So I'm back to thinking about ThinkPads again...

[McQuad]

About 5 or 6 weeks ago, my brain was so full of information about Frankies and such that, naturally, I took a chance on a Dell M4700 mobile workstation.

Well, that Dell has now been relegated to paper press duty. Why? Because, despite having a perfectly good display, it won't output any video whatsoever ... but this is a ThinkPad forum, so I'll digress and go back to where I was in early-August.

We have a project looming that involves legacy 32-bit "abandonware" that's only known to run reliably on a PC that's solely operating via Win XP. It's a long boring story, but I've been informed that the legacy utility in question is highly XML dependent and, apparently, M$ changed the way that XML files were handled, post XP, so we'll need an XP machine, as opposed to an XP VM, to get the job done.

As a longtime Mac user and a guy who suffers from wrist inflammation, I learned, out of necessity, to operate a trackpad properly. As this is a basic requirement for me, I'd like to ask the ThinkPad folks if any of the 3rd or 4th (Intel) generation XL-era ThinkPads came with a trackpad that won't drive you nuts?

In fact, any information about ThinkPads capable of operating solely as an XP machine would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for the help.

[TPFanatic]

**30 generation is the final generation with OEM drivers for Windows XP. This should be the most modern generation you look at for a painless Windows XP setup experience. **30 generation is also the first generation with OEM drivers for Windows 10, so it's a good generation all-around.

There's two different types of touchpads used in ThinkPads of this era.

1. Traditional touchpads with dedicated Mouse Buttons, and

2. Clickpads with no dedicated buttons, rather the entire surface is a physical button.

T, W, and L series up to the **30 generation have traditional touchpads with dedicated Mouse Buttons.

E series up to the **20 generation have traditional touchpads, and they are larger than the touchpads in the other series. E*30 models introduce clickpads.

So if you favor a bigger touchpad, consider the E series.


I'm not going to talk about the X series of ultraportables or discontinued series like R and SL series because I don't want to overcomplicate this post.

[McQuad]

Nice post, TPF!

[McQuad]

**30 generation is the final generation with OEM drivers for Windows XP. This should be the most modern generation you look at for a painless Windows XP setup experience. **30 generation is also the first generation with OEM drivers for Windows 10, so it's a good generation all-around.

T, W, and L series up to the **30 generation have traditional touchpads with dedicated Mouse Buttons.

E series up to the **20 generation have traditional touchpads, and they are larger than the touchpads in the other series. E*30 models introduce clickpads.

@TPFanatic ~

As I don't know much at all about anything other than the Frankies and such that we discussed about six weeks back, would you kindly give me some specific examples of the IBM/Lenovo model numbers you're referring to? My apologies, but I'm not having much luck correlating the asterisks with actual model numbers.

[TPFanatic]

Happy to help.

I recommend looking for, among the following models, the cheapest unit with a battery and power brick included:

T520, T530, L520, L530, E520, or E530.

[McQuad]

Thanks again for the help, TPF!