In my lifetime I have owned 2 Macintosh computers, two Windows laptops, and two Windows workstations. That is until my last Windows workstation died.
Fortunately, I was taking a break from work, so there was no immediate need. Having a functioning laptop, I didn't feel the need to rush out and replace it. When I did get around to it, I went looking with some very specific criteria.
- Plenty of USB ports
- Support for dual monitors
- Dual disk drives
Not a really challenging list of requirements.
I ended up at Office Max, where I found a Lenovo desktop that seemed to meet all my criteria.Just in case it means something to anyone, the product number is 90T2000SUS. I picked up a couple of reasonably priced monitors at Costco and proceeded to assemble my workstation.
I didn't have a lot of software to add. I use UEStudios (UltraEdit, UltraCompare, UltraFTP), Oracle client software, Peoplesoft client software. I also added LibreOffice. Not a big load for what seems like a reasonably beefy workstation.
From pushing the start button to being presented with a logon page takes somewhere between 3 and 5 minutes. It seems to vary. Once logon credentials are entered (it asks only for a passcode, no user id/password combination), it is going to be at least another 3 to 5 minutes before you get either your desktop, or about 25% of the time, the black screen of death.
With the black screen of desk, all is not lost. Clicking on that page give you a drop-down list offering to log out, launch task manager, or restart. If you select task manager, and then close that window, you finally see the you desktop, and are able to actually use your computer.
Did I mention, Lenovo keeps trying to sell me shit? The app where you would check for updates to any of the Lenovo installed software is essentially a come-on to sell you a service contract, software to 'enhance your performance' (so they admit that they deliberately slowed down the machine) and software to help locate the machine if it is lost or stolen. For a desktop?
Because I have a network file server, I do not have a whole lot of data saved on this machine. So I won't have a lot of reinstalling to do when I wipe down the hard drives and install vanilla windows, rather than the ad-ware version of Windows 11 that came on this machine.
