VISTA Blu-Ray and Camera Issues for AR-290G

Hi Guys and Gals,

I'm a newbie here and apologize if this has been answered before. There are so many threads here!

Anyway, I upgraded my Sony VGN AR-290G to Vista with their Vista Premium upgrade disk and the drivers on their website. However, I cannot get the webcam to work, nor have a way to play or burn Blu-Ray disks anymore. The 1st level Sony Techs don't understand English and give me answers to things I am not asking about. So frustrating!

Has anyone got the webcam to work on any AR series laptops? Also, does anyone know when Sony will come up with a Blu-Ray player. I imagine the VGN-AR390E (which is the Vista version of the VGN-AR290G) can do all this. If so, why can't Sony give me the drivers for my 290G?

Everything else appears to work.

Thanks!
Ed

 

There you go, all the vista driver for your AR-290G.
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNAR290G&UpdateType=Migration

don't forget to buy me a coffee.

 

Been there many, many times wuruoyu. Good try, but doesn't warrant a coffee yet! ;-P

Ed

 

The Blu-Ray Player update for Vista Premium was finally posted yesterday.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNAR290G&upd_id=2762&os_id=28

YEAH!

 

for webcam use this one
work for me
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNAR290G&upd_id=2297&os_id=16

 

Thanks Titan_psp! It worked! Wonder why they don't post this camera driver on the Vista Premium page for this laptop!?! If you're ever in San Diego, I'll buy YOU a coffee.

Thanks!
Ed

 

unfortunately
i live in san antonio, tx

 

titan_psp,

A couple years ago I lived out of the Embassy Suites at the San Antonio airport for 13 consecutive weeks on business. I wanna go back to Cha Cha's off Medical. GREAT beef nachos with a margarita on the side!

 

Now WinDVD BD will not play Blu-Ray discs. It worked on May 22, but now nothing happens when I select the play button. Oddly, it will play regular DVDs. I've reinstalled ITAOTH-01523801-US.EXE a few times and this doesn't help.

Also my bluetooth controller won't start up (and show in the systray), even though it is enabled and Device Manager says it is working properly.

Anyone have these problems? I love Vista but it is a royal Pain in the butt!

Thanks,
Ed

 

Finally got both to work. I first tried uninstalling WinDVD BD through Vista's Programs/Uninstall function in the Control Panel. Apparently this does not remove all artifacts of WinDVD to allow a clean reinstall. After I did an uninstall by running ITAOTH-01523801-US.EXE, and ran it again to reinstall it, WinDVD BD finally worked. I don't know what happened to make it not work in the first place, but I did a checkpoint this time.

I did a similar thing with the Toshiba bluetooth driver and it worked. So this tells me that an install via the Control Panel will not always work.

I did find out one thing in this experience. It looks like the Europe/UK AR-21S is the same as the US VGN-AR290G and that the drivers on the UK website ( http://support.vaio.sony.ie/specifications/specifications.asp?site=voe_en_IE_cons) are newer and work on my AR290G, at least the ones I tried. There's a newer WinDVD BD driver on there that is not on the US site. Also their site is easier to understand and tells you more of what the drivers are and do.

Thanks,
Ed