I only got the Sony Vaio laptop. It came with Windows Vista. we dont similar to Vista as well as Vista does not work with the companies software. we indispensable to hillside it to XP…. we called Sony as well as they pronounced they do not have video drivers to await it. Is this possible? Does any one have an thought upon what we can do to repair this to XP?
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Most likely you will have to reformat your computer and install Windows XP. This means you either have to buy the software.
Buy a Windows XP disk and perform a reinstall. Before you do that, download all of the drivers for that model.
Sony doesn’t have XP drivers for whatever graphics chipset is on your computer, but the chipset manufacturer may have the proper xp drivers. But isn’t just graphics drivers… your motherboard drivers may not be xp compatible either. You will need someone more "geekly" skilled to examine your machine and determine if proper drivers are available for XP. Get with your IT person.
Yes it is possible that it is a new video card, well motherboard intergrated one that was made only for vista. You may be able to find some generic ones that work. Don’t you have an IT dept. at work that can help you? You can try to format your drive and install xp but you may just end up with a blank screen. Yes vista isn’t very compatible very many programs. I have it too but learining to deal with it and finding some work arounds. Also call your works software manufactur and maybe they can help you out.
Thats sounds like they are feeding you some crap. if you just bought it and you can still return it. call them up and threating them that you will send it back if you dont get xp disk and drivers. but xp has been around long enought to have drivers for most everything. if they give you the run around talk to managers and do a lot of screaming they will cave
If you have successfully installed your companies program on to your computer you can set it to run with XP Compatibility.
http://lifehacker.com/software/vista/how-to-run-pre+vista-programs-in-compatibility-mode-251492.php
I had this problem 3 months ago with a website, so I changed Firefox’s compatibility to that of XP and was able to go to the website with no problem.
To revert back to XP just use an XP disc, but during installation remember to format the partition you are installing it to. However if it is just that your companies hardware wont work on Vista, just because Sony made your laptop they can’t supply drivers for every make of hardware you need. XP and Vista drivers are not compatible. What you need to do is go to the hardware manufactures websites and get the Vista updated drivers for each model. You will find that over 90% of PC peripherals that were made to run on XP have now released free Vista drivers for their own makes and models.
Eamonn.
If you really do have to get rid of Vista completely (I’ve done it) you’ll have to wipe out your hard drive and install from scratch. Vista only plays nice with XP if XP was there first.
One hint: Sony didn’t make the video card for your machine. Before you wipe out Vista, use the Device Manager to find out exactly what video card you have. It’s probably made by Intel, ATI, or Nvidia. Go to the web site for the manufacturer, and you’ll probably find an XP driver that will work for you. Save it, along with the XP drivers for everything else (sound card, modem, network, wireless, touchpad, chipset, …) to a CD so you’ll have them ready when you reinstall.
As a less painful solution, you might want to try using a Microsoft Virtual PC. This is a free program that will run a complete XP environment as a window on your Vista desktop. You’ll still need an XP disk, and you’ll have to install it as well as your employer’s software on the virtual machine. But this would allow you to run your XP-specific software without going through all of the trouble of de/reinstalling the OS from scratch, finding drivers, and so forth. You can copy the VM to other computers, back it up, undo changes, and (best of all) get rid of it when you don’t need it anymore.
I didn’t like Vista much at first, either, but it’s grown on me. The worst thing is the UAC–you can turn it off under user accounts, but it won’t show up much after you finish installing everything. Eventually, you’ll probably want Vista for other reasons, so I’d consider keeping it if at all possible.
Hope this helps!
Cheers, Skip