I just put Vista on my SZ

For the record I have a SZ1XP.

I decided I would take the plunge and see how Vista runs on the SZ, so here is my report:

I installed with nvidia graphics, the install found the drivers from microsoft and gave my aero glass . Aero glass is really nice by the way, it's much nicer to actually use yourself than it looks on screenshots. It runs really smoothly too, even thought it is beta code.

The entire operating system seems to run very smoothly, and it found almost all of the hardware - only missing 4 devices (can't remember which though)

The boot process takes quite a while, about 16-18 bars, and RAM usage is quite high but again this will drop when it goes final.

Any questions? (I'll answer later )

 

vista came out???? I thought that it's coming out next january??!!

 

How much RAM do you have? Would you recommend the switch from XP? Any lag with aero glass?

thanks

 

It's beta like he said.

 

ohh ok...would you recommend the switch from xp pro if I have 1.5 gb ram and 100 gb hard disk?

 

I have 1GB of RAM, seems to be ok but you don't get a true indication of RAM usage with a beta due to the way they are compiled. As it stands, I would say 2GB is needed - remember this is beta.

Aero is fine, runs very smoothly - the nvidia card does its self proud.

Don't switch the vista yet, it's not a viable OS at the moment. When it comes out I think it will be a nice OS though.

 

hey if you get a sony vaio with vista compatibility that means it will upgrade to vista without you paying or anything right????

 

It just means that it is supposed to be compatible with Vista. You would still need to buy an upgrade (I'm not sure if any notebook manufacuters are offering any sort of deals or coupons yet on Vista upgrades, or if they will).

-Zadillo

 

Funny, I did the same a couple of hours ago with my SZ1XP and just came here to see if others had done the same and I could find hints on some issues.

Problems solved so far:

• Bluetooth works with Microsoft's Bleutooth Stack after inserting the VID&PID in bth.inf
• Audio works with Sigmatel's XP Drivers

Problems not solved:

• Integrated Graphics (GMA 950) works, but doesn't use WDDM drivers (required for Aero Glass) - didn't bother me too much as GeForce Go 7400 works ok
• According to Windows Perfomance Rating, the GeForce Go 7400 has only 64 MB of RAM (is this the physical VRAM?), although it could get up to 256 MB using system memory AFAIK. Btw, I get the following ratings: Processor (T2400): 4.8, Memory (1 GB): 3.8, Hard disk: 3.5, Graphics: 3.4, Gaming Graphics (64 MB Graphics Memory): 3.4
• Haven't yet tried to install Sony-specific utilities such as Wireless switcher, Hotkey tool etc. Any experience which of the tools work and in what order they should be installed?

- sphere

 

I installed it this week as well. It ran pretty well except for the sony utilities. Unfortunately, I never figured out how to change the screen brightness and therefore I ended up uninstalling it. If I could get over that problem, I would probably try to run Vista day to day.

 

Got the intel graphics working with Aero Glass - works nice

 

what program did you use to partition? I didnt put on my beta 2 yet on the sony. I didnt want to mess with the sony side that is working.

 

I used Acronis Disk Director - really good piece of software.

 

OK so u used that program and setup the vista partition as a PRIMARY and then after the reboot, you stuck the vista windows in and then followed the steps? Or did you boot the sony up with the Vista dvd? Btw, beta 2 right?

 

How did you pull off Aero on the GMA. Did you find a different driver? I read somewhere that the Feb CTP supported Aero Glass but not other versions.

 

I partitioned away 20GB and left it as unallocated, I then booted from the Vista Beta 2 DVD and let it do the rest.

Intel graphics - manually install a driver from one already on the machine - choose manual, select intel and then the Lakeport driver.

Intel graphics actually work better than nvidia - I found with nvidia when a UAP screen presented its-self the screen would goa little nuts.

Overall - SZ owners will be happy with the laptop when vista comes out, it runs it well.

 

since I didn't do a dual boot b4, once I do this, every time I start up, it'll ask me what to boot in?

>I partitioned away 20GB and left it as unallocated, I then booted from the Vista Beta 2 DVD and let it do the rest.
If I remember right, the partition maker asks me if I want to give the drive partition a letter. did I want to do that?

 

I may give it another try.

I don't suppose you figured out how to control brightness on Vista.

 

Yes, it will ask you which OS you want when you turn your computer on. You have to have a connect or MSDN account to get vista at the moment though.



I haven't figured out brightness at the moment I'm afraid, I'm just living with it.

 

Ok did it. not bad. Having issues with sound card. how did you get the drivers to install?

 

Also I gotten it to BSOD once and disk write error once, but windows fixed it both times.

 

ok weird. getting alot of disk errors causing me to loose files. I hope its not my harddisk. Hoping its a vista driver issue.

 

OK removed that vista (for now). Only problem is I can't seem to add back that 20gigs (that I assigned to vista) I mean, I used that partition program and it added back 99.9% of the vista partition but now I have a 16mb unused partition. Did I do something wrong?

Also, if you're wondering like me on how to get rid of the dual boot screen once you get rid of vista, you can do this:
Delete the Boot folder and bootmgr file and you'll be fine.
They're in the root of your boot/C drive. Be sure to turn on the hidden and system files/folders view

 

My issues with Vista (+ the office 2007 beta) are:

- Will install standard NVIDIA drivers, but can't upgrade these to the new NVIDIA drivers as it won't recognise the graphics card and therefore the NVIDIA install program gives me a "hardware is not supported" error.

- Bluetooth doesn't install. Not sure how to change the PID if someone can explain that would be very helpful

- Power management doesn't work, and therefore battery life sucks

- short keys don't work (S1, S2, volume, brightness etc)

- No way to turn down the brightness

- hibernation and standby with and without lid closed works only very intermittently

- get searchindex.exe stopped and run DLL as an app errors constantly, which ties up the system for minutes on end and often crashes it.

All in all, it's not really a great success I think. I'm keen to learn of your experiences to see if you've had better results.


Also, I didn't try the fingerprint scanner software. It does recognise the device correctly.

-Bastian

 

How did you get bluetooth to work?

 

I just popped in the Recovery DVD's that I made before installing Vista and it picked up everything except for the Alps touchpad (service section of the inf was uncompatible) and the SONY Ericsson GPRS modem (doesn't recognize it at all). I haven't tried to install any of the Sony utilities. Have the Sony utilities that were designed for XP worked without error for other folks?

 

Please confirm SZ (core duo 1.83GHz) is more than enough in order to run Vista at Premium level?

 

How Vista performs right now in beta versus retail will probably have some change... that is the retail will most likely be faster since I'm willing to bet the beta is more bloated then the final retail release will be. (Of course MS software in general is generally bloated.)

But as for your question, I think the 1.83 GHz should suffice fine.

 

Thank you for your information. I personally don't want to use Vista, just to make sure in case more than 70% of users are willing to shift to Vista from XP next year !

Thanks

 

Got bluetooth working, pointed it to the toshiba driver manually. All hardware is now recognised, using some xp drivers, and build 5472 is much better then beta 2!

The SZ is more than capable of running vista.

I wasn't all that excited about vista, but after using 5472 for a while with a new refined look and some speed enhancements I'm looking forward to its final release.

 

Do you have the Aero interface running? If you do was there anything special you had to do to get it to work? Also can you control the brightness of the display? Thanks in advance for your input.

 

I have Aero Glass running on both GPU's. To get it running intel you have to manually install the Lakeport driver which ships with vista.

Fn keys still don't work unfortunately.

 

I got myself a virus and Windows XP is now playing up
I was thinking on reinstalling everything this week-end and maybe give Vista a try...

With the Fn keys not working have you been able to change the contrast of the screen, control external screens etc ?

Thanks
JY