Windows 10 upgrade pre 2011 VAIO

[x8000783]

"Please note that Sony will not be providing Windows 10 support for VAIO computers manufactured before 2011, which were sold with versions of Windows preceding Windows 7 Service Pack 1 as the pre-installed operating system."


I have a perfectly good Vaio PCG-8112M, that falls into this category and works well especially since I ungraded to Windows 7 myself mainly because the original Vista system was falling apart.

I am now ready to take advantage of the Microsoft Offer to move to Windows 10 and I find that I am blocked due to custom built NVIDIA drivers that Sony do not intend to make available for this upgrade. If the strategy behind this is to force me to purchase an up-to-date Sony product then they are sadly mistaken.

I presume the NVIDIA are not allowed to make their generic drivers available on these models due to legal issues but of course, I may be wrong on that. I would be interested to hear what Sony's defence of this apparently disgraceful decision is and whether anyone has figured a way to get around this restriction.

I am new here, do Sony have a presence and do they read or answer posts?

Thanks all.

[Fender67]

It's easy to use a modded Nvidia driver, so if your can make work your other hardware drivers, go ahead and upgrade.

Use this: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10  it's more reliable than GWX.

I've done this myself, W 10 x64, laptop:  http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/vgn-aw41zf ,  is working very smooth but I had to update, Chipset, SATA Intel Raid, SFEP, and Ricoh MS & SD drivers and used a Widcomm Bluetooth driver 12.0.0.7800 in Windows 8 compatibility mode. In addition, I manually modded an Nvidia .inf file and it installed fine with  Driver Digital Signature Enforcement disabled.

Vaio Event service is running ok and Fn keys work fine.

You should not have major problems, however, WinDVD BD and Vaio Smart Network are incompatible with Windows 10, but not big deal, Wifi & Bluetooth can be enabled via Windows 10.

I'm not using other Sony programs, like Recovery, Vaio Update etc so cannot tell how they work under W 10.

Also, Wifi Intel, Marvel Yukon and Synaptics drivers are provided, upon installation, from Microsoft.

Regards,

[Fender67]

Just a quick note to add that, depending on your HDD partinioning scheme, W 10 might need to create an extra primary partition (wim), for W 10 recovery purposes, so you might consider that too.

[x8000783]

Many thanks Fender67.

[wildkat]

im affected by this too i think sony stinks theres nothing wrong with my vaio either and mine came with win7 2009 on it i think sony have badly letdown alot of customers who should if they have to get a differant brand of laptop  I FOR 1 AM PI**ED OFF

[exspextations]

I haves a Sony VAIO All-in-One model VPL12S1E that was bought just before the release of Win 7 SP1, so also fall into Sont's 'legacy group'.  The Win 10 compatablity check did not through up any issues, so I went ahead and upgraded.  As others have found Win 10 only installed the basic windows graphics drivers, it also failed to install drivers for the DVD drive or the touch screen - other than that everything seems to work okay.  

I can live without the touch screen and have managed to get a 1600 x 900 screen resolution by using the GeForce Experience app from NVidia, which I could live with but would prefer to have the full screen resolution usiing the fixes you highlighed. However, I can't live without the DVD drive.  

Unfortunately, I did not note what any of these devices were and therefore am stymed - can anybody tell me how I can find out which GeForce card, DVD drive, and touch screen are installed on my PC.  It used to be possible to add devices in older versions of Windows but when I tried to do this with Win 10 it did not list DVD / CD drives under the list of devices - does anybody have any ideas on how I can even simply add a DVD device to the Device Manager?

If I can see myself having to downgrade to Win 7 SP1 again.

[exspextations]

Managd to solve the problems after installing Windows 10 on my VAIO VPCL12S1E desktop, except the graphics driver. Windows does not report any information on the model of GPU, but, but Sony spec says this is a Geforce GT240M - managed to find a Windows 10 Geforce GT 240 driver (no suffix M) on the NVidia site, but this refuses to install.

Grateful if you coould expand on how you managed to get the graphics driver to update - was this a modded original Sony driver or an Nvidia driver as I can't find any Nvidia.inf file amounst the installation files - what mod do I need to make to this to get it to install - assuming I can find the file?

Thanks in advance.

[x8000783]

Received this from Sony Support (after 3 attempts):

"Sadly, your VAIO does not support this upgrade as there is a risk of software/driver corruption. We therefore strongly recommend that you do not upgrade to Windows 10 when it becomes available.

In response to your query, please check the below link for further assistance:

http://sony-eur-eu-en-web--eur.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/81931

Please note that Sony will not be providing Windows 10 support for your VAIO computer. It is unlikely that the hardware from your model will match the system requirements for Windows 10, and the software and applications on your computer might not be compatible.

As such, we strongly recommend for you to keep using your current operating system, which is better suited to the configuration of your computer."

They don't seem to admit that they could do someting about it if they wanted to.

PS Don't bother with the link, it just goes to the page I qouted in the OP.

[exspextations]

Thank you for your response to my query.

Sony, like all companies expects its customers to show loyalty to it and its products, but clearly feels that it does not need to show loyalty to its customers in return by and failed to provide necessary drivers / software to allow them to upgrade to Windows 10.  This is clearly not difficult as my eleven year old HP laptop has just upgraded automatically and everything works, even a fingerprint reader that stopped working sometime ago as the company that provided the software stopped providing the software a number of years ago (NB the graphics card is also an OEM modified NVIDIA Geforce)!!

Sony has sold its VAIO computers so I can’t say I will never buy another Sony Vaio, but I will think very carefully about buying from Sony in future.

Shame on Sony 

Spoiler

[hought]

After waiting over a month for things to bed in a little I've just upgraded my VGN-FW31E from Windows 7 (SP1) to Windows 10.

Despite all the fears and scaremongering, all seems to have very smoothly. The only problem I've hit so far is that the webcam occasionally refuses to close down tidily. Other than that I've yet to find anything that doesn't work as I expected. All apps that I've opened have been fine, and all drivers / adapters look to be in working order (with no Device Manager warnings etc).

If you've got an "old" VAIO laptop and are worried about the repercussions of upgrade this will hopefully give you a confidence boost.