Win7 on T41 and T43

Why install an unsupported OS like Windows XP, when you can install Windows 7? As long as your clunky old laptop has at least 1GB of RAM and at least 40GB of hard disk space, I don't see why not. People have reported that Win7 actually runs faster than WinXP on these old laptops. For me, I'm just after the updated patches and drivers.

On the T43, installation is pretty straightforward. You format the HDD, install Win7, let Windows Update pull in all the latest drivers and patches for you. Software installation took about half an hour. Downloading the 100 or so drivers and patches (and installing them) took over two hours. The driver for the display adapter is always the tricky one. In this case, Windows Update found the proper Intel X3100 driver for the T43.

Not so lucky for the T41. After 5 hours of software and updates installation, I ended up with the standard VGA display adapter, instead of the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000. I mean, it's still able to support the maximum display resolution, but no sleep option, only hibernate. Apparently, the GPU is considered too weak to run Win7, so no official drivers from ATI. Your best option are modded drivers. Check the below links for more discussion about this specific issue, and how people went around it:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=83758
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=77964

Most of the download links mentioned in the posts are now dead. The one that actually worked for me is from http://www.mediafire.com/?5tieomimroy

Unpack the archive, select the display adapter from Device Manager, and update the driver. For some reason, after updating to ATI Radeon 9000, the resolution is reduced, but I now get the sleep option.