Get wi-fi, sound, & display drivers working on Windows 7, on a T42!
Hey guys,
Just for kicks, I thought I would try installing Windows 7 Ultimate (32 bit) on my OLD OLD OLD IBM ThinkPad T42 (bought it back in 04! and it's still going strong lol). I usually don't bother to register at a site just to voice my 2 cents, but I got this up and running so smoothly that I wanted to help out anyone else who might be having difficulties installing Windows 7 on their T42.
First off, I highly recommend Windows 7 on your T42 (as opposed to XP). I just had a version of XP (SP3) running on it (clean install) before installing my Windows 7 Ultimate (upgrade) on top of it (yes, I did a "format" option with a clean install instead of just an upgrade on top of the Windows XP), and the Windows 7 is MUCH faster.. it's not even close!
Second, I have all the basic drivers installed and fully functional, namely, wi-fi, sound, and display. (Also, in case any links don't work for some reason, I pulled all of my drivers straight from Lenovo's website. Just do a google search for T42 drivers and you should get them.. and I downloaded all "XP" drivers... since there are no Windows 7 specific drivers available.) The last piece of important information I have to mention is that I had already "executed" the aforementioned XP driver "downloads" on the XP version, prior to updating it to Windows 7. All I mean by this is that it created the following directory and placed the actual driver "setup folders" in the following path: C:\Drivers\Win\
1. Sound (Audio)
download
Lenovo Support - Audio driver for Windows XP, 2000, 98SE - ThinkPad R40, R50, R50e, R50p, R51, T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, X31, X32, X40
installation: Right-click on the "SETUP" file in the C:\Drivers\Win\Audio folder, and select "Troubleshoot compatibility". Then select "Troubleshoot program" => place a "check" next to "The program worked in earlier versions of Windows but won't install or run now" and hit Next => select "Windows XP (Service Pack 3) and hit Next. Then hit the "Start the program..." button and the installation should proceed normally.
2. Wi-fi (note, this link is for the XP driver, but there is also a Vista driver available, so you might want to try that first. But this is what I used and it worked)
download:
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/6hwc05ww.zip
installation: go through the same steps as you did for the sound driver
setup file location: C:\Drivers\Win\WLANINT\XP\x32\Install
3. display
download:
Lenovo Support - Video driver (ATI Radeon, FireGL Series) for Windows 2000/XP - ThinkPad A31, A31p, R40, R40e, R50, R50p, R51 (1829, 1830, 1831, 1836), T30, T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, X31, X32
installation: go through the same steps as you did for the sound driver
note: after the first restart, I was presented with some short, "ADI something something" error message, but this did not appear on subsequent restarts.
setup file location: C:\Drivers\Win\DISPLAY
Ok, so, that should hopefully get you guys started with Windows 7 on your ThinkPad T42 (this method will most likely also work for other old ThinkPads that ran Windows XP).
Let me know if you have any questions.. I'll try to respond
paYce!
