Not the most interesting blog posting title, is it?
Anyway, the reason for the aforementioned title is that I just upgraded at work to a new laptop, a Lenovo (nee IBM) Thinkpad. One of the issues I hit while setting it up is that the ThinkVantage System Update utility repeatedly failed to work, reporting ‘Unable to connect to package content server.’
After a quick install and run of Ethereal, the culprit turned out to be the System Update utility, which attempts to download package information from a remote server on port 7618. Our firewall here at work is pretty restrictive when it comes to outbound access on non-standard ports, and therefore it was blocking access to the remote package server, resulting in the error. A tweak of the firewall rules by our local friendly firewall administrator, and I was in business. The laptop is now happily downloading updates as I type.
I have yet to really get to grips with the new machine, but is definitely a big step up from my previous laptop, a Compaq Evo 1GHz, and I am looking forward to a speedier work environment!
…and thus he spoke his annual blog entry!
Yes, I guess I have developed a reputation for sporadic posting
Just a word for other users that actually want to use Lenevo ThinkVantage System Update – you will need to modify or turn off your firewall, un-install > restart computer > re-install System Update ( http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/TVSU-UPDATE.html#DLP) and then run System update again. It worked right away for me in one computer. Then on my second it took several unistalls and restarts to get it working.