A lot of people have been upgrading their TRs to Windows XP Pro. Some want XP Pro because of work while others like the option of controlling everything that’s installed and may not need any of the pre-installed Sony software. However, it’s not a straightforward process and there’s a lot things you should know.

Please share you tips on your upgrade processes…

Definitely not; however, going to the official support site will guarantee that you get the latest “approved and tested” drivers available from Sony. It will save you a step from installing the CD based drivers and then realizing that there’s an updated driver available and having to reinstall the driver again.

Sony is pretty bad about putting installed drivers on their website. On the first Application Recovery CD on the TR1A there is a directory called Drivers where all the installed drivers are located. Just point XP to that directory when it searches for your installed hardware. Before you format, there is a directory on the TR hard drive itself in C:\WINDOWS\Drivers that should have the same data in it. I still prefer using the data on the App CD rather than burning the directory on the hard drive to CD.

You should go to the Sony site and upgrade the network drivers and the Intel site to upgrade the video driver once you get everything below working.

On the TR1 App CD, there is a directory in Drivers called “SonySL”. If you run the setup program in it and reboot, you should be able to run the application recovery program instead of having to extract things manually. You should definitely install things like the various Sony libraries, Power Panel, Hotkey (for the buttons on the side of the screen), the MPEG decoder lib, the DVD player and anything else that seems important. 

Last but not least, the Motion Eye camera. Once you have the driver installed properly, it still won’t work. Here’s how to fix: Right-click My Computer, then go to Manage, then click Device Manager. Click the Plus next to Universal Serial Bus controllers. Find the “USB Root Hub” that corresponds with the Motion Eye. (Usually the third one, check the Power tab for the name of the device) Now go to the Power Management tab. Uncheck “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”. Click Ok and reboot. You should now have a working cam to amaze your friends and neighbors.

BIG disclaimer: I’ve only tried the above on a US TR1A. I don’t know whether or not it works on non-US TR1s or on the TR2s.

Hi, could you help also with this issue.

The FN combo keys for brightness etc as ell as the SIde screen 4 buton for vol + - are not working either.

any ideas ?

the drivers at sony do not work

I have the TR2A with clean win XP pro

Tnx

[quote author=“Drachen”]

On the TR1 App CD, there is a directory in Drivers called “SonySL”. If you run the setup program in it and reboot, you should be able to run the application recovery program instead of having to extract things manually. You should definitely install things like the various Sony libraries, Power Panel, Hotkey (for the buttons on the side of the screen), the MPEG decoder lib, the DVD player and anything else that seems important. 

.

Guys, please try to help if you can.

Could anyone please please.. post a link where these drivers are located for download on the internet?

I desperatelly need the correct HOTKEY for my TR2A to be working again.
Cold anyone try to copy somewhere this directory with hte correct drivers that Drachen mentioned?

Thank you

A little off the track…but I just got my TR3 a few days ago and was offered the option of “Creating” my own recovery disks.  OK.  I knew I would need these (my previous VAIOs came with them and I have used them).  It had me burn 2 DVDs and 1 CD as recovery disks.  I guess this is just a cost savings for Sony.

You got it!  Every company needs to reduce costs and overhead to stay profitable and keep the stockholders happy.  This usually comes at the customers expense.  I suppose we should be grateful that we didn’t have to pay for the AC adapter separately.

Count your blessings though.  Sony really hit a home run with this notebook.  I absolutely love mine.  It has given me the flexibility to be more productive without lugging around a nine pound paperweight.  We’re not complaining Sony, keep delivering the goods!!!!!!!

TruthSeeker.  You hit the nail on the head.  This is one GREAT computer. I was not complaining, just found it interesting that I got to use the DVD burner before I did anything else.  It was actually a good chance to try the burner capability right away.  I am having a lot of fun with this computer (the work stuff will have to wait).  Thanks for your comments.

[quote author=“TruthSeeker”] I suppose we should be grateful that we didn’t have to pay for the AC adapter separately.

lol, 1 of my roomies had ordered an dell inspiron 300m and it didnt arrive with an ac adapter and at first dell expected him to pay for it..infact with all of the orders for the 300m dell was not sending out the ac adapter (since he ordered one more soon after that and that too arrived without the ac adapter)  :mrgreen:  :mrgreen:

I Upgraded may Tr1 to pro using the guidelines on this link:

http://pub173.ezboard.com/funofficialsonyfrm26.showMessage?topicID=27.topic

as a guide (It is a shame I did not write all the steps to post it here but with this guide it is pretty straightforward)

I hope this helps to all TR upgraders out there

PS. All the files needed I got from the recovery CD’s and the official sony TR1 support page

Ok here’s my story so far.
Got my latest toy - Japanese TR1/b, had to go the Japanese model because I like the fact yo9u get everything built in (bluetooth etc).
Got it from Japan with a clean Japanese XP home on it - the guy had reinstalled and it hadn’t been run yet. Just for an initial check I booted it and ran the Japanese version. Everything seemedd to work well (didn’t fire up the camera though. Turned on the Bluetooth and wireless and saw the network as well as 2 mobiles and a desktop. Nice how everything works well out of the box.
Anyway, took it home and began on the English XP Pro, and note that I am not a newbie to this - I have installed so many English OS’s on Japanese machines it hurts my head to count, so it shoudl have been pretty easy.
It wasn’t/isn’t.
Not much worked “out of the box” with the english version. I had prepared by getting all the latest english drivers and XP updates from the various links on this forum. Started to work through the installers - also the original drivers folder was still on C: as the new windows only wrote over the windows folder, which was cool.
The screen was stright forward, as was the usb, CDRW, ethernet card, Hotkeys, FN keys etc, memory stick, modem, sound - all straight forward and no issues.
The bluetooth was a sticker. It had worked under Japanese XP but couldn’t get it to work in English. There were three ! marks in the device manager. One i knew was the camera but i was going to do thast later (:( - more about that). I followed the instructions on the forums and thanks to groovy for his personal attention, i got it working using Kpax and the .pac file extraction procedure that is detailed in another part of this forum. It does work - just follow it to the letter and have a couple of goes. Once you have the driver files it is very stright forward.
The issues now are the camera and keyboard. Before the camera driver was installed i could boot up the application called Network smart capture, which looks like a nice program. It seemed to work OK but just couldn’t find the camera. I installed the Camera driver and all seemed fine, but now Network Smart doesn’t boot up. I get the splash screen and then it just sits there looking pretty. It doesn’t even appear to be running to kill under task manager.

Update: Camera troubles solved. Love this forum sometimes Found this link to an update for XP (for the tr2 but works for tr1): ftp://ftp.ita.sel.sony.com/ccpg/pc/MI-Z75890802BX04US.EXE
ran it and lo and behold the Network Smart capture boots up and rocks!

Now gotta try and find an English Power Panel! as the one that is running is in Japanese.

I’m updating this since there has been some recent information officially posted by Sony on the upgrade. They have suggestions/directions on how to do it on the TR2 model. From what I understand, it should also apply to the TR1 and TR3 models for the most part.

http://www.css.ap.sony.com/VAIO/download/Summary.asp?Id=000000000001875&Model=PCG-TR2

As always, this is for those who know what they are doing and there’s no official support on this.

I found yet another Sony document outlining how to install Windows XP from scratch on Sony systems…

http://ciscdb.sel.sony.com/support/pops/osmig/xpclean.html

My TR came stock with Windows XP Pro, I guess then ordering a set of XP Pro recovery discs will solve the problem?