• Tag Archives drivers

  • Installing Windows 10 on a Sony VAIO TZ

    Posted on by micha 8 Comments

    So I got bored and decided to see if I could get an old VAIO VGN-TZ27GN running Windows 10. The short answer is: Yes.

    UPDATE 2019-06 : Drivers download link.

    Summary

    After post-install fixes, these items are not yet working:

    • WebCam
    • Turning Bluetooth on/off via software

    And the following items have not been tested:

    • Modem

    Everything else seems to be working just fine. Not bad for a pretty old and underpowered laptop!

    Base Install

    The base install went quite easily, taking some time due to spinning disk, but nevertheless no worries. Ended up using just over 8GB of diskspace, around 9GB after a couple of updates and Skype was installed.

    Issues

    What worked?

    Almost everything. Not too shabby for an old bespoke piece of kit.

    The most surprising entry here was the fingerprint reader.

    What didn’t?

    • Three devices in the Device Manager: SD and MS card readers, and an unknown device.
    • The special hardware buttons on the front.
    • Some of the Fn keys.
    • The microphone and webcam. Nothing flagged up in Device Manager, but no go either.
    • Disabling bluetooth. Funnily enough disabling Wifi works.

    Post-install fixes

    All drivers were downloaded from the official Sony Support Site.

    Memory Stick and SD-Card reader

    Simple case of heading over to the Sony support site, downloading and installing the drivers. This sorted out the device errors in the Device Manager. A quick test showed them working now.

    Status: SUCCESS!

    Unkown Device

    The Unknown Device turned out to be the Sony Firmware Extension Parser (SFEP). A quick download from the Sony support site and it installed flawlessly.

    Status: SUCCESS!

    Microphone

    So the microphone did end up working just fine, it’s just that the TZ has both a built-in microphone as well as a microphone jack, and Windows 10 defaulted to the jack. Switching defaults in the properties and it’s all good.

    First Attempt
    • Downloaded Audio driver from Sony support site.
    • Created a restore point
    • Tried to install the driver.
    • The driver failed to install from the setup program, but installed fine when manually clicking on the various inf files in the driver package.
    • Microphone still not working, but found second device in Audio Settings now. Set other device as default, et voila, va haff a vorkink mikrofon! Now I wonder if it was always working… let’s try a System Restore!

    Status: SUCCESS!

    Camera

    As for all the other issues, Step 1 is to download the Camera driver from the Sony support site.

    Unfortunately the driver fails to install. Even forcing the install manually fails to get the camera working, as does running the installer in compatibility mode.

    For now, the webcam goes down as broken 🙁

    Status: FAIL!

     Keys

    To get the keys working, download and install the following drivers in this order, rebooting as necessary between each one:

    1. Install Sony Firmware Extension Parser (SFEP.exe)
    2. Install Sony Shared Library (Sony_Shared_Library.exe)
    3. Install Sony DLL Utils / Setting Utility Series (Setting_Utility_Series.exe)
    4. Install VAIO Event Service (VAIO _Event_Service.exe)

    And both hardware keys and Fn-keys are now armed and fully operational!

    Status: SUCCESS!

    Bluetooth

    While it works, it’s impossible to turn it off without using the hardware switch, which also turns off Wifi.

    Attempting to install the driver from the Sony support site failed with a message saying the software is incompatible with this version of windows.

    Status: FAIL!

     


    📂This entry was posted in Computers Technology Windows 📎and tagged

  • EyeToy camera (for PS2) under Windows 7

    Posted on by micha Comment

    Somehow I ended up with several EyeToy cameras for the PS2, one of which I use for my Desktop PC as a webcam. Works a treat under Linux, so I decided to try and get it working under Windows 7 64-bit as well.

    There’s an archive containing drivers and a small test program here.  The driver has to be installed manually using the Device Manager (it’s not signed), but seems to work. YMMV.


    📂This entry was posted in Computers 📎and tagged

  • Saitek X45 Flightstick

    Posted on by micha Comment

    Years and years ago I bought a Saitek X45 Flightstick, primarily for playing “X – Beyond the Frontier”. This was all good and fine under Windows 98. Didn’t work properly under Windows XP – the throttle never worked in the game.

    Anyway, the time has come for me to setup a Windows gaming PC again, and I pulled out the joystick and dusted it off. Plugged it in and wonder of wonders, after installed “jstest-gtk” it just worked. No setup, no configuration, no calibration. Mind, this is under Linux Mint 14….

    So reboot into my brand spanking new Windows 7 install, and while the Device Manager detects it, Windows itself doesn’t. So, head over to the Saitek site and download the relevant drivers (link).  Now I don’t know who’s to blame (Windows or Saitek), but basically the driver installer just sits there on a blank page waiting for the joystick to be plugged in (even though it is). Replugging doesn’t help either.

    Finally I manually extract the files (yes, 7zip can extract files from (most) EXE archives) and use the Device Manager to manually install the driver. This works, and Windows sees the joystick.

    Even the Mad Catz (Saitek) Profile Editor now sees the joystick and all appears to be well in the world..

    Unfortunately the latest version of X-BtF (2.2) still doesn’t fix the throttle control 🙁


    📂This entry was posted in Computers 📎and tagged