Switching from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Pro on VAIO

[Hitman6267]

Hello,

I own a VAIO laptop and plan on switching from Vista Home Premium to Winodw 7 Pro on VAIO and there are few things that I'm concerned about.

1. Conserving my Vista installation
   If I'm going to do a fresh install I'm going to lose my vista installation. I want to back it up (because it was paid for). If i use the in-built backup applications, would they allow me to do a fresh install in case I want to revert back to Vista ?
   
2. Appropriate drivers
   The laptop has play, pause, volume control buttons, a camera, memory card reader.... Would they all work if I do a fresh install ?
   
3. Installation
   Is installing a OS in a laptop the same as installing it on a desktop ? Will putting the DVD and going through the steps work. Or do I need special drivers to access the hardware ?
   

[Night Owl]

I have a VAIO laptop too, and I moved from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate.

1. My VAIO that came installed with Vista, as far as I saw, didn't come with backup software that would make a complete drive image of my hard drive so that I could revert back to Vista. There are many programs that will do this such as Acronis True Image Home 2010 which is posted here on the front page.

2. I have the multimedia controls, camera, and card readers too. You should go to the Sony support site to find the Windows 7 drivers for your exact VAIO model. I did, and everything is working great for my VAIO PC.

3. Yes, the same. I put the Windows 7 DVD into my VAIO laptop. Make sure that your BIOS is set to boot from the DVD before it boots from the hard drive.

EDIT: Sony Support for Lebanon is available here: Sony Support for Middle East and Africa

[Hitman6267]

Thank you for your detailed reply.

My VAIO that came installed with Vista, as far as I saw, didn't come with backup software that would make a complete drive image of my hard drive so that I could revert back to Vista. There are many programs that will do this such as Acronis True Image Home 2010 which is posted here on the front page.

I'm talking about the recovery discs that you make in VAIO recovery center. Wouldn't those allow me to reinstall vista ?

For the drivers, what should I download from this list. The most important utility for me is the VAIO smart network where you can turn on/off WLan bluetooth... Any idea of what I'm going to be loosing ? For example I'm guessing the Easy Media Creator suite is going to be lost. Am I going to lose any important utility ? Like the one that controls the camera ?

[Night Owl]

You're welcome. :)

The recovery discs only restore your VAIO to its original factory condition. All your programs and data would be gone. You would have to reinstall all your applications again and you would have to restore your data from backups/copies you made.

If your VAIO is the VGN-CS16G, then yes, your Windows 7 drivers and utilities are there to download. I'm not losing anything with my VAIO on Windows 7. If you really have to use Easy Media Creator, you can see if Sony provides a download for it for your computer or a similar model or even another model available in your country. For example, you can download Roxio Easy Media Creator from Canada here (listed under Adobe software), but I don't know if the EXE will install OK on your PC. I've read that Sony puts checks in their EXEs so that they will install only on certain PCs.

I'm not missing anything in Windows 7 now. But besides downloading the Windows 7 downloads specified for my PC, I also downloaded some Windows 7 downloads from two VAIO PCs that are the same model series, but a bit newer than mine.

[Hitman6267]

The recovery discs only restore your VAIO to its original factory condition. All your programs and data would be gone. You would have to reinstall all your applications again and you would have to restore your data from backups/copies you made.

In the event I need to use the recovery disks. My aim would be to restore the laptop to the state I got it. i.e. vista and the bundled software. From what I understood from your post, using the recovery disks will allow me to do that even after formating the hard disk.

Am I right ? Because that's all I need.

[Night Owl]

Yes, that's right. The recovery disks restore your laptop to the state when it was brand new (Vista and the bundled software). You are good to go! :D

[Hitman6267]

I installed windows 7 but the play pause volume buttons aren't working.

I installed the drivers in the order shown in the attached picture.

[shought]

Did you use this: http://www.sony-mea.com/support/download/365368/product/vgn-cs16g ?

[Hitman6267]

yes, that is from where I got the drivers and the order to install them in.

[shought]

Did you also try this:

http://www.sony-mea.com/support/download/358401/product/vgn-cs16g

Some kind of automated driver installation utility. Might be worth checking it out.

[Night Owl]

Did you upgrade from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Pro or did you do a clean install of Windows 7 Pro?

When you go into Device Manager, do you see any question marks or errors in your list of devices?

EDIT: Oh, the volume up and down buttons worked right away for me on a fresh Windows 7 install, it's just that the volume on-screen display didn't appear until after installing the VAIO Event Service which also enabled all my function keys.

[Night Owl]

I've been doing some searching on the Internet now.

If you click on the Start orb, and type "services.msc" (without the quotes) and then accept the User Account Control, if you scroll down to "Human Interface Device Access", is this service started? It is for me. I've read in a couple of locations that this fixes the volume and media controls.

Human Interface Device Access

Enables generic input access to Human Interface Devices (HID), which activates and maintains the use of predefined hot buttons on keyboards, remote controls, and other multimedia devices. If this service is stopped, hot buttons controlled by this service will no longer function. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.

[Hitman6267]

I did a clean install.

@shought, the utility isn't of any use.

@NightOwl, the service wasn't started. I tried starting it and restarting but it didn't work then I tried uninstalling/installing 9 till12 (see previous picture) and restarting and still nothing.

[Night Owl]

1) After I installed the Sony Shared Library, I rebooted my PC.

2) After installing the Setting Utilities Series, I rebooted my PC.

3) After installing the VAIO Event Service I rebooted my PC.

4) After installing the VAIO Control Center, I rebooted my PC.

Can you give this a try (being sure to reboot after each install). This definitely worked for me.

My "Human Interface Device Access" is Started with a Startup Type set to Manual. I think it's odd that this service is not started for you. Perhaps if you do the four steps above, it will work for you too.

[Hitman6267]

Still not working :(

[Night Owl]

Did you uninstall all your Sony Notebook Utilities first and reboot before starting?

I have a Sony VAIO AW notebook and I followed the advice here from NotebookReview.com: AW - x64 Vista & Win7 Drivers and Utilities (look for the Notebook Utilities section). There they give the order of the five notebook utilities:

1. Sony Shared Library

2. Setting Utility Series

3. VAIO Event Service

4. VAIO Control Center

5. VAIO Power Management (I didn't install this right away which is why I didn't mention it earlier)

and it says:

Note : Install the numbered Utils in the order listed and reboot when prompted or the Fn buttons may not work.

I did install the VAIO Power Management a couple weeks after the first four notebook utilities, but it has nothing to do with Volume, Play, or other multimedia buttons.

[Night Owl]

I found this on NotebookReview.com: Volume and Multimedia Keys are not working CS Windows 7.

Post 21 there from Paulo Santos says the problem is solved by the Synaptics Touchpad drivers. The next post was from someone thanking him because it fixed their VGN-CS notebook too.

Maybe this will work for you too like it did for those two?

[Night Owl]

Here's another post on NotebookReview.com: Sony VAIO CS Series + AV Mode Button Problem. The person who got his function keys, AV mode button and volume control panel working has a VGN-CS16GQ laptop.

EDIT: Hmmm, post 23 there seems to confirm what I mentioned in my previous post that it's the Touchpad driver that's the cause:

What I managed to find out, is that main driver for volume and media player buttons goies with Touch Pad driver, named pointing driver Synaptics. Sequence is not important that much.

So that's at least three people who got their volume and media player button working by getting the Synaptics Touchpad driver.

[shought]

Remapping your keys might be worth looking into as a last resort (if you're interested send me a PM, I'd have to find the program I used for that some time ago...).

[marshal]

Remapping your keys might be worth looking into as a last resort (if you're interested send me a PM, I'd have to find the program I used for that some time ago...).

i will be glad if u cud pls help me.i've tried everything possible.i only got the av button working and when i touch the pad it works as a mouse instead of a multimedia key,dont know why

[toyo]

@marshal: This is an old thread from 2010, last post was made more than a year ago. Please open a new topic with a relevant title so you can get help more efficiently.

Thank you!