Urgent Question for OS Experts

Hey -

Sorry to bug you all with this, and for the urgency. I have exactly 48 hours before I have to get on a plane to Belgium and I need your input.

Vista is unuseable on the Sony Vaio TXN27N. Computer can't handle it. Someone mentioned installing XP side by side with Vista on the same computer. I stupidly formatted the drive before installing XP. The OS seems to work fine, but im unable to get it to recognize any internet drivers, and therefore can't get online.

Is there some way to have XP on the same system as Vista where XP can use the drivers and therefore recognize the hardware?

And second question: Any suggestions on getting internet up and running on this "hacked" version of the TXN27N ? None of sony's drivers are for XP on this model. Only Vista.

third question: just tried putting in a DVD to see if that works, and all is well except im getting an "unable to play DVD because a compatible DVD decoder is not installed on your computer".

Im afraid if I leave XP on here by itself, im going to run into hardware / driver / software issues like this a lot.

 

I will start with the 3rd question since its easiest. To play DVDs in XP you need a software DVD player. XP doesnt have the decoder needed because it costs money to license it.

Now the rest. It is possible to have both XP and Vista on one system. For this you need to partition the hard drive into 2 partitions. Install XP first and then when you install Vista it should set up a dual boot for you.

About the drivers. Many driver packages have both Vista and XP in them. But mostly it uses different drivers. Sony blocks driver install on XP for new models. Atleast i read about that somewhere. There is a solution i am sure. But I cant help there.

If Vista is already installed you can try pointing the add hardware system to the install folder of the driver and maybe it can use it. But mostly I think you will need dedicated XP drivers. Maybe there are other Sony systems with the same hardware that have XP drivers.

 

I have found other models with XP like the TXN19PL and tried installing the network connection drivers for them, but it tells me "Sorry this is not for your model computer". Even though its the exact same software from model to model. They still detect which I am on and refuse to let me install it.

There has got to be a generic Network Connection Driver for the hardware I have that I can download somewhere. Maybe I can piecemeal this computer together. Does anyone know where? I think if I can get the internet working, and the DVD player working, Ill be in business.

Im rather pissed off that Vaio shipped this TXN27N with Vista on it when Microsoft has clearly stated that you need a Core Duo Processor minimum to run Vista, and this thing has a single processor.

 

Well it uses the Intel wireless so you can get drivers from intel.com. Also get the chipset drivers from there.

Sound Card and bluetooth and things might be a bit harder.

 

Sure it can. Start with disabling aero. That will help alot. With a little tweaking you cn get Vista to run like XP, albeit without eye candy. You don't need a dual core processor for Vista, nor does microsoft even recommend it as far as I have seen. I'm not sure where you got theat from.

See here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx

Also, people often misinterpret the high ram usage in Vista. Sure, it looks bad but its not. Vista preloads programs in ram so they open faster. IF you begin to need the ram it will dump the preloaded content as needed.

I'd give Vista a try again.

 

Okay I successfully installed the latest wireless adaptor and im online .... so far so good.

I assume the Intel chipset is generic for windows XP, and not specific to any hardware or custom computer?

I hope im not playing with fire by doing all this... and one day find a conflict that makes me crash and lose everything.

 

tried this?
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/scr...ID=&DwnldID=13000&strOSs=OSFullName=&lang=eng

... never mind, saw that u got it to work

cheers ...

 

i would give VLC and K-Lite codec pack a shot

cheers ...

 

Seems like with DVD codecs its just an issue of installing the software. It was Windows Media Player that popped up and said the codec was missing. Ive downloaded lots of codecs in the past. Shouldn't be specific to the hardware, but I will look up the hardware name and type and see if i can find XP drivers for it. Agree?

By the way, the TXTN27N is screaming fast with XP on it. Im loving this. Microsoft is going to have a hard time staying afloat with Vista.

 

I agree with Kelch. I can run Vista on my Pentium 4, and the P4 is bar none the worst modern CPU out there. Vista's Aero interface is quite demanding in terms of memory and GPU usage, but you can just run the classic Windows interface and thus conserve system resources. As long as you have a system just as good (or better than) as the one below, you can run it.

Pentium M >1.6GHz
1GB of RAM or more (512MB is good as well, with classic Windows interface)
Hard disk spinning at 5400RPM is highly recommended for decent boot and load times.
An IGP (integrated graphics processor) as weak as Intel's GMA 950 can run Aero, and it is hardly better than the one in my signature.

 

You make it sound like all you are turning off is a couple visual features. The entire thing turns into a gray, flat, ugly interface with Aero off. Its Windows 3.1 again. Id rather use XP. Saying "It works fine" and then telling me I have to turn off the entire visual aspect of it for it to work, is contradictory. It doesn't work fine on this notebook because this notebook cannot handle it. Why get vista at all if you have to turn everything off?

Reviews on Vista are outrageous. People are angry, frustrated, and fed up. For the same reasons mentioned above. Average user rating is 5 out of 10, from nearly 300 people:

http://reviews.cnet.com/Windows_Vis...32013603.html?tag=srtrtng&ord=ratingValue+asc

The TXN27N can not even successfully play the opening sound file when Vista first starts. It fails, chops up, and breaks the thing into 3 separate parts. I get countless (Not Responding) windows when trying to have more than 2 applications open at once. And this is with Aero OFF. The system is so overloaded that it can't even play the opening sound file. Control panel takes nearly 2 solid minutes to display. Yes. Control Panel. TWO MINUTES. There is now a "loading" bar which counts upwards while the control panel struggles to render icon by icon by icon. For two minutes. Rebooting takes a solid FIVE minutes or more, if you're lucky. Using Vista literally made me start sweating. It felt like I was running uphill the entire time. Half the programs I use do not even work properly in Vista right now, rendering this notebook even more useless than it already is with Vista on it. That was my experience with Vista on this laptop.

Manufacturers have reported: " Vista is no longer forced on any of the machines we sell and the contract that bound them to do so is no longer in existence. Of the several 100K machines we have sold, Vista home has about a 35% return rate... Vista buisiness has over a 90% return rate."

This laptop uses a generic video driver and maybe that is why its unfit for Vista, but either way, it is unfit for Vista, and it should have shipped with a faster processor and a monumentally better video driver, or it should have shipped with XP instead. I guarantee absolutely nobody is going to put up with this level of performance on this laptop. Nobody. It is beyond intolerable.

Anyways, back on topic .... would like some input on chipset and codec questions above.

 

I've run Vista on a 1.6GHz Pentium-M laptop with 512MB of ram. It ran perfectly with glass turned off. Clearly you have something else going on if it takes two minutes for the control panel to launch.

Was this a clean install, or filled with the stock sony software?

Vista is simply not THAT demanding. There was something else causing the problems.

 

Just wanted to return to this thread and gloat. No thanks to all of you boobs who tried to convince me that Vista runs just fine on this laptop, and hijacked this thread several months ago to try and make me into the village idiot by debating me on the topic. Sony received so many complaints from people who purchased it with Vista, that they now offer the complete set of XP drivers for this laptop, on their website.

In the future when someone comes here in search of help, dont make retarded comments that are of no use, trying to debate with them whether they're intelligent enough to digest reality properly. I know what I saw, and it was horrendous performance with Vista on it. I was right, and you all were wrong.

*steps off soapbox*

 

wait a minute here dude!

ALL was a bit hard on many of us here. Bottom line, u (and myself) were here for inputs (and ouputs) - u got them, u gave them - right and/or wrong (wrong=mostly because the issue was not clearly stated out in the first place, most of the times)!

Regardless, it was nice for u to come back and updated us all on the Sony change about face. I m sure many Sony users would appreciate this.

cheers ...

 

As this threads revived I'd like to note that if you want Aero off & don't like the classic look why not skin the OS?