Vista - Vaio - Sony - Does Sony give a ****?

[Adendum]

It seems like Sony have given up on my problem...and yours too? Is it just me that can't get any response from Sony Technical Support?

My tale of woe:-
I have an 18-24month old VGN-AR21S, a big beasty with Blue Ray DVD, TV tuner, magic eye cam and a load of buttons that all boys like to have....but not any more! It shipped with XP Media Centre Edition and up until a month ago it was a faultless bit of equipment but bit by bit it has fallen apart, due entirely to a horrid combination of software problems.

Originally I just lost my bluetooth connection to my Nokia N73 and Nokia's solution was to reinstall the bluetooth stack but in the process of updating this Windows Update installed SP3...and then it all went bad and the system became totally unstable and gave me the blue screen of death whenever the processors were pushed over 10-15%...so pretty much all the time.

Not a problem, I thought, I'll do a Windows system restore. Ha! 95% of the way into the restore the system hung, forcing me to power off. On re-boot I had no keyboard! Not a problem, I thought, I'll do the Sony recovery. Ha..not without a keyboard you wont! Had to install a new OS on drive D:\ to allow me to access the keyboard and then boot and do the Sont Recovery!!! That worked fine but then you have to download almost 2 years worth of Windows updates and all your application updates. But the trouble is that automatically dumps SP3 on the system too....back to square one!

Not a problem, I thought, I'll take advantage of the situation and install Vista. Ha!

You already know where I'm going with this huh? Yeah, Vista Ultimate 32bit with SP1 was installed to a clean machine. The latest BIOS was installed and then I followed the instructions word for word from the Sony Support site and installed all the drivers, Utils and various Sony apps and low and behold I almost have a laptop...........

No magic eye cam, no TV tuner, can't open the DVD drive using the supplied hardware button, none of the other buttons work except for the volume button and Sony Technical support are about as useful as a chocolate teapot!! Being a working tools that allows me to earn my living I can't **** about too long and to be frank I am not 100% sure the problems listed are all of the problems as I just don't have the time to play around with it these days....I have a living to earn.

I spent last night (22/10/2008) reading all 21 pages of this thread and, of course, I commiserate with all of you guys out there but the common theme that appears to run through this thread is that we are all alone and Sony couldn't give a flying **** about any of us.

I have a £2500 bit of equipment, advertised as Vista capable, and I left the Vista install well over a year so the bugs were ironed out (by MS and Sony) so I really didn't expect this situation. Yeah the system works fine (using it now) but besides the missing hardware I have numerous issues with Sony apps and utils the appear to be half non-functional and Sony don't seem to want to bother.

So what do I do? Do I persevere? Or do I bit the bullet and take the word of the Apple Shop people that a Macbook Pro is vastly superior and runs virus free, allows dual boot to Leopard or XP/Vista and will be fully supported by people who care?

Yeah, I'm venting. Wouldn't you? I'm that close to dumping a nice bit of kit and revoking my 20 year Sony custom (TV's, HiFi, copmuters etc etc) but I'm just one person.

My questions are (a) is there a solution to the Vista problem, (b) why should any of us stay with Sony in light of their disregard for their customers and (c) are there any other hardcore PC people that have switched to Apple and does the Apple kit do what they want it to do? And (d) does it really take more than 2 weeks to answer an email?

Oh well...feel a little better for that. And closer to Apple that earlier too! 😞

Paul.

[Adendum]

6. Check you have installed the Camera Driver VGP-VCC2 - the Camera will show up as 'Sony Communications Camera VCC2' in Device Manager under Imaging Devices when it is installed correctly.  You will also need BOTH these two Utility Programs installed for the Camera to work: -
VAIO Camera Utility
VAIO Camera Capture Utility 2.2.03.11150

Look in C:\Program Files\Sony - are these two installed?  You need them both for the camera to work.

My head hurts now - come back with any queries or when you are ready for more.

 

OK, the camera definitely appears in Device Manager BUT I only have "VAIO Camera Utility" in Program Files...and I have installed the Capture Utility....even did it again just now.

??

Paul

[Adendum]

UPDATE:

CAMERA
No real progress with the camera but it does work within Skype but I don't get the usual Sony Applet pop up for the fine tuning.

The installation of the Capture Utility runs and the Install Shield Wizard starts but within seconds it just disappears from the screen. It seems to just die mid-install. No completion screen...or any screen for that matter. Have tried running in Administrator mode and have changed several options on the .exe file but the same happens every time.

BlueTooth
Fully operational after installing (again) the TOABLT-01360508-UN.exe utilities.

Getting there!!!!

[Blencogo]

Hi Paul.

I wonder if the VAIO Camera Capture Utility is giving problems for the same reason as the WinDVD BD.

Perhaps you are trying to install an update to VCCU rather than an installer version.

The only place I can think of to get a Vista Installer Version is by downloading the Original Utilities Package for the VGN-AR41S, extract the files by right-clicking on the download and choosing "Extract All". Choose to extract to a file where you can find them (like C:\AR41Utils) and run the setup.exe in the folder 'Utils Installer VAIO Camera Capture Utility'.

It's a bit drastic at 95MB but I cant think of anything else!

http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/downloads/preinstalled/preinstalled.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons&c=0&s=VGN...

I think that is Ver 2.2.00.14140 so you may need to find an update.

[Adendum]

....and run the setup.exe in the folder 'Utils Installer VAIO Camera Capture Utility' 

Yup, that installed and it works. Can't get it to work in a web site I use frequently but that's probably a Flash Player problem.

All I need now is to locate the missing ClicktoDVD software and the SonicMaster software! Any ideas?

SO...will any of the AR41 stuff work on my AR21S? Not that I want to experiment just interested.

Paul

[Adendum]

Wow...this is weird..........

Just thought I'd try the AR21S Camera Capture install again..thinking it might want to do an update. Ha!

It ran, started the Install Shield Wizard as before but again didn't complete..........but........it removed all trace of the AR41 installation!!!

So have re-installed that for now!

Paul.