silicon pop culture!

Hi all, first I should say that this forum is awesome.  It’s been a frustrating search over the past few months looking for a decent VAIO forum (specifically for the TR Series) and last night I happened to have stumbled across this one.  Great job whoever owns, created, and maintains it!

Okay, so today I received my shiny new TR2A - and it’s an amazing little machine.  I personally hate OEM loads/builds and partitions and so on, and wanted to do a clean install.  So after I discovered that Sony was a bit stingy and didn’t include an Application/Driver recovery CD, I tried to make recovery discs through Sony’s Software - but kept getting error messages (have several new coaster now to boot).  Then I tried using Acronis MigrateEasy to clone the drive to my external USB 2.0 drive, but that was giving me problems too.  So I then when to Sony’s site and downloaded all the drivers for the TR2 and proceeded to do a clean install with WinXP Pro thinking all I needed was there, why would they leave anything out? (little did I know :( ).

At this point, all is great.  I’ve got one nice (big) partition showing almost 38GBs, ALL the devices are working with no conflicts in Device Manager (even the Camera is working), and my Wireless is up and running as well.  But now, the only things I am missing are the Hotkey functionalities (fn+ Sound, Brightness, etc) as well as the display buttons functionality which are the ‘Camera Capture Button’ utility, the ‘Magnification’ utility as well as the Volume buttons.

Does anyone know where I can download these applications?  I was shocked to see that Sony does not include these programs/drivers in their download section and since I couldn’t even make restore CDs, I have nothing to browse to try and extract these programs.

So if anyone has these programs and can post them somewhere where I can download them (or email them, thanks to broadband), I’d be very grateful.  If you have a PayPal account I can send a little ‘donation’ to make the effort more appealing?   At this point, I just want the software to make this cool little machine 100% complete so I wouldn’t mind shelling out $20 for someone to send me some apps.

Again, I am desperate to find apps for:

Hotkey Functions/OnScreen display
Camera Capture Function/Software
Magnification Function/Software

Thanks in advance!  - My little VAIO awaits to use the rest of his functions/buttons!

S

So it looks like I am going to have to try to extract these programs from the recovery disks when I get them tomorrow.  I think the Sony rep told me that they are sending DVDs so I was wondering if this extracting hack posted in another thread will even work? 

I can’t beleive these apps/drivers are no where to be found :(

well, welcome to the club! this forum is really great for tr users, that’s for sure…lot’s of folks here to help you with tr2 drivers, i’m sure.  i have the tr1 that came with all that gunk on cd…

seems to me like the tr1 drivers should work on the tr1, no?  at least for the camera.  anyone test this?  would there be a driver difference between home and pro for the camera?  if not, someone could extract and post somewhere no?  just a thought.

The extracting should still work.  Email me privately at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you have no luck getting those files.

Jeo4long, I don’t know HOW to thank you! 

I received my TR2 Recovery DVD today from Sony and extracted all the programs as you detailed and all is installed, running smoothly and perfect!  The only difference is that Sony is now sending 1 DVD instead of a few CDs (which is a welcomed change) so both the .PAC files were of course on the same DVD.

I renamed each folder to what program it is as you suggested, and I numbered them in order of which need to be installed first (as you suggested) and trashed all the things I don’t need.  I placed everything I’d ever need from the Recovery DVD on my Toshiba 2GB PC Card hard drive - so if I ever want to do a re-load of my own, I now can do it quickly and easily without further tweaking and extracting.

Tanks for taking the time to post that extraction technique and the sending the email.  I now have a TR2 with 1 (big) 37.2GB partition, a clean install of XP Pro with all the devices/drivers installed and running properly.  All the VAIO extras like the Camera, Capture, Magnification, Volume, Brightness, Power Control, and other functions running perfectly without the other bloated software, hidden partition that holds the recovery image (that steals over 5GB of your storage) and that other partition that they created. 

No more mess, just a fast, clean, lean little VAIO - the way I wanted it.  Now I have the room to add all my MP3s, home videos, pictures and so on for when on the road.  Thanks again!

[quote author=“Sowelu”]Jeo4long, I don’t know HOW to thank you! 

I received my TR2 Recovery DVD today from Sony and extracted all the programs as you detailed and all is installed, running smoothly and perfect!  The only difference is that Sony is now sending 1 DVD instead of a few CDs (which is a welcomed change) so both the .PAC files were of course on the same DVD.

I renamed each folder to what program it is as you suggested, and I numbered them in order of which need to be installed first (as you suggested) and trashed all the things I don’t need.  I placed everything I’d ever need from the Recovery DVD on my Toshiba 2GB PC Card hard drive - so if I ever want to do a re-load of my own, I now can do it quickly and easily without further tweaking and extracting.

Tanks for taking the time to post that extraction technique and the sending the email.

wait wait where is this posting you describe!!!!  for the benefit of all sentient beings (that own a tr) can someone post a complete and concise procedure for doing what was just described?  thanks!!

The post is right here!

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?t=23

Worked like a charm.

Glad that works for you   Enjoy!