Utility Driver options for unsupported Viao Vista.

[rustedmetal]

I need utility drivers for my Viao laptop that's running Vista. The utility drivers i need are for the wireless LAN connection; the laptop in question has a WiFi switch that won't work without drivers. Since Vista isn't supported anymore Sony doesn't have the drivers in their site so my only options are to either taking it to Best Buy according to Sony or just downloading them from random driver sites. My concern from third party downloads is the possibility of malware and such. Maybe someone has gone through this before and can advise me of a decent site to download these drivers from?

 

[wither 3]

We gave you two possibilities in this thread-

Sony Vaio Model PCG5K7P Webcam Utility Wanted

My son has an old Sony Vaio laptop with Vista Home Premium installed which was totally overloaded with every app and junk file possible and kept crashing all the time so i reformatted and clean installed Vista Ultimate x86 as he has lost all recovery disks so the recovery partion is gone as...

www.vistax64.com

 

[rustedmetal]

OMG! The excitement is real. After downloading a few drivers from different websites to no avail i downloaded one from Snappy Driver and i don't know if it was that one driver or a combination with the ones before but i finally got a WIRELESS SIGNAL!! WOHOO! Hopefully i'm not celebrating too early, since bad things have happened before when everything seemed fined with this laptop. This wasn't even the driver from Sony that i was refering to on the 1st comment...but at least it's working. PHEW. Man, this has been an insane first trial for me. Thanks all for the help. I'm sure this laptop would keep giving me nightmares one way or another.

 

[wither 3]

What you should do is immediately set a system restore point.

 

[rustedmetal]

I did. Does Vista offer an option to make an installation CD/HDD with what i have at this point? So if the matter hits the fan then all i have is to connect that drive/cd and no more pain after that. Please excuse me if i sound overly ignorant right now.

 

[wither 3]

I recommend that you use something like the free Macrium Reflect to periodically image your C: drive. When you create the first image, create a boot disc from it that's used to restore the image.

 

[rustedmetal]

I recommend that you use something like the free Macrium Reflect to periodically image your C: drive. When you create the first image, create a boot disc from it that's used to restore the image.

Can i just clone the HDD? Wouldn't be better than an image? If not do you think you can explain why or why not?

 

[wither 3]

You can do either one. I create an image of my C: drive. All my personal files are on a separate partition and I do a backup of those using other software. Rather than expressing my ignorance, perhaps this will help-

Disk Imaging vs Disk Cloning: Key Differences - StorageCraft

Disk imaging vs disk cloning: while some use the terms interchangeably, there are key differences between the two. Here's what you need to know.

blog.storagecraft.com

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[rustedmetal]

Ok. Thanks much!! BTW, i've also installed the DR reader driver that i was missing, i believe that the thing i have left to fix is the the driver to make the FN key work with brightness adjust and touchpad lock. There's also this peculiar Intel icon that when open part of the text is distorted. I attached the picture for better reference. Any ideas on how to fix this distortion.

 

[wither 3]

Looks like your resolution is too low. Right click on the desktop and select Personalize. In the Display Settings, is the resolution set to the highest?

 

[rustedmetal]

It's already in the max setting. But the issue only happens there, in that little icon. I'm guessing it's a driver but i don't know how many drivers i've downloaded already. I wish there was a site that there was a site that actually had every driver out there so i wouldn't have to be site hopping looking for drivers.

 

[wither 3]

I based my answer on the general appearance of all the items in your screenshot. Looks like VGA. What is the resolution of your display as shown in the display settings?

 

[rustedmetal]

1280x800. The only drivers i have left are some where Win displays a message reading that the publisher could not be verified so out of the two options i get i chose not to installed them. Should i install them?

 

[wither 3]

That doesn't look like 1280x but I could be wrong. I just adjusted mine from 1920x down to 1280x and I'm surprised at the difference. Go back to Personalization. Click on Adjust Font Size. Change it to 120. Does that help?

I would install the other drivers. You can always roll them back or do a system restore (you indicated you had set a restore point).

 

[rustedmetal]

Ok, so i tried changing the color scheme in Appearance to Vista Basic and it worked. I had it on High Contrast Black since the battery would last a bit longer with darker colors but i didn't know it would have that effect on the icon in question. Thanks a lot for your suggestions regardless.

 

[wither 3]

I'm glad you figured it out.