No more system update

I've always disliked software auto-update, especially at work. I'm sure the people that wrote auto-update into their programs have infinite bandwidths at their disposal, but this is not the case in real life. I've had clients complaining that their Internet speeds are really slow, and when I went in to check things out, I found that every single computer was downloading updates from the net simultaneously, over a 1 Mbps link shared by the entire company.

However, I've always liked Lenovo (and previously IBM)'s System Update for the ThinkPad and ThinkCentre systems, collectively called ThinkVantage technology. This is because System Update can automatically figure out the hardware configuration and download the appropriate drivers. Not long ago, my company bought five or so ThinkPads, all with different hardware specifications and with different versions of Windows. I started up System Update on all of them and went home, and the next morning, everything was configured and ready to go.

Good things never last.

Update (June 1, 2009): After many customer requests, Lenovo decides to bring back System Update. Go Lenovo!