Thanks for the info Usche, my frustration towards Lenovo has been justified. How long can this take!?

Has this Lenovo Settings rubbish even got the same feature set of Access Connections and Power Manager?  Can connections be prioritised and DNS setttings overriden?  Can charging thresholds be set?  Can the advanced camera settings for the webcam be adjusted like with Communications Utility?

Or are actually waiting for some toy app?

Why can't they just update the ThinkVantage apps?

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Has this Lenovo Settings rubbish even got the same feature set of Access Connections and Power Manager?  Can connections be prioritised and DNS setttings overriden?  Can charging thresholds be set?  Can the advanced camera settings for the webcam be adjusted like with Communications Utility?

 

Or are actually waiting for some toy app?

 

Why can't they just update the ThinkVantage apps?

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I can only answer about Power Manager: no, it doesn't support battery threshold.

My guess is they won't update ThinkVantage Apps because most people doesn't care and the move onto Store Apps for marketing.

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If they would free the App for all W8 users, everything would be fine, but as you can see, they don't hurry doing it. 

 

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Making a brand specific app available for all W8 users is not a good solution!  You should keep in mind that MS has its own vested interests to protect!

So we have a stalemate, then? Lenovo is deadlocked with itself! They have dropped support for their Win7 ThinkVantage apps in Win8, they have published a new Win8 metro app to replace them, they locked it to OEM Lenovo licenses, and now they don't want to open it up and have any fools without Lenovo PCs install it.

Not that Lenovo can't just modify that app to check the Windows environment and abort at runtime when it finds a PC that it does not like.

I am sure the chain of events here start and end with a bad product manager who painted himself into this corner and then watched his development team get parceled out to work on their next projects. If they got put into some 6 - 9 month projects then putting them back on this would just cascade into every other project that would be delayed.

Based on the complete lack of meaningful feedback here, I assume that either the Lenovo support agents here really do not have a lot of direct communication with the development managers, or they do communicate a lot but they all know that no resources are assigned so they are not going to tell us that.

It's not "Lenovo's fault." It's probably one team manager / product manager's fault who was too distracted to see this trainwreck coming. And now you would have potentially multiple product launces affected by a maintenance issue.

Maintenance is seen as a cost. Yes, you generate repeat business by offering great service, and that can be significant, but in truth it is the new product launches, the first million sold, the next big thing that generates revenue for a company. It is hard to convince executives to divert resources from a project with forecast earnings tied to it and move them to a project with no earnings potential AND the act of transferring them delays your money makers.

No win scenario for anyone. We lose, Lenovo loses some repeat business, the developers / product managers that care lose sleep and confidence, and the world keeps turning and Lenovo stays profitable and Best Buy gets the next tablet in time for summer.

Yeah, sorry, I don't buy the Microsoft argument. It's a problem with the Store. In fact, they're now warning people that ANY change to your Windows licensing will leave you unable to install vendor-specific applications in the fine print below promotions about Media Center Pack.

In other words - you add Media Center Pack to a Windows install? Or go from Windows 8 to Windows 8 Pro? It replaces your Windows license code, it's no longer the OEM version, and you can't download vendor-specific applications any longer. The fact that Microsoft isn't using WMI information (which includes things like the vendor's name and the computer model) to limit it instead is just ridiculous.

The Microsoft Store was clearly designed around the new tablets. General-purpose computers, and the "messiness" of supporting them, was an afterthought.

It's worse than that - if someone installs Media Pack, it replaces their Windows license key and they LOSE access to the OEM apps in the Store. You're ok as long as you have the pre-install, but you wouldn't be allowed to download new utilities. Not sure about installing updates to something alread on the computer.

Completely boneheaded on Microsoft's part.

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Not that Lenovo can't just modify that app to check the Windows environment and abort at runtime when it finds a PC that it does not like.

[...]

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Tough I agree with most of your post, I have to clarify one thing: you cannot check Windows environment from within a Metro App. There are some... ways through, but it's not a direct approach.

Anyway... Doesn't matter. Does it?

Is there no way to do a WMI Call on maybe say the Lenovo Settings Dependency install.  I would think that it would make sense to do the WMI call on that as its a Windows desktop application install.  Then from there you could have the Modern UI app do a check to ensure that the Dependency is installed before allowing it to install... or rather not worry about it as the Modern UI app won't work properly without its Dependencies.  Just my two cents, I know that its not the cleanest way to do things, but it would get the job done and get us our Windows 8 Management apps.