Hi All,
Well I have been doing a lot of forum searching to get all the info needed to install XP from fresh and get everthing working as it should. I have finally managed this with one exception - the audio out on the HDMI, which I can live without.
Everthing includes the on screen Audio/Brightness controls. FN keys F2 F5 F6 and F12. AV and S buttons as well as the play/pause and next/previous controls. The Sony Asia site contains the XP downgrade drivers AND Applications which are required to get all the above working. These are not supplied on the UK site for some reason. My Model is the VGN-FZ11L but i'm sure this will work on the FZ range including FZ11M
http://www.sony-asia.com/support/download/225477/sectionfirst?subpage=detail
Once you have downloaded all the software Drivers and Applications follow the instructions from section 3 on that page or view the pdf HERE but when getting to the Nvidia graphics driver install dont use the one supplied. Instead use the drivers from -nVIDIA ForceWare X 174.74 and then use the modded inf file from this INF Link. This is the important part for getting the volume and Brightness controls to work. You basically unzip the First file to a folder on you comuter and then copy the INF file into the install folder.
Another important thing to note is the importance of installing the applications in order. Specifcally the Sony Shared Library, Sony Utilities DLL and Vaio Event service. If not this guide will not work.
Once all drivers and applications are installed the S button can be customised to whatever you want using the Vaio Control Center but to get the AV button working requires installing the software from another model of Vaio. The link for this is HERE. Now if you try and install this it will give you an error complaining that this software is not intended for your model of Vaio, Don't worry about this. The way round this is to start the install and wait for the initial setup screen- Dont continue just keep the screen open then open windows explorer or My Computer and browse to C:\WINDOWS and open model.txt. This file will contain the model of your Vaio so change it to
Model = "VGN-TZ195N"
Then save the file and go back to the initial setup scteen and continue. Note if you change this file before starting the install, the setup program changes the contents of the model.txt file to reflect your model of Vaio. Thats why this procedure has to be followed to effectively fool the setup program.
Hopefully by now the instructions above should get you to the stage where the only thing left to do is run the Pin.reg file from the begining of this forum post to get the audio working through the Headphones only when plugged in.
I have posted these links and instuctions to downgrade to XP as Vista in my opinion is the worst OS Microsoft could have done and does not compliment the power and style of this model of Vaio. I found it totally unusable as half my applications would not work.
I hope this guide will aid other users of this range of Vaio laptops in downgrading to XP.
Hi, thank you for your sharing. But I can't enter the filefront website that contains modded inf file about Nvidia. Pls can you give me via another link? Thanks in advance.
