IBM's ThinkPads comes with Windows XP Home or Professional, and the X31 comes with XP Professional. Don't look for OEM CD to put on eBay though – IBM enables to totally reformat and reinstall Windows with a Service Pack 1 installation with all the drivers with no CDs. They achieve this from the blue 'Access IBM' key that takes you to the BIOS setup screens. The BIOS option releases a script that reformats, repartitions, and reinstalls Windows XP by decompressing files that exist on a various GB partition on HDD. Therefore, when first started, the X31 all the free space on the HDD is occupied and will only show 35 GB drive.

The ThinkPad equipped with a suite of software from IBM. IBM Access Connections is used to manage network settings and can be used with 'profiles' to make it simpler. Other software like the Battery MaxiMizer Wizard, are easy in use. The only down fall of the software is that IBM offers the program that does the upgrades IBM Access Connections without upgrading wireless driver, and Access Connections is based on having a specific version of the wireless driver present. This killed wireless access until upgrade the wireless driver physically. And also, the X31 comes with a 90-day trial of Symantec AntiVirus 2003, Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0, and a Java Plug-in configured for use with Internet Explorer.