Sony Laptop driver woes.

[Loose rivets]

I'll separate this thread as it is more-or-less an isolated problem.

Following dual booting W7 on my Sony Vaio VGN-NR498E, everything worked, except the Fn keys.

What I've also learned is Windows key + X gives a handy menu in lieu of Fn.

Milo and others pointed me to a site I'd already spent ages looking at, and again, the very specific download did not do what they said on the box. Mostly, they said the "operation had not been successful and to search for", etc., but some said only to be run on Vista. Total no-go.

Now, a chance comment by a techie in CompUSA indicated three drivers had to be loaded in the correct order, or they wouldn't work. New hope.

My son happened by, and he's normally very good on these issues, but always too busy to pester. :(

Together we spotted a forum which said the same thing about the order. The bloke gave the drivers in the correct sequence. Hoorah! No, disaster.

Both of us did not spot the bloke had suddenly gone off at a tangent and was talking about another model. Our fault, but just goes to show how easy it is to be mislead.

Soddin' keyboard doesn't go at all now. :ugh::ugh:

Deleting driver doesn't help. Numerous attempts to load the W7 drivers from Sony say can only be run on Vista.


Vista still boots and works normally. One thing, is it possible to grab the drivers from Vista partition or are they too deeply imbedded? The logic being, it seems the drivers might be the same and only the installation program badly written.




.

[Milo Minderbinder]

Rivits

rather than beat a dead horse, why not just do the sensible thing?

reformat it, single partition, one operating system and pull down ALL the correct drivers off that website and install them one by one. Theres a lot of stuff there, and most will be there for a reason

[Loose rivets]

Why not?


The prime issue is whether the drivers can be satisfactorily loaded after the OS is in, and probably more importantly, if in fact Sony are failing to supply a workable set of drivers. It seems to me I'd be no better off if that driver install program is corrupt.

The site I'd found and the one you also pointed to seems to be the correct Sony site and clearly allows one to select Windows 7. 32 or 64. At some stage while running the executable, it then informs me the install will only run on Vista. I can't see this could be finger trouble, (at least 3 tries) or that it will change with a new install.

It was a total mental aberration not spotting that chap's suggested downloads were not for the correct model. He was wrong to suddenly change models, but we should have been on our guard as it was an open forum. That's life.


It was the plan to do as you say once I'd tested the OS on this machine. However, the OS and the Office 2010 have been updating like crazy several times a day, so I hope I don't have to go through all that again just because of a driver issue.

I'm going to restore back a bit and see if I get partial use of the keyboard back. Windows + X is a workaround I can live with.

I do feel somewhat frustrated not to be able to do things other folk seem to find routine. Hope it's bad luck and not age related brain-fade.

[Loose rivets]

It only allowed me back 3 days, and that didn't fix it - despite the problem occurring after that point in time.:{

I assume the drivers are imbedded in some way that is impervious to restores.


Just so pressured on time. Used to love this stuff, but playing is killing my editing schedule.

[Loose rivets]

Despite replies from Sony support site, (do the @#$% obvious ) I gave up on trying to get my keyboard going again.



I went through a Control Panel / Recovery with the Windows disc.


Went smoothly, and keyboard works again. No Fn Keys.

One thing I learned was Windows Key + X gives the functions I was missing with the Fn key, so laptop is usable.

However, Milo said one should always upload the latest drivers. I had used the site he pointed to, and there is no doubt. The W7 Launcher driver runs but then says it is for Vista.

I get the feeling Sony have dropped the ball on this one, and just left my VGN-NR498E out in the cold. If there's anything I have missed, I'd love to know. I'd like to experiment before doing all the updates and loading Office again.

[Milo Minderbinder]

try running the installer in compatibility mode

[Loose rivets]

EDIT I'm running 'Program Compatibility now. Just got to find the Launch file.:hmm:


While checking, I came across this: The second warning box is much the same as the one I kept getting.

Using Program Compatibility Mode in Windows 7 (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10436/using-program-compatibility-mode-in-windows-7/)

[Loose rivets]

Mmm . . . thanks for the input, but I'd better stop here. I'm being drawn in to a challenge again. I used to enjoy them, but as I get older I'm starting to lose more and more of these battles.:uhoh:


I now have a usable Dual Boot unit and when I tried the compatibility in W7, it seemed to be working, and indeed announced the file was the Launcher something. When I caused it to run it went to Setup in C drive. Potentially disastrous as my English MS word is running in there under Vista.


Sony warned they do not support dual boot. Maybe this is strong evidence of the fact, cos I was running in D drive's W7 OS and I don't understand why it would reach out to another OS.

Thanks again, but quitting while I'm ahead.

[Milo Minderbinder]

because whoever wrote the drivers assumed that c: would be the system disk like on any normal PC......so thats where they unzip / unrar to.

I hadn't realised you had Win7 on D: with a dual boot. It wouldn't surprise me if thats the root of much of the problem.

[Loose rivets]

Yes, the trouble with me is I type so fast, and ramble so long, vital information gets lost in the fog.

I come from an era where NEC made a computer with a fine colour screen and ran of a flavor of DOS that didn't prevail. It cost nearly £7,000 and when my customer was asked for £70 a question, in the early 80s, he thought I was the bee's knees when I could solve his problems. A leading consultant, me.:}

I just loved to footle with problems, but now these things seem bizarrely complex for no reason at all. Fading brain, or has the world gone mad?