Issues of downgrading CS series to WinXP

A friend of mine bought Sony VAIO VGN-CS115J laptop. She wants XP instead of Vista. I installed Windows XP Pro SP2, then tried to upgrade the drivers.

Since CS series is a new lineup for CR series ( I read that somewhere), I figure I can use XP drivers of CR series. However all the drivers I got from Sony site when ran, it refuses to install because according to the error message: the package is not intended for this system.

I think Sony hardcoded in the installation program the list of accepted systems for a particular driver. Since CS series is new, its name is not on the list. Too bad! This practice ( if Sony actually does that) is user-friendly and prevents driver installation in a system; however, it is too restricted for the technical-adventurous. Dell & HP drivers don't care which system you install them.

Anyway, I resort to use the manufacturer's drivers for chipset, video, audio, ethernet, wireless, etc... I got most of them working ok.

I have 2 questions:

1. Does anyone successfully use CR series drivers on CS series laptop and how ?

2. I got some strange problem with the wireless driver. I got the driver from Intel (...). Everytime I surf the web, after reading the first few pages, it chokes and says waiting for www.cnn.com ... etc... If I access Internet via wired ethernet, I got no problem at all. Only when I switch to wireless I get that weird problem. Doesn't matter I am using IE or FireFox, the browser will choke. I ruled out just about everything (security software, wireless routers, ...) On my other Dell laptop, wireless Internet access is perfectly fine (via the same wireless router). That leads me to conclude either the wireless driver is not good or the wireless component of the laptop is bad, or something else entirely. If anyone has similar problem and resolution, please share.

Thanks.
Nathan

 

1. I'm unfamiliar with Sony's installers, but does it any point extract a bunch of *.inf files into a folder somewhere? If it does and simply chokes on the installation, you might try right-clicking on "My Computer" go to the Hardware tab and click on "Device Manager" and install the drivers manually from where they are extracted.

2. You should be careful not to directly copy drivers blindly from the CR. If I'm not mistaken, the CS is the Montevina refresh of the CR, and comes with the new Intel wireless card, so the old drivers shouldn't work. Look up the model of the wireless card and search the intel website for the drivers instead.

 

1. I am not sure whether the Sony driver isntaller extract out anything. It just run and then pop up a dialog indicates this driver is not intended for use on my system.

2. Yes, I don't blindly just use CR series driver. I could not run them anyway. I got the latest wireless driver from Intel website. BTW, I disabled the wireless zero configuration and use Intel utility software to control the wireless connection. It seems better but still drop wireless connection once in a while.