While I've not noticed any settings being ignored, I suggest to use policies(either GPO or "policies.json" when it comes to telemetry. As for experiments I've been running ESR for so long that I don't even know what these are supposed to be or do.
Have you tried portable thunderbird(from portableapps.com) ? My way of doing what you described has been to setup thunderbird on one machine and then sync it on the network through syncthing and am quite happy with this setup. Another option would be to change the default path where the profile is saved, but the portable variant is much more cleaner IMO.
> The largest-scale crypto mining is thought to be taking place in the north of the country, where the Serb-majority population refuse to recognise Kosovo as an independent state and have consequently not paid for electricity for more than two decades.
So how exactly are they mining if they aren't paying for electricity ? Illegally connected to the grid and/or bribed someone from the electric company to turn a blind eye ?
Funny story, I'm actually looking to make the opposite switch t430 -> t480.
My t430 is already equipped with 16gb ram and modded EC so I can use cheap 3rd party batteries and the OG 7 row keyboard instead of the trash 6 row island keyboard.
There are still some upgrades to be made like i7 QM cpu, and a 1600x900 IPS screen, but I just can't justify the costs anymore.
The reason for moving to t480 soon is that I'll be doing the t25 frankenpad mod solely just for the 7 row keyboard.
Better power effiecient cpu, nvme and high res screen is a cherry on top.
So far my thinkpad experience has been superb, and both my machines t410 + t430 have survived many drops and various liquid spills(water/coffee/alcohol)
and besides replacing the keyboard, I had 0 issues. Hopefully the t480 will be similar experience.
I personally don't see a reason to have any kind of AV installed on my system(AV software is generally a performance decrease anyways). I should note that I used to work in the AV industry many years ago, so I consider my security knowledge above average and almost everything that I consider non-essential is being run inside a VM(also do RE as a hobby).