G530 Windows 7 Software/Drivers...When?

Question

I don't see ANY Windows 7 Specific drivers or software updates from Lenovo.  Does anyone, forum members or Lenovo moderators know whne Lenovo is going to update their Software (Veriface, Lenovo Care, Easy capture etc) for Windows 7?
I have a G530
Thanks
Moderator Note; System added to subject

Answer 1

Well, I've been reluctant to comment.  The disks came last week, and were not of course including anything recent - I believe all the software was from July at latest.
I did successfully make a clean install of Windows 7, and it is simply wonderful. I kind of enjoyed Vista for a month or two, with the final service packs, but its rough edges had been really beginning to show, and I understand now why there was such widespread displeasure on that one.
Windows 7, though, is just stunningly, quietly good -- as we know things could have been for about the tlast 20 years, and benefiting from much of what's been learned in that 20 years.
The G530 continues to remind me how deep and wonderful the art of the Chinese designers who have been providing all our laptops for those many years. It is really expressed here, in a machine pretty clearly for the Brazils of the world, to give wonderful capability, and great physical strength as well as a very professional look, for a very sensible price.
Now, getting Windows 7 onto the G530.  I shake my head, and this is why I held back. But let's make it short and sweet.
- It's not going to work without that Bios which also causes a 1-minute wait with black screen each time you boot up. You lose control of screen brightness and other things if you use any other bios, including the 1.09 on the main support site, as documented elsewhere.
The bios that works is on the page recommended above, Consumer Support Site, coyly numbered '52'. Clearly there is much room for embarrassment, as the actual version number of that BIOS is 1.15 (!), and it was released in May (!!).  Everything seems to work fine with that BIOS, except for the little minor problem of the 1-minute start wait. Yes, it has been brought up on the 3000 series forum, and then gone into a black hole. How this could be missed, not known, and not recommended about since May is a comment. Let's not say on whom.
- Now, if you want to proceed, the drivers on this Consumer Support Site of Lenevos are also the ones you want - all the drivers labelled System 7, and according to the 32 or 64-bit flavor of Windows you're going to run. Some drivers are for both flavors.
- I did install all the drivers, with some trepidation after the mess some of the Lenovo services made on Vista. However, using the drivers alone keeps Windows 7 functionality intact. Most concerning to me was the wireless networking, which is just superb on Win7 -- silent, accurate, fast.  You go someplace where you have an access point logged into before, and you are instantly on the air. The other problems in Lenovo Vista software included the audio driver, which insisted on switching arbitrarily between two different software abilities being in charge, so that your volume and or silencing was never dependable. As well, the _display_ couldn't keep track of itself either, so that you got alternate proper and oversize screen views until the machine had fully booted.
None of these problems appear with Windows 7 as long as you stick to the driver downloads. I also loaded the EasyCapture from the last selections on theConsumer Support page, as though it warns, it works fine for what it does. I had tried ReadyComm on a trial dual boot of Win7 before, and strictly avoided that, to avoid the wireless networking problems resurfacing. You're on your own as far as the Lenovo OneKey, Lenovo System Repair, and Veriface. I find Windows 7 to have excellent tools for recovery, and the rest is covered by real backups. Beyond this I can see people are beginning to ask questions, and I will leave Lenovo to answer them.
- some of those questions are probably going to be about partitioning. Lenovo has used up the primary partitions on the disk, so that unless you do an upgrade installation of Windows7, you're going to end up with it on an extended partition.   Again, Lenovo will have to answer for this, and whether the upgrade turns out to be a good idea. It is supposed to be more reliable coming from Vista, and no doubt it is.
Those who wish to do differently had better know what they are doing, so will not comment on that here. I will say that the vaunted PartEdMagic is both a possible aid, and very possibly a real troublemaker in the vicinity of Windows 7. I had some terrible problems and recovered from them. I'd gone down that route, for those who understand, because I wanted a clean Win7 install, on the beginning of the disk, and I also wanted to save a large partition which had non-backed-up gigabyte video files etc..
In the end, I did accomplish that, and again, the result is really wonderful.  Battery life is much better, everything is fast, smooth, accessible, and to say someething one could so seldom about Microsoft work, actually clever.
It shows what computers could be like, before we get to the Scotty talking-to-the-computer Startrek scenario.
Regards to all, and patience,
C.
p.s. Oh yes, about the one minute black-screen wait on startup.  This is actually not quite as great a problem as it seems, before Lenovo fixes the BIOS, provided you are comfortable with using Sleep as the default action on closing the lid. The machine comes back up nearly instantly on Win7, one more boon.  You just need to set the time delay before auto-Hibernation to something reasonable, particularly after you load the Lenovo power manager driver, because their default is 1 hour (!). You do that under the hidden Advanced power manager settings, under the item Sleep.
If the machine does Hibernate, it will give you the same 1-minute blackscreen before beginning to start up again, but from there the return is swift and flawless. I am using this machine very much in carry-around travel mode, and all the workings of the base G530 and Windows 7 for it are simply great.