A change is coming - next chapter in e-support at Lenovo

[Mark_Lenovo Former Administrator]

Ibmthink, dragonoak, Ajkulla66,

Thanks for the feedback as well.   These specifics will help with a bit of further testing.

In the case of the T400, it may be that specific model types are missing from the MTM taxonomy and need to be updated, rather than the content not being there as expected.

From the home page, I can put in T400 and then click the pull down arrow on the box and see T400 and T400s listed.  I can also put in T500, and so, I can get to the drivers for that generation of systems.   Once on the driver page, I'm having a bit of trouble selecting change and getting it to recognize, the T400 or T400s at that point.

So, in the course of this discussion we may need to sort out what isn't working as expected as a potential bug vs what is currently available based on the age / vintage points made up stream.  I would expect the T400/500 content to be within the 7 year window and available.

I understand this does not address the broader topic of keeping / making older content available.    Some great feedback provided already here.

Mark

[Mornsgrans]

Btw:

I recommend to move the discussion concerning the vintage ThinkPads into a separate thread and continue feature requests and bug-reports concerning the the new support-site here. It might help Mark and his team to aim the more important target now.

[tonewheels]

Its been a frustrating day trying to access drivers for a couple of older ThinkPad products (T61 and a T30), product numbers are not accepted for any of our thinkpad products in the office. Up until this point I would never considered owning any other brand for the simple reason I have confidence in long time availability of drivers and downloads for Think Products. I hope this is a temporary issue.

But most disappointing is the legacy (vintage) thinkpad product drivers have been removed. Please..please put them back! There are a great deal of think product enthusiasts (me being one of them) who have always boasted of IBM and then Lenovo policy of keeping drivers, manuals etc available for these old products. For instance I personally own a 560, 560x, 560Z, 240, 240X, T20, T21, T22, T23, T30, T40, T41, T42, T43, T43P, T60P, T61, T61P, T500, W500, X23, X40, X60, X200. and a handfull of older models (390 770 etc) Plus accessories contemporary with the systems. All of these systems are kept in tip top condition, but occasionally I will buy another older system just for the challenge of setting it up with Windows 3.1 or 95 etc. I am gutted these seem to have been removed. Obviously I do not expect any level of support, but why removeolder items completely?

I do hope Lenovo reconsider the recent deletion of product information, not just for personal reasons but to keep the confidence IT professionals have in Think Products old and new.

One final suggestion regarding legacy Think Products: A Legacy site dedicated to the older systems would be very welcome. ThinkPad history is so rich with inovation.  IBM and Lenovo have invested so much time and energy in producing superb ThinkPad products and this hostory deserves to be preserved. This in itself presents unique sales potential and something no other manufacturer are doing. Imagine being able to download original videos and wallpapers for a 1990s thinkpad, read technical articles and download drivers, manuals for products and accessoris. No support is required, just a static 'as is' site.

[Mark_Lenovo Former Administrator]

tonewheels,

I appreciate the feedback and the more people that share their concerns and the broader implications, the better we can gauge the scope of the concern and best way to address it given our current path.

Our express site is still up and contains a lot of the drivers for the older systems in the driver matrix.   Perhaps this can help you today!

http://download.lenovo.com/express/

Best regards,

Mark

[tonewheels]

Thanks for the link Mark - that makes it a whole lot easier. I never knew that area of the site existed! Even my older 560 and 600 series thinkpads are on there

If the product numbers are fixed on the new site that will make a difference. for example my daughters T61 is a 7665-AS5, no results found. My personal system I am using right now at home is a W500 (4063-33G) also no results found. I dont requre anything for them at the moment but its very usefull to call up the system specs such as GPU, CPU etc and then download the relavent drivers from the called up page.

[dr_st]

As was discovered by a user on the Thinkpad forums, http://support1.lenovo.com seems to be a functioning mirror of the old site. Just keep it online, and the problem is solved.

[TuuS]

I noticed today that Lenovo had changed a perfectly functional website in favor of one that is nearly impossible to use. For years if you wanted to look up a computer's specs all you had to do was click on "support" above and enter the MTM or product ID and it listed the basic specs but today if I try this it takes me to a very confusing page that has a a link to search by model, when selected you go to another page where you can enter the model type or product ID, however I have tried over a dozen MTM numbers (with and without hyphen) and nothing works, just says "unable to find, please try again".

I don't think anyone really likes change but we tolerate it as long as it works. One anology I can use is imagine if you're rushing to get to work in the morning and you find that your car has been "upgraded", and instead of driving to work you need to get out the manual  and start reading so you can find the steering wheel. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we asked for it but just imagine if you needed to find out what CPU a thinkpad had and you had someone on hold on the phone waiting for your answer and you're fumbling around with this crazy new website and ultimately just give up!!!

Honestly I can say that the new fancy graphics they install on the website might seem like a good way to sell computers but as a customer I can tell you that this type of thing causes a loss in confidence. How can I trust a new computer design to work if their new website design doesn't?   

The model I was trying to lookup today was 8939a16, but I've tried many including the popular T60p model 2007ys3 and no matter what mtm I enter I get the sam error message.

Can someone tell me where this info can be located on the new website?

Moderator Note; subject edited; post merged in. Was; What is going on with Lenovo's website?

[AtliJarl Guru]

Thank you for that dr_st!!

Just got a T61 model 8889 I'm refurbishing, so this was a great help

[ganon11000]

Now all we need is Lenovo TO KEEP http://support1.lenovo.com/ RUNNING FOR US WITH OLDER MACHINES!!!!

[Mark_Lenovo Former Administrator]

dr_st, gannon,

Well, thanks for sharing but unfortunately that is only going to be a temporary condition.   As part of the transition, the legacy site and infrastructured will be available for a limited time as we work through redirections and any post transition clean up.  As we are not actively maintaining the old site, I would highly recommend customers use the new one.

Eventually (relatively sooner than later) the legacy site will be taken off line.   

Tuus,

Currenty position is that 7 years of content will be maintained.  This is a rolling 7 year window, and we'll see how absolute we will be on removing the current oldest content (whether it will be monthly, quarterly, or an annual deal).

The T60p is technically more than 7 years, but we've made some exceptions for high traffic models.

While 7 years worth of system families are here, we may not currently have 100% of all the detailed model type combinations loaded in the selector taxonomy.   Specefic model types that are probably coming up are those between 5 years and 7 years old, or older than 7 years and are otherwise here by exception.

The amount of manual work required to remedy all of these is significant, so we will try to address individual ones that are noted here and seem common / popular.

As a work around, I would recommend putting in the product family.  For example a T400s model type was noted as missing (likely announced in 2008, so 6 years old and in that 5-7 year window I'm talking about) but if you put T400s in the selector box you can get to the drivers, solutions, manuals for the T400s.

Best regards,

Mark