Vista Upgrade Disaster

[nhawke]

I upgraded my VGN-SZ2VP to Vista Business this weekend. What a disaster! Don't really know where to begin, virtually all the Vaio software has stopped working, so has everything else from the sound divice, hard disk protection, built in camera, dual performance mode to the finger print recognition (all the extras that I paid a lot of money for). And even worse than all this, the contents of 'MySafe' appears to have been deleted! I had really important files there.

I am absolutely furious at the moment. I spent a lot of time looking for advice or information on the Sony site and found nothing, except for a download area that provides drivers for Vista and a whole lot of stuff about how Sony recommends Vista.
I have obviously downloaded the updates and am even more annoyed to find that just about all of them won't install.

I am looking for help from anyone who has experienced this or knows about this software.

If there was any way I could turn back the clock I'd do it in a flash.

If anyone out there is thinking of upgrading I would seriously urge them to consider this carefully and don't rely on the Sony Web site for help.

[Sebby]

IMHO, upgrading (as opposed to performing a clean install) is a big no no. Even though it's certainly possible to resolve all the issue you're now experiencing, it'll never perform amazingly. So, personally, I'd say backup your data and perform a clean install of Vista. That way, it'll be easy to get things back to normal, as you will simply need to install the drivers and utilities from VAIO Link.

If you don't want to do this, then I would recommend the following:

1. uninstall every Sony utility on your system;
2. for any hardware devices that need new drivers, obtain these from the above link and update them accordingly;
3. download and install (in this order): Sony Utilities; Sony Shared Library; Vaio Event Service, Setting Utility Series; VAIO Power Management; then anything else you might want, though these are all you need.

That should get you up and running.

[nhawke]

Thanks, that's helpful advice. I think I will do that, or even just backup my personal data then wipe the HDD and start again with a clean XP install. After all, it did everything I wanted; don't know why I felt the need to upgrade (do I sound a little defeated?).

My only concern and it is a big one, is what has happened to the contents of 'MySafe' (part of the protector suite). Surely it must still be there somewhere? Can Vista really have deleted all that information?

If I can get that back I'll be happy. After that I don't mind re-building.

Any comments welcome.

[kee-lo_]

I agree with Sebby; a clean install will save you time - and a lot of frustration. Make sure you put all important files, somewhere safe and do the clean install.

[nhawke]

I have recovered the files from 'My Safe'!

I decided to try to restore the XP driver, which actually uninstalled the Protector Suite QL software.

I then tried again to install the Vista driver. It worked this time and allowed me to configure the finger-print recognitions software. At this stage I was still not able to see any of my files and assumed they were now certainly lost forever.

It was only when I re-booted that the application notified me that there were some old encrypted files and would I like to restore them

What a result. I am feeling much happier now.

I now think that this post is probably in the wrong place (hardware), but thought you guys may be interested anyway.