Installing 32-bit Windows 7 on Z720D (originally 64-bit Vista) -- help!

I purchased a ready-to-go VGN-Z720D from Sony, and their bloatware is, well, horrible, so i figured that would be as good a time as any to do a clean install AND run Windows 7 RC1.

Problem is, most of the utilities/programs listed earlier in the "Windows 7 on Vaio Z" thread are not available from esupport.sony.com in 32-bit flavor for this particular model. I've tried to use 32-bit drivers from the Z690 on my Z720, but Sony does enforce model restrictions within its packages, it seems.

I need some help on this one. What can I do to get all of the usual things -- Fn keys, etc. -- working in a 32-bit install when Sony doesn't make most of the needed things available in 32-bit for this model?

TIA.

 

Why would you wanna run 32-bit Win 7?

Thee answer is simple, just install 64-bit, ESPECIALLY if you have more then 3 GB of ram, which I'm guessing you probably do.

64-bit is where the world is headed, just jump.


EDIT:

Also, 32-bit Vista drivers should work I believe, but that is not tested.

 

Was looking to avoid a couple of little bit-dependent issues -- like the inability to print PDFs into OneNote on 64-bit systems (even though I am aware of the workaround for that as posted by one of the MSDN guys on his blog). That, and 32-bit simplifies matters as far as VPN clients and other such things as dictated by my medical school.

Tried to run 32-bit drivers, but the thing is, for my Z720, Sony doesn't make most of the core software available in 32-bit builds for this notebook.

 

Yes, just download the 32bit Vista drivers and they should work. Windows 7 is just a newer version of vista. It's product version is 6.1 while vista is 6.0.

 

There is the option of running Win 7 64-bit and just using VMServer and set up a simple XP 32bit VM or something? That was you get the best of both worlds?

 

Just download the 32bit drivers from other models that have the same spec as yours. For ex., Z790.

 

Would love to, but as I was saying, I was not able to install previous-gen packages for my Z720. Have not tried the 790, but that notebook doesn't seem to have any more 32-bit installs for it than the 720 does.

This -- http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNZ720D&SelectOS=29 -- is the listing for the 32-bit packages for the Z720 I have. From what I understand, nothing on there is what I need to make things like the function keys work.

And as it turns out, I'm repeatedly BSODing out when trying to install Win7 x64 on this Z720.

 

Done.

As it turns out, there's a fairly easy way to tell Sony to go screw when it comes to their attempt at model verification. When running the installation utilities from esupport.sony.com, it appears that the utility pulls the model designation of your notebook from the BIOS and writes it to a small text file in \Windows containing only that string:

Code:

Model = "VGN-Z720D"

(Or whatever your model may be).

You can easily force installation by editing that \Windows\Model.txt to reflect whatever model you'd like, denying write access throughout in the Security tab, and running whatever utility you're trying to run as it appears for the hand-edited model you've specified on Sony's support site. This keeps the installation packages from overwriting your hack, and it seems to cause C++ runtime errors at the beginning of each installation, but the software does install.

Do keep in mind that you can potentially create brand-new problems by doing this and installing software that has no place on your machine, so caveat lector.

The reason I had to look into this: I own a 720D which has next to no 32-bit support from Sony at the moment, but it's virtually identical to the Z600 series hardware-wise. I replaced the factory-installed Vista Business 64-bit OS with a 32-bit version of Windows 7 RC1 (looking to avoid issues with software I need for med school / keeping things simple), pulled the Z690 packages for 32-bit Vista Business listed under that page, and installed them following cariparo's "Windows 7 on Sony Z" guidelines -- though it's worth noting that the battery checker, setting utility, event service, control center, and power management pieces are all part of "notebook utilities". I didn't even do it in that exact order, and it's working flawlessly. Fn keys and switched graphics are perfect, and UPEK makes a Windows 7 version of their suite available -- which is the next-to-last thing to install for me.

Thanks to SPEEDwithJJ for pointing me in the right direction with the whole deny access idea as described here.