Elderly Vaio SZ1 series fingerprint readers and webcam - need utility

Hey guys

Hoping someone can give me a hand, here. I was asked to fix up an old Vaio SZ18GP (I think it was SZ160p in the US?) The owner's son had had a go on it and deleted the recovery partition and basically screwed this thing up beyond all belief. So no restore CD, no recovery partition on D:\, nothing.

I used our institutional licence for XP Pro+SP3 to get Windows up and running and got most of the drivers from Sony Australia's website. Followed some instructions on a clean install using XP from somewhere else which helped a lot, but now I'm stuck - I have no idea how to get the fingerprint reader to run. The Device Manager has it detected and working, but I don't know if there is supposed to be a utility of some sort which allows it to start or what.

I did take the Vaio control center from Sony so I can see all that stuff, but I don't see anything about the FPR in there at all. Anyone got any ideas? I presume it should pop up and ask me to register fingerprints at some point or something, but nothing so far.

Also, got the webcam up and running with no problems once SP3 was on (needed that shutdown-freeze fix), and although it seems to work it doesn't seem to work. None of the chat sites seem to detect it. The one I am most familiar with is CamFrog - the setup page has it running fine and I can see a preview on the screen of my face looking at it, but as soon as you try to connect to a user or room it says it's non functional. Not sure if it's just screwed or misconfigured or what. It shows up fine in Device Manager and you can access it and make it take a picture in the Scanning and Camera Wizard in XP, but Google chat and CamFrog seem to dislike it.

So if anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate it!

thanks
Dale
Cape Town

 

Hey Dale,

How are things in SA? I hope it's calmed down a bit...

Here's the US website for VGN-SZ160P:
Sony eSupport - VGN-SZ160P - Software Updates & Drivers

There's the security section with the following files, if I'm not wrong it's the Protector Suite that prompts me to do the fingerprinting. I'm guessing the co-processor driver may be needed as well:

Security - 5 file(s) back to top
File Description Date Version Size Download
File Now Add To
Download Taxi
Original - Infineon® Trusted Platform Module Professional Package 02/13/2006 2.5 25.55 MB
This utility installs the originally shipped version of the Infineon® Trusted Platform Module Professional Package.

Original - Protector Suite QL 02/13/2006 5.2.0.2564 220.33 MB
This utility installs the originally shipped version of the Protector Suite QL software.

Original - Infineon® Trusted Platform Module 02/09/2006 1.80.0002.00 1.03 MB
This utility installs the originally shipped version of the Infineon® Trusted Platform Module.

Protector Suite™ QL PasswordBank Update 02/02/2006 5.2.0.2647 2.40 MB
This utility updates the Protector Suite™ QL PasswordBank utility to version 5.2.0.2647 and adds support for Firefox® 1.5 and Netscape® 8.0.4 browsers.

Original - UPEK® TouchChip® Fingerprint Coprocessor Driver 11/10/2005 1.8.1.44 1.04 MB

 

Superb! Thank you.

As for .za, well, it's .za. As long as it hasn't erupted into civil war we're probably doing ok! Mostly looking forward to World Cup 2010 next month, and after that we'll have to see what happens.

-d-

 

Good luck with the laptop, and stay safe