AW Series: downgrading to XP

Hi,
I just received my new AW11S notebook and I'm working on the downgrade to XP.
Good news are:
- windows installed ok after adding SATA driver
- almost all peripherals correctly installed
- incredible speed, no comparison with Vista
- volume keys working
Bad news are:
- Eject key not working (but it doesn't really matter...)
- all Fn keys disabled!! (and this is bad)
- control keys disabled
- three peripherals still without drivers: an audio device, the modem and an unknow system device

I still have to test the webcam and the fingerprint sensor, since I have no software installed yet.
I've also lost all Vaio utilities, especially the power management utilities.

If anyone can help me with these problems, please let me know.
I really *don't* want to go back to Vista...

 

No luck until now with the function keys...
And the camera is not working. It is recognized by windows as usb camera, but Vaio utilities say the I have no camera installed. Can someone tell me the exact model name? Is it VCC8, VCC6 or what?

 

It doesn't seem that anyone is really interesting in this, but I keep this thread update anyway.

I manage to create a dual boot for XP and Vista, creating two different partitions.
I followed these instructions:
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_...talled_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm?page=2
they are perfect, except for the final part where they tell you how to set the multiboot utility. Looking on the utility producer website, it says that the menu entry has always to point to c:\, not the drive where XP is installed.

Actually, I manage to find *all* peripherals drivers for XP! Now I have no unrecognized devices in system management! Quite a milestone...

Now, after good news, bad news are coming...

- Really bad: wireless lan problems. Randomly (but it looks like it's almost always after accessing shared directories from my other pc) the wireless connection stop to work, forcing to reboot. It looks like a windows problem (any help would be really -I repeat, REALLY- appreciated), a strange one: ping working fine, telnet working fine, dns working fine (IE stay a while on the "Waiting for the website to answer..."), but everything else is stuck. This happened to me some time ago when my Sygate firewall went mad, but right now I have no firewall installed so I have no clue.
- Bad but not too much: some peripherals tools are not working, such as the touchpad control panel. This means I can't scroll from the touchpad, for example... I need more time to work on this.


To-do list:
- Vaio utilities... I'll try to start over with the utilities for the fn keys. Previously I managed to get only volume keys working, I'll see what I can do now.


If something is interested, I can upload the driver I found.

 

I forgot: boot time (from windows screen at startup to HD stop) for "cleaned" Vista, 1 minute 55 sec; boot time for clean XP, 51 sec.

 

Update:

- Volume keys: up and running!
- Eject key: up and running!
- fn+f12 (hibernate): up and running!
- fn+f7 (video output): up and running!
- fn+f9/f10 (zoom): up and... well... more or less running, it zoom in but it doesn't zoom out, but it's actually pretty useless...
- fn+f5/f6 (backlight): up and NOT running. OSD displaying, but no change in luminosity. That's a shame.

WLAN workaround: disabling WEP restore wireless lan stability, not a single lockup in about two hours. I don't really like this solution, but it's a start.

Problem: unable to activate bluetooth, the driver looks working fine, the Vaio Wireless Switch Utility seems to work fine, I set the bluetooth as active, but the icon still red and the peripheral looks disabled.
I'm working on it and, again, any help is appreciated.

 

Update: Bluetooth - UP AND RUNNING!

At this time, excluding backlight control, I have a FULL WORKING XP AW!!

 

Hi to all Vaio-supporters!

I received my Sony Vaio AW11S two weeks ago and it's a fantastic notebook, especially the screen is perfect. The only negative aspect is Windows Vista, because of the slow reaction times. I think a downgrade to XP is a very interesting idea.

It would be very great, if somebody can post the sources of the drivers which are necessary for the downgrade to XP.

Another interesting question for me is, if it's possible to use the classic nvidia control panel in XP (nvidia nview). I managed to activate the classic cp in Vista with a registry hack, but I think there are limited options compared to nvidia XP drivers.

If anybody is interested for the registry hack, take a look to this link.
( http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11627&hl=classic control panel&st=20)

Hopefully we can keep this thread update.

Thanks in advance.

 

OP, where did you get AW drivers and utilities for XP?

 

I hope that gpc, who started this nice thread can help us to find AW drivers for XP!

 

Hi all, yes yes I can help you I'm really sorry, but I didn't have time to upload all driver... and, by the way, I have no idea where I can do it, it's a pretty big stuff...
But anyway, in the meanwhile, I can tell you this: (almost) no problem for drivers, you just have to look on the producers web site for the XP driver. It may be annoying but you can find everything.
On the other side, what's really hard, is to get the sony peripherals working, such as the volume, cd eject, etc. For that, I had to try almost all sony driver for different laptops until I found the right combination.
If you can give me some suggestion for file uploading, I'll send you all drivers as soon as I can!
Just be aware: no way to get LCD light control working. It will just be at full power all the time. I suggest a dual boot -Vista and XP- so when you want to have a lower power consumption you just jump to Vista. Actually, I used it just a couple of time to watch a movie while I was traveling...

 

Hi I still here...
I took a few screenshots of my pc peripherals list, so you can begin to check if you can find what you need.
Device erased with a red line are external devices of my pc, so they are not important. The modem is disabled because it caused a few BSOD, so I decided to turn it off.
Here is the list:





(ok they are in italian, but I think they are quite clear...)

 

Ok I made a try... I created a torrent file with the driver...
The link is here, I hope it works, I never did it before...

http://gpaolo79.interfree.it/driver xp.torrent

Please be patient, my adsl is slow uploading and I can't let my pc always on, so if you don't find any seed just wait and sooner or later I will come online!

Please let me know if it works or it has some problem.

 

gpc, thanks for making headway on this. I've been trying to download the torrent for ~16 hours, but nothing yet (maybe you're not online).

Quick question: Are the drivers you found specific to 32-bit xp? If so, has anyone found 64-bit xp drivers?

 

Same here. I tried to download torrent, but no luck.

 

Anyone else got XP working?

 

Oh well, this is strange... I've been online almost 24h/24, maybe I did something wrong with the torrent.
I'm sharing it with Azureus, what kind of client are you using?

 

I'm trying to download it too. I'm using utorrent.

btw did you get your LCD light controls working?


I suggest that you RAR the folder and upload it here for example: http://www.yousendit.com

 

oh, by the way: all drivers are for XP 32 bits.
I onestly don't remember if the 64bits version was available...

 

no, lcd control is not working, but after a couple of month of use I have to say that's not really an issue. I had to switch to Vista just a couple of time to lower the brightness.

I try to check the site to see how can I upload the files...

 

I think you can only upload 100mb there. Try this: http://www.megaupload.com You dont need to register or anything, just select your file, check the "I accept" box and hit send.

 

Ok guys, here we go: http://www.megaupload.com/it/?d=36Z5AM63

Just a couple of notes...
First: I was quite stupid and I didn't note down the drivers order, so you have to find it by yourself especially for the sony utilities, where the order is essential. I suggest you to look for tutorials for the downgrading to xp of other vaios and follow that instructions with my files. I'm quite sure that there is all you need, but I may have lost something during my infinite attempts to get XP running... so, use this package "with care", it may not be complete.
Second: some installer wizard will tell you "I'm not for this computer!". You have to extract the install files with universal extractor and run the setup directly, without passing for the wizard.

Let me know how it goes!

 

Thanks for posting your collection of XP drivers for the AW. I just finished my XP install on my AW290 to the best of my ability and started off by using what you provided.

You may not have this on yours, but I wasn't able to find a driver for the "AVerMedia A313 MiniCard Pure Analog TV". The only drivers I can find for that device are 64-bit. The other thing I doubt I have working correctly is the Compact Flash slot. I don't have a drive letter showing like I did in Vista, but I did get the Memory Stick and SD / MMC drives to show. I don't plan to use the tuner or the CF slot in XP, so I'm not really concerned about either. I just thought I would mention it for others that may do the XP downgrade. I also still plan to use Vista for any type of media viewing (DVD, Blu-Ray, TV, etc), and would suggest to others thinking about going to XP that the dual-boot option is probably best.

As far as the brightness controls go, I spent plenty of time over the last few days trying to come to a solution for this, approaching it from every angle I could think of. In the end, I was able to get the brightness controls to correctly respond to adjust the meter up and down and the VAIO Power Management tab settings to set/override the brightness levels also, but the display itself still did not adjust in brightness through either of these. I am not sure what the missing link is. Perhaps the NVIDIA driver .inf file I've been tinkering with needs further modification. At this point I'm probably going to give this item a break for now. I may be fairly close, but I've spent way more time on this than I probably should have.

The NVIDIA control panel has some controls that can help with reducing the brightness of the screen. I know it's not the same and doesn't work quite as well, but for me it is an acceptable compromise. Hotkeys can be setup to adjust controls such as Brightness through nView Desktop Manager. I also installed the Color Control Panel and applied a profile that was a little easier on the eyes. I may investigate this further at another time.

I was able to configure my S1/S2 buttons to do something, but they both function the same. Has someone successfully been able to make these work independently? I may need to review that again. In my many attempts to work on the brightness issue, I may have deviated from the ideal installs for some other items.

Other than a few very minor things though, my XP install works wonderfully.

 

hello gpc!

very nice work! unfortunately i noticed this thread a little bit late, so i already build a small driver collection for xp by myself.

here a short list of my stuff (i guess some of these are the same / the same but different source / similar to your driver):
* chipset
* graphics driver
* network (gigabit)
* wireless network
* audio (realtek, but NOT the hdmi stuff)
* bluetooth
* fingerprint sensor
* some of the memory card reader

what i took from your package so far:
* audio hdmi
* touchpad driver
* the rest of the card reader stuff

so at that point, the device manager is happy with all devices! thank you very much for your package gpc!!!!! nice job!

but what i'm still missing (even with your driver package) is:
* the fn keys, the eject button
* the funktion keys (does the setting utilities series provide this??? )
* the power management utility from your package doesnt work on my machine (mybe its the xp version itself, but maybe i used the wrong install order as u mentiond! ??) SnyUtil.dll missing. can you help me with that ?
* cant find the setting utilities series in your package...
* VESConfig.ini ...thas for ?
* do you have an application from sony for the camera ?


if somebody is interested in my drivers (i took some of these from vista), we can find a solution for shareing.

i hope i can setup the fn and the funktion keys with your help ...

greetz and nice thread!

 

Hi vgnaw! Glad to be helpful

About your problems...

* the fn keys, the eject button
* the funktion keys (does the setting utilities series provide this??? )
* VESConfig.ini ...thas for ?

This looks like something related to the sony utilities... In fact, that was the tricky part and honestly I'm not really sure how I got all working...
The VESConfig.ini is the configuration file for the sony utility and it permits to the program to use the fn keys, volume control and eject key. Without this -taken from Vista-, all sony utilities are useless.
How I got it working... well, I just installed everything I found, I was completely out of hope and suddenly... puf! it was working.
So, except fo the light control, I can tell you that somewhere there is the right program... but if the one I put in the package is not working, I can't remember where is the good one!

* the power management utility from your package doesnt work on my machine (mybe its the xp version itself, but maybe i used the wrong install order as u mentiond! ??) SnyUtil.dll missing. can you help me with that ?

No idea, sorry. This is part of the sony utility too, I think there is something wrong with that. The procedure was taken on this forum from other threads, you can try to look is I miss something in reporting it, or if you miss something in the installation procedure.

* cant find the setting utilities series in your package...

Ah... uhm... ehm... well... let me check...

* do you have an application from sony for the camera ?

No, nothing. Everything I found wasn't working, but since I can use the camera without them, I thought it wasn't a problem...

If you can solve something, let me know!

 

hello
is there something missing in your package ? ...respectively is it possible for you to determine if there is something missing?

i'm a bit helpless with that utilitiy sw stuff. ..mybe u can tell me your "winning" strategy or source? ...sw from another notebook series? from older models? modified vista sw?

i think the Fn-key thing is a "must". that should work! ...(well, the funktionskeys and brightness thing would be important to)

greetz

 

Hi gpc
I have the same nobo like you and I was wondering ..
I didnt tried install xp but
Is here any possibility that you can use/install these orig drivers in XP? --> http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/downloads/preinstalled/preinstalled.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons&m=4565
I think for those all special keys on keyboard u need sony vaio utilities ,have installed all their software ..

 

Hi,
I have two news, one bad and one really bad...
The bad one is that in my package the sony utilities are missing.
The very bad one is that I have no idea where are they gone
I have to check on the old computer, maybe they still there, but onestly, I don't think so.
I'm sorry, I think you have to look on the sony website and try to install the utilities from other models until you find the right one... and be a bit smarter then me, take note of the file!!

 

The needed files are:

#

Sony Shared Library -
1.91 Mb 31/10/2008
#

VAIO Control Center -
3.22 Mb 31/10/2008
#

VAIO Event Service -
4.74 Mb 31/10/2008
#

VAIO Power Management -
5.17 Mb 31/10/2008
#

VAIO Smart Network -
5.74 Mb 31/10/2008


You may try to open and unpack them with universal extractor, to bypass the OS check, and see if they work on XP. It may be a good hint, thanks.

 

gpc
YEah I just wanted to tell you exactly same thing

 

hi Evoss-X
i took the following driver from vista (without universal extractor applied)
* bluetooth
* fingerprint sensor driver (some xp's have this already included)
* protector suite
* modem driver
...no problems so far..

greetz

 

yeah but:
I went to sony usa website driver downl. section .
I selected those latest AW series laptops
the best is this :AW290 for vista /win 7 only
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNAW290&SelectOS=36
and they added model check program and if it's detect diff. model, installer will not allow to install ...
so I extracted them all they are latest ..(those from sony only)
and for XP :
can you install all of those? : http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/downloads/preinstalled/preinstalled.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons&m=4565
Better is use driver genius... I think

 

Hello,

I have an AW11M spanish version, and I am trying to downgrade to Xp.
I have succedfully installed all hardware, but it is impossible for me to able the fn keys, the eject button, volumen buttons...(all sony utilities)

Can anybody explain how to run this? and provide me the programs

Thanks in advance

 

I have downgraded my aw190j to xp x64 but don't understand how to use the vista drivers on xp. I am particularly interested in the Nvidia GeForce 9600 driver. Any help?

 

hi
my AW with XP os still unable to use the function key of LCD brightness adjustment , anyone has solved.
pls teach me and other

note : my LCD is all time brightest , my eye not really can take it ....

thank

 

You need to install XP compatible GPU driver, Sony shared library, SFEP driver, and Notebook utilities for the fn key brightness control.

 

thank cool guy , i will make a try , and report it.....