Vaio VGN-AR51E Clean Install or XP install

[JonnyThunder]

Hello,

I just bought a Vaio AR51E and I've got to say, it runs like a dog with it's native Vista Premium install. Its hardly running with the bloatware thats pre-installed. When I first for the machine, I created the restore disks (which in itself was a little adventure, taking almost 2 hours to complete.

Anyway, I wondered if anyone can answer any of the following questions:

1. Is there a way to clean install Vista without any of the hidden partitions or the bloatware.

2. If it's not possible to clean install Vista, is there a downgrade path for Windows XP. I did test an install of XP on the machine and to be honest, it was easily 10x faster. Unfortunately, although I found almost all the drivers on the manufacturers websites, I couldn't find a driver for the Realtek (Sigmatel) audio, the nVidia GPU or any of the Vaio custom button support. I had to custom write an XP disk with the Intel SATA driver just to get Windows XP on there - but when I did.... what a speed increase!

Any help is appreciated,
JT

[Blencogo]

Hi JT and welcome to Club Vaio.

I'm afraid it is not possible to do a 'clean' Vista install from the Recovery Software. You have to install everything and uninstall what you don't want.

There is no official Sony downgrade path to XP because Sony will not support XP on this model. If you own a copy of XP with a valid license key (there is no Microsoft downgrade to XP license arrangement with Home Premium) you can install it following the excellent advice here in a thread by costasp: -

http://club.vaio.sony.co.uk/clubvaio/GB/en/forum/viewthread?thread=41647

but you will need to find a Video Driver for your NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GT GPU - try here: -

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14549

[JonnyThunder]

Hi there,

Thanks for your post. I was messing around with it yesterday - but had to remove XP because I couldn't get the driver from laptop2go to work properly (although it was another version I was trying). It's pretty frustrating really, because XP works beautifully on this laptop.

Anyway, last night I formatted the harddisk and recovered from the DVDs without the VAIO extras (no 8Gb partition) and after carefully removing all the junk, it actually works pretty well. Im presuming these laptops have a slow write speed because it's really the installations that take the time - once it's installed and configured (with UAC / indexing and all the other Vista stuff switched off) it runs smoothly enough. Im away on a trip next week so I need to have it running - but when I get back, I may try to install XP again. The problem is, there are a few things I really like - which no XP installs are provided for (such as the MagicEye software).

It's just such a shame that Sony have taken away the option to support XP. It should be a consumer choice, considering they have paid for the hardware.

Thanks again for your reply (and your welcome).
JT