Lenovo discontinues automatic System Update for ThinkPads

This is going to make installing a retail copy of Windows yourself on a Thinkpad a real pain. With the updater service you just grab the updater and the rest is automatic. The little bits of sofware that you need for things like the battery manager and the onscreen displays are strewn around in small packages that you otherwise have to install manually.

Meh, most of those system updater apps are borderline bloat/crapware anyways. Also, it's not always wise to have the latest driver version for all of your hardware.

My rule of thumb after 12 years of hardcore Windows geekery (and yes plenty of gaming) is if it aint' broke, don't upgrade the driver.

There are a few exceptions to this rule but not enough to warrant an entire app who's job it is to keep you 100% updated all the time (bugs be damned).

Although a lot of cruft comes through along with useful updates, I will miss this. It is almost like Ubuntu's system update: a single, semi-serialized point of entry for periodic fixes and feature adds for things you have installed. I don't relish the idea of hunting this stuff down on an individual basis.

The outrage is palpable. http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=Special_...