Windows - preinstalled or own installation?

What are you using on your VAIO?

As said in another thread, my machine is totally screwed up. A lot of things has stopped working, and this just after 2 weeks of usage. Still, I consider myself to be a fairly advanced user. Maybe is it that I fiddle too much. Anyway...

My question to you is if you are using the preinstalled OS that came with your VAIO, or if you have installed e.g. Windows XP "manually"? If the latter, have you experienced any change in stability? Any other issues?

I am thinking of selling my new A-series just to buy an Apple computer. But it's problematic, and if possible, I would like to solve all my problems.

 

I. using the XP home install that came on it. I wanted to install XP PRO but some of the drivers are NOT available for download yet.

S260

 

I use what it came with(XP Home). Updated to SP2 and all is well. If you "manually" install XP or XP Pro, you will still have to find and install drivers/software that it is designed for(at least with the "A" series)ie Gigi Pocket, Remote Control, etc.

Plus, the hidden partition on this thing can be helpful if away from burned recovery media(disks). You can repair/reinstall corrupted preinstalled software from the VAIO Recovery Wizard.

 

You can leave the original recovery partition intact if you install another OS. What I will do once the drivers for my S260 are available is install XPpro and all the apps I use then Ghost the partition. If you do this then restoring your custom OS is as easy as the manufactureres restore

 

As of december, the a290 comes with xp home sp2. I did an upgrade to XP Pro SP2 and everything went smoothly. All of the original functionality, sony drivers, etc are still intact. Just running XP pro now. (I did remove quite a few apps before the upgrade; AOL, office trial, norton antivirus, etc).

Before the upgrade, I ghosted (using ghost9) and even reformatted and tried installing from scratch, but ran into a problem with the network driver not seeing the network connection and then ran out of time and decided to restore (using ghost v9) and then did the upgrade in place approach.

I have to say, symantec finally came out with a ghost version that works really well. You can now run it within windows for backups without booting to dos mode. Nice!



Sony VAIO A290

 

I did a clean install of XP Pro. You can download necessary drivers from the Sony site and I have these in a folder on a separate partition. I'd made a recovery set and just added the OEM programs I wanted from that. It was only the Photoshop ones.

Everything runs fine now.

Steve

Sony A190 WUXGA

 

hi tbNB, I want to do the same thing as what you did, but can you list some detail steps out to how to use Ghost 9 for store the image?
my problem is after I back up the image, it didn't give me an option to burn a boot up disc, so after i format my harddirve, how do I load up my image file?

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Bruce

 

Very helpful, I will give it a try!
Thanks tbNB,

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Bruce

 

by the way, how did you back up the recovery 5G partition on your notebook, I couldn't find the drive and not sure where it is, but I know it's there....

 

i have a freind who formatted without making the recovery cd, and is now in desperate need of the vaio programs he cant find anywhere, i.e. giga pocket, sonicstage, etc... if anyone can help out, that would be very helpful. email me at [email protected]. thanks.

 

By "manual" installation, do you mean installing XP from a retail version you guys already had? Because as far as I know, there is no easy way of producing a XP only install image (minus all the OEM software and customizations) from a manufacturer provided recovery image. If so, did you run into any problems as far as product activation on the new XP install? Or perhaps did Sony provide you a XP only install disk upon request or did you guys go out and purchase a XP retail version just to do a "manual" installation?

I'm asking because I've never tried installing the same copy of XP on multiple PC's and was wondering if there were any issues with activation. I would like to do a clean install as well if possible but don't want to shell out more money and buy a retail XP copy.