e Thinkpad
November 25th, 2009 2:56 pm
All,
We have a number of discussions on Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox in the ThinkVantage discussion area.
I’ve posted an FAQ that addresses many of the comments posed here.
Here is the link
I hope you will continue to post comments here – these have been helpful. Please look for a follow up post next week where we will go into more depth on the new toolbox.
Mark
November 25th, 2009 6:23 pm
I don’t mind the new toolbox.
Under Settings -> Activate Online support, “Australia” is missing as a country option…
November 26th, 2009 8:11 am
Thanks to Baruch for the clarifications, that was really helpful.
My suggestion to Lenovo is to not assume that people will figure out this a toolbar item; it wasn’t one in the past, so users will not expect that kind of change. There should have been a prominent “read me” message accompanying the update to help people understand how to remove it from the taskbar (In 10 years of using Windows, I think I’ve added or removed something from the taskbar exactly twice; I don’t think most Windows users actively manage their taskbars or even know how to do it).
While I appreciate the functions the Toolbox provides, having it sit there in my taskbar is distracting because it has a big red exclamation point (due to the fact that it mistakenly thinks I’ve never done a backup and also because it thinks I don’t have antivirus software installed, neither of which is correct). It’s too distracting. So I’ve removed it.
November 28th, 2009 11:36 am
Since I installed the Toolbox and it suggested I install the power manager, my system now shows there is no Battery installed. Therefore it never shows battery status. Only whether the system is plugged-in or not. I have removed the battery several times, the system still runs of course …. I have also unplugged the system from the wall and it still keeps running … on a battery that supposedly does not exist. Will someone help me correct this issue ? My system apparently left the extended warranty some time ago, but no-one considered contacting me about a service agreement.
November 30th, 2009 2:53 pm
The Toolbar seems to believe that Norton Internet Security is not running on the thinkpad. I upgraded to NIS 2010 some months ago and it is running all the time according to NIS itself. Can Toolbar be upgraded to recognize NIS 2010? Thank you.
December 2nd, 2009 6:14 pm
I have a T500/Vista Ultimate SP2 which has just installed Toolbox 6.0.5449.29 as part of the ThinkVantage system update process.
Every time I run Toolbox, it tries to install “Roxio Creator Business Edition”. The installation fails with the following error box:
–
Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox
Device Discovery ErrorIf there is an error, restart the application.
If the error persists, restart the application.
The device discovery process was unable to finish discovering devices. This may prevent you from running all available diagnostics or generating complete system information reports.
OK
–
Note that “ErrorIf” above is not a typing error.
December 5th, 2009 8:08 am
I just installed Win7 Pro x64 and the Toolbox. But when I launch the toolbox with the thinkvantage button the app freezes. Surprisingly it worked fine when I had installed it a week ago on the same R61 under Win7-Ultimate-x64. Any suggestions???
December 15th, 2009 9:09 pm
Out of all the software from lenovo, I think this is probably the most useless piece lenovo has yet forced onto me. It doesn’t do anything the current programs didn’t already do but it runs slowly, forces itself onto your taskbar (which is why i’m here, to find out how to remove it) and is just generally a pest.
In fact, all lenovo software appears to follow that pattern:
- access connections works no-where near as smoothly as the built-in functions in windows 7
- password manager does not work well with anything except for internet explorer
- easy eject doesn’t claims to not work with windows 7 when in fact it does (but even when it does, it’s hardly something exciting)
- “productivity centre” is about as productive as if you’d just made the blue button open the task bar. in fact, it IS a task bar, just not as pretty and only with very few items. how this helps anyone being productive is beyond my understanding
- rescue and recovery duplicates that very same windows function
- message centre spams lenovo adverts
…
I could go on but I think you get the idea.
When will you guys ever learn that when we use the system update, it’s only to keep the system running safely and smoothly, not to be smothered in useless new gadgets. Personally, my guess is that either someone named Wally at your tech department came up with this only to keep themselves looking busy while actually adding no real value or changes or some Pointy Haired Boss in management decided that to make something work better, what they really need is more software to do the same thing twice.
When you guys aren’t busy making useless updates, here is an idea for one we really want: A selective uninstaller for lenovo software. Personally, I don’t want anything apart from the driver software that makes my fingerprint logon work.
And maybe once I get rid of “productivity centre” you could let us program the blue button ourselves to do something useful and actually productive like running a macro.
December 20th, 2009 5:03 pm
I have the same problem Wayne reported in #17, and the same general feelings about intrusive software expressed by many others. I like the idea of a comprehensive system management and monitoring tool, but this ain’t it. I agree with Patrick’ last paragraph in #21, but unfortunately my fingerprint reader has _never_ worked, and there are apparently no individual drivers available for it for XP, according to Lenovo support.
December 23rd, 2009 5:13 pm
I want to disable the toolbox from launching on startup. Clearly this need has already been expressed by others here but I want to emphasize that I am demanding this option. I buy 25-30 Lenovo laptops a year and insist that Lenovo stop forcing system utilities onto my systems. Thanks for your prompt attention. Now I am off to contact my Lenovo reps and my rep at CDW.
Cheers-
Rob
December 24th, 2009 3:18 pm
Rob,
I appreciate your concerns…the toolbox doesn’t actually launch though. Commenter #10, Baruch thoughtfuly clarified this point previously.
We’ve put up an FAQ in our forum to address many of these types of questions, and it may be of benefit in helping you make some decisions on whether or not to include this application in your rollouts. Here is a link to the discussion, and I’ve copied over a few of the items that seem most relevant to your concerns expressed here.
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Th.....d-p/179148
Q: Does Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox launch on startup?
A: No. Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox is not a startup item. You can verify this by doing the following:
If you are running XP:
•Click on Start
•Click on Run
•Type “msconfig” without the quotes
•Click on the Startup tab
•You can verify that Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox is not a start-up item.
If you are running Vista or Windows 7:
•Click on Windows icon in lower left hand corner
•Click on All Programs
•Click on Accessories
•Click on Run
•Type “msconfig” without the quotes
•Press Return
•Click on the Startup tab
•You can verify that Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox is not a start-up item.
Q: How do I get rid of the Toolbar icon on the Windows Task Bar?
A: If you are running XP, Vista or Windows:
•Right click on the Task Bar
•Select Toolbars
•Deselect Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox.
•The Toolbar icon disappears
Q: How do I delete the Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox application?
A: If you are running XP:
•Left click on Start
•Select Control Panel
•Select Add or Remove Programs
•Select Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox
•Click on Remove.
If you are running Vista or Windows 7:
•Click on the Windows icon in the lower left hand corner
•Select Control Panel
•Select Programs and Features
•Highlight Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox
•Select the Uninstall button at the top of the page
December 31st, 2009 1:36 am
Hi all,
this is a typical mistake by programmers.
I love Thinkpads, had many in my life. I also like the Toolbox. I think it delivers extra value. But I also experienced the following:
- Have a small task bar, still a big Toolbox icon — damn
- Try to get rid of the icon, also thinking of a ram hog process:
– Right click on icon: No option to kill this thing!
– Settings in App? Also no option to disable this annoying red button…. wtf
– Hate starts growing – F word usage frequency goes up.
– Starting killer tools
– Heh ? No process running??
– No autostart links or keys in registry ???
Look again …… time goes by
(rinse, repeat, … lose a customer (apple anybody?))
To make it short:
Who would have figured that this is an extra task bar thingy?????
A note in the Toolbox preferences would have been minimum and would be considered mandatory by me as a software engineer.
I read all the text and checked all the checkboxes in there twice anyway!!!
It would have been good to have a checkbox that simply hides the taskbar element.
Developer hear your users:
You were able to create the button – You are able to give us a checkbox in the settings to get rid of it.
Excellent would be an element in the right click menu that simply hides the button.
Further it would have been milder pressure to get rid of it if there would be the possibility to make this button smaller like all others that are following my global settings for the taskbar.
Anyways, still like the software and Lenovo. Just had about an hour stress to check all possbilities and finally got help by Google finding me this blog.
Please Lenovo, try and learn. This stuff is called usability. It is really important and it is considered a really strong USP once you have it.
Kind regards
December 31st, 2009 2:17 pm
Give us ability to disable all these “accessory” apps that lenovo thinks are so important and valuable, when I (and apparently many others) just want a system to run its best with*out* any other programs taking resources besides windows.
And I get annoyed by the “that doesn’t take any resources, it just runs in the background” argument. Yes, they *all* take resources and cumulatively bog down an otherwise nice system.
January 6th, 2010 8:49 am
Hello everyone here,
to remove the big icon from the taskbar, you have to right-click any open spot down on the taskbar and choose “Toolbars” -> “Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox”.
Here you are, have a nice day!
January 8th, 2010 11:39 pm
Gah! Finally!
I like that it’s now a toolbar, because that actually *does* mean that it doesn’t need to take up resources or be running all the time. (Windows is in charge of the button being there; Lenovo supplied the icon and what-to-do when clicked.)
But gosh, it is completely NOT INTUITIVE to disable. I had no idea it was a “toolbar” and, since I never enable any toolbars, I had no reason to check under that submenu. I *am* a programmer and I didn’t find it until reading this article… so please, Please, PLEASE consider the usability factors and at least give a link to a help article on how to get rid of the button.
I don’t need a huge button down there, I have the blue “ThinkVantage” button above my wonderful X200T keyboard.
January 14th, 2010 5:59 am
Hi everybody,
I like the idea of having the toolbox run as a toolbar to save resources. Thank you for understanding this point. However, I mind the unclear “what does it do?”, “what’s new?” and “what does it replace?” information during installation, especially since the software was pushed to my system for installation.
However, addressing the point of adding additional features: does the toolbox replace functionality of Productivity Center? Does it need Productivity Center installed on the system any more (X61s, Vista Business 32bit)? How do I configure the blue ThinkVantage button to start up the toolbox instead of Productivity Center?
I’d appreciate support on my concerns or even better: adding these questions to the faq.
/Peter
January 15th, 2010 3:13 pm
Well I just uninstalled it from add/remove programs – what a load of old rubbish.
It’s the last time I let Lenovo ‘update’ anything. They’ve alreadt p*ssed me off with the noisy fan and the warranty date that matched the ship date not the purchase date – with no possibility of getting it updated.
I don’t want crap applications and toolbar junk clogging up the system. Unlikely I’ll be recommending Lenovo again (I used to be a big supporter and I’ve sold dozens of them over the last few years)
January 16th, 2010 8:02 pm
Its HORRIBLE! I’ve been trying to remove it as soon as I installed it. It takes up a huge amount of my taskbar! What a terrible idea.
January 16th, 2010 8:04 pm
Thank you Mergim (post#27)
Phew!…I really hated that thing but have been too busy to find out how to remove.
January 19th, 2010 12:43 pm
How come there’s such a BIG icon displayed on system tray? How can I solve this?
January 23rd, 2010 8:50 am
I too was bothered by this huge icon, but as someone said earlier:
Right click on “Taskbar” -> “Toolbars” -> Uncheck “Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox”
And it is gone..
January 29th, 2010 1:45 pm
The toolbox user experience is genuinely terrible. I feel like I’m using an Ideapad or a Dell.
January 29th, 2010 2:48 pm
Schot,
What aspects of the experience make you feel that way? We are certainly interested hearing more specific feedback – what is valuable to you in a diagnostic tool like LTT, and what aspects of it are you seeing as detractors, leading to your criticism of the experience? I’m sure our LTT team will appreciate any further details that you can share.
Mark
March 3rd, 2010 4:40 am
In the “System Health” section of the Toolbox, it would be nice if the “Enhanced Backup and Restore” functionality recognized other backup programs. Even reading a flag file that could be written (or touched) following a backup using other popular backup programs (e.g. Norton Ghost or Backup Exec) would be helpful.
March 7th, 2010 5:25 am
I really don not see any benefit from thinkvantage tools. I use none of them, nobody in my company seems to use them. It only makes trouble, some examples: wlan does not work after updates, computer unusably slow every day at 12 because rescue and recovery copies from one partition to the other (does not make too much sense on a laptop).
If rescue and recovery was smart, it would do its work silently in the background, without disturbing me. If it was was even smarter, it would only copy the system files which really changed (usually nothing).
My experience is: thinkvantage = thinkgarbage
Sorry for the grief, I am really upset with thinkvantage tools. I have to admit that my experiences are from the old version. Although my new laptop came with the above version preinstalled, I immeadiately uninstalled it.
Gereon
March 17th, 2010 12:12 pm
Thanks for posting the instructions on how to remove it. Was quite unhappy having it there.
March 21st, 2010 4:54 pm
Mark,
Here’s some advice – whenever you install a toolbar or a startup application, include, in the toolbar itself or the application itself, the ability to make it a no show. This would have made all of us happy.
Thank you,
Bob
April 28th, 2010 3:41 am
I got the message below when starting thinkvantage. Got the notebook yesterday and this is driving me nuts. Was told to possilbly reformt the whole thing. Problem is I just loaded all my stuff in after 10 hours.
Can someone help?
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: pcdrsysinfosystemboard.p5x
Application Version: 6.0.5449.19
Application Timestamp: 4b066649
Fault Module Name: pcdrsysinfosystemboard.p5x
Fault Module Version: 6.0.5449.19
Fault Module Timestamp: 4b066649
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0001dffd
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 18441
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
May 6th, 2010 1:47 pm
I upgraded some Lenovo utilities using Lenovo System Upgrade and it changed the on-screen display. Instead of the convenient, nice looking green volume bar, now I have an ugly, black and white one which takes up a lot of space. Is there a way to regress just the on-screen display back to the old version?
May 9th, 2010 3:46 pm
1. Right click on the Task Bar
2. Select Toolbars.
3. Deselect Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox.
4. The Toolbar icon disappears.
May 18th, 2010 12:36 pm
I use so many Lenovo applications but this one is the worst of them all. Why Lenovo wants to push adware, sluggish, non-performing and good for nothing crapeware application on taskbar. Uninstall Lenovo Toolbox.
May 20th, 2010 1:02 am
after the install of lenovo thik vantage tool box the blue botom that usualy opened the lenovo care
does not work… help me.—- mail me– just a detail… but i love things perfect… not like my inglish
May 20th, 2010 8:35 am
Peter,
Thanks for the feedback. I’m hearing several objections in your comment: 1) Promotional messages through the tool – suppose there were no promotional messages, or just toggled them off, would that help change your opinion? 2) Performance – as the tool is not fully resident (although the tool bar can create that impression) it should not affect performance. When are you seeing the impact on performance? How are you measuring this? 3) What would you prefer to use in the way of system diagnositics? One of the challenges we face when providing warranty support is the need to conclusively isolate a failing component so that we send the correct part in the case of user installable parts, or ensure that the onsite customer technician arrives with the right part to ensure a first visit resolution. Having a diagnostic available can help the customer run tests before placing a support call which saves the customer time on the phone and helps improve resolution and eliminates wasted efforts and expense in service – money and resources spent on parts and repair actions that don’t resolve the problem. Helping us keep costs down, allows us to offer more features, provide higher quality, and sell at lower prices – all good things for both of us. So, I’m sure you understand the value of a diagnostic tool, so I’ll ask what kind of tool would you like to have available?
May 24th, 2010 7:42 pm
How about support for some other backup programs? The notification is nice — why not support some of the other popular programs? It seems that the support for anti-virus software has been expanded, so why not backup programs as well?
Overall, this is a helpful and good tool… it just needs a bit more functionality.
May 27th, 2010 7:44 pm
If it is just a Toolbar, why when you disable it in the toolbar are you asked if you want to keep getting notifications? Clearly something is still running in the background.
And for Pate’s sake, please rename all the exes and dlls so we can recognise what they belong to. I thought I had a virus with all the different names popping up in my firewall asking for access to this and that. As it happens, it might as well be trated as a virus.
Uninstalled. Not impressed.
May 28th, 2010 1:15 pm
i am facing the same problem as stanley. anyone has an explanation or solution?
stanley Says:
April 28th, 2010 at 3:41 am
I got the message below when starting thinkvantage. Got the notebook yesterday and this is driving me nuts. Was told to possilbly reformt the whole thing. Problem is I just loaded all my stuff in after 10 hours.
Can someone help?
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: pcdrsysinfosystemboard.p5x
Application Version: 6.0.5449.19
Application Timestamp: 4b066649
Fault Module Name: pcdrsysinfosystemboard.p5x
Fault Module Version: 6.0.5449.19
Fault Module Timestamp: 4b066649
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0001dffd
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 18441
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
June 7th, 2010 8:24 pm
Can someone change to Toolbox so it pops up one advert while it is installing a fix. So far I have had one fix which failed to install and about 20 adverts most of which I have not looked at. If the TV was 95% adverts I would turn it off, the Toolbox is 95% adverts, I have removed it from my Toolbox (right click on the taskbar->tool bars).
June 13th, 2010 6:35 pm
Thank you so much for the FAQs which have allowed me to get rid of the icon in my taskbar and the extremely annoying daily messages from Lenovo popping up on my computer, most of them just junk messages about options to purchase. That is not any kind of improvement of my Lenovo experience! When you create another rev of the toolbox, you should improve the settings function so we can still use the message function for important system messages but turn off the junk mail! feature!!!
Note: my toolbox also does not show my warranty update, per another user’s comments. I can see online (auto detect warranty) though that my warranty update is activated so no worries.
July 8th, 2010 8:19 am
If I bought a TV, I’d be angry if Sony pushed ads for blu-ray players over the top of my morning news. If I bought a radio, and Bose hawked speakers on it over top of what I was listening to, that would be completely infuriating. Sure, they don’t have the functionality. But what exactly makes you think that it’s somehow appropriate just because you do have it?
I don’t want to rant here–I want to get a point across: You’re really turning on your core customer base: those people who came to Thinkpads because they were told they were sturdy and just worked. Those people are exactly the sort who will become irate if you:
-spam them,
-replace perfectly adequate and well-integrated native functionality with a slightly prettier, higher footprint, and arguably less functional program (accessconnections comes to mind), or
-replace your own, reasonably minimalistic programs with something florid, bloated, and slow (like this current toolbar).
Your marketing team has obviously missed a key point about what made your product distinctive, and are now cluelessly alienating real customers for the sake of selling a few more batteries.
As far as the current incarnation, the program may not be resident, no. But opening the Toolbox loads all the ads, loads all the Lenovo Value, Messages, Accessories, etc., sometimes taking a good 30 seconds or more before it’s all in while it hangs the program (and I don’t have a particularly bogged down system). And that tab, the one that offers spam and no real assistance related to the reason I pushed the blue button, never mind it being completely apart to my own personal productivity while it steals time–that tab is the one called “Ultimate Business Tools”? That darn marketing team again: a brilliant business move on your part would be to send them to one of your competitors.
Slender – a list of functions that just pops up, much like it was before – looks good, runs well, and–at one point–was rather your trademark. Ornate just goes about showing off how inefficient it is, and rather makes you look like a sellout. I realize everyone’s trying to look cute like an Apple, or something, but they control the entire architecture. You don’t. It won’t work as well. Also, we bought your product, not a Mac.
Get back to doing it right, or at least better. And don’t just pay lip service, having the next update brag about how it runs faster while it’s installing. Get it clear and simple. Get rid of programs that override native functionality. Get rid of the flashy sliding icons graphics, ads, and waste, and commit to real clarity and efficiency. If you want to use icons for comprehensibility instead of lists, fine, but you can do that efficiently too, and with less effort. The extra effort only wastes our time, and people notice. I assure you, in the long run efficiency will be far better business for you.
July 8th, 2010 4:07 pm
Joseph,
Thanks for the feedback, I think you understand that the tool represents multiple ideas about what it is and what it can be used for by both Lenovo and the customer. Obviously, if people don’t install, or uninstall it, we both lose out.
If you haven’t already, please be sure to take the survey through the tool as well.
You can make a difference!
For clarity, it may be helpful to continue comments on the updated post here so that we are all taking about the same version.
http://lenovoblogs.com/connections/?p=1510
Best regards,
Mark
July 14th, 2010 7:16 am
I finally uninstalled the ToolBox. Since installing it, a couple days ago, my computer froze twice. Each time I had to hard reboot. I do not know if this app was the reason but I do know that prior to this install it very rarely happened. I m running WXP-PRO/T61p.
I agree with most comments here (I actually read most of them). It is a very annoying and intrusive application (I did not expect Lenovo to play this game).
* The icon that comes up at start time with a red x telling me that something is wrong with my system is annoying. I do not want it to show any thing at any time unless I start it manually.
* I do not like a daily anything. Leave my laptop alone.
* I do not like any communication to mother ship behind my back.
* I do not like automatic updates of any kind – they should ALWAYS ask to confirm before installing any thing.
* Does Lenovo think that my laptop is so sick that it needs such frequent diagnostics and monitoring?
* It was not easy to find how to actually run a diagnostics. Why are the three buttons embedded into what looks like a scroll down of messages?
* I also hate the advertising aspects of it. I arrived to this tool because I experience some problems with your product – my laptop. Guess what – it heats up and I cannot figure out the cause. I want to run diagnostics, and I am not in the mood to pay you more for some new apps.
July 14th, 2010 10:52 am
Arnon,
Thanks for the candid feedback. I did an updated blog post recently on the latest version of toolbox here, you may want to check it out.
http://lenovoblogs.com/connections/?p=1510
The reason I mention that, is that you can go to settings and turn off some of the things you mention here – you can remove it from the toolbar (so no red X) and you can disable oneline support and the updates.