SZ sz430n downgrade Vista to XP thread

This is driving me crazy....

I have an SZ430n and am tring to do a clean install to XP. Since this laptop came with Vista only its going to be MUCH harder to get XP 100% working.

No XP drivers on the Sony website. The 430n utilities for Vista dont work in XP. Using some files from previous XP models dont work. After searching and experimenting I finaly found most of the driver I will need and installed them.

The major issue is I cant get the Fn key to work with the backlight adjustment when using either the Intel or 7400go graphics.

What gives???? HEEEELP!!!

Has ANYONE been able to get the SZ4xx series fully working in XP? I dont think so! Stupid SONY!!!

 

I've been running a clean XP SP2 install with all hardware working (except my camera) on a SZ450N for months now. There are many threads within these forums which give you the easy way to do a clean install of XP. Just do a search for those terms and you should be on your way.

There's even a guy who made a video of using autopatcher and installing all sz drivers + utils. pretty cool.

Good luck - it's not hard to do - Sony just didn't make it easy for those of us wanting to use a "legacy" OS.

 

Where? I searched and searched. Please help because im going to throw this laptop against my wall soon.

Does your Fn key work to adjust screen brightness?

 

makes no sense to me at all why someone wants to run xp... it's the past. move on. so many people complained at how long it took vista to arrive and then people are jumping through crazy hoops to go back to xp. i'll never understand it... if you REALLY need old stuff, then why not use your OLD computer too. :-\

 

You may think it's the past, but there are lots and lots of professional applications which WILL NOT run in Vista.

In my case I'm a CAD professional and I MUST have Solidworks (2nd largest CAD app out there.) At this time, there is NO version of Solidworks which runs on Vista. The new version is slated to be ported onto it. However, SW is notorious for releasing very buggy versions and most professionals will wait at least a year before using a new version. Otherwise we become beta testers and spend all our time debugging and waiting for patches and not getting our work done.

Vista is NOT current technology, it's bleeding edge and those of us who make our living on a machine can NOT live there. Another year or two Vista will be great, but not today.


I'm also very interested in the answers to this user's questions since I'll be doing the same thing to my SZ650 beginning on Tuesday (when it arrives.)