Sony VGX-XL201 User's Manual
Contents
1. nLite will copy the contents of the CD to your hard drive Browse For Folder modification Choose or create an empty folder My Documents 4 My Computer B Se YAIO Cr Service Pack amp Cleaninstall Version E S Drivers Path gt Hotfix Size 1386 i O5_Custom OS_Default E Sonyutilities ri Oe i Locating th Select where to saye the CD installation files for Product name Language iv nLite Locating the Windows installation Locate the Windows installation files to customize Ga Locating the Windows installation To make sure that Media Center will be properly installed you need to copy the cmpnents folder From the second CD into the C CleanInstall OS_Default For browse press Yes if you copy it manually press No after you re done If for some reason you want to skip this part press Cancel Yes nLite will ask to copy CD2 to the same location as CD1 Insert CD 2 and press Yes then browse and select your DVD drive nLite will copy the contents of CD2 to C CleanInstall OS_Default nLite e Don t click Next yet It has been my Locating oe vomo piain SORAN y experience that you may want build your nLite modified operation system install image a few times before you get it right so you want to be able to easily get back to this point C ACleaninstal OS_Defouk lv e recommend taking a backup of your Product name Windows XP Professi2. Google Desktop Search Installer There is nothing can do about Norton Antivirus it s only a 90 day trial anyway I m opting to use the free 1 year licence for McAfee got with Sky Broadband instead know of no other way to legally obtain WinDVD but it s pretty easy to get the same functionality legally and this is described in the next section Codecs and Video Playback You ll find until you ve installed WinDVD or equivalent you can t complete Media Center setup When you come to select the number of speakers you have it will probably tell you that The video decoder has either malfunctioned or is not installed It is not installed You don t need to install a complete product like WinDVD or PowerDVD but you do need some decoder software recommend downloading K Lite Codec Pack I download the Full version but there s a choice depending on how many codecs you want bundled with it which gives you a choice of MPEG decoders You can get it here http www free codecs com download K_ Lite Codec Pack htm If you install K Lite Codec Pack you ll need to decide what to install for yourself out of the many options but these are the options choose Profile 4 Lots of stuff With the following amendments On the Select Components page use the following settings e Add Xvid DirectShow video filter e Add InterVideo MPEG 1 MPEG 2 DirectShow video filter this is the one that makes DVD playback a
3. Intel System 7 3 1 1011 11 18 2005 C Cleaprl Sony Corporation USB 1 00 12 26 2005 C Cleanl Intel Net 8 7 1 0 04 27 2006 C Clearl Intel x hde 6 0 1 1002 07 06 2006 C Cleanl Intel hde 6 0 1 1002 07 06 2006 C Cleanl Intel hdc 6 0 1 1002 07 06 2006 C Cleanl Intel hde 6 0 1 1002 07206 2006 C Clearl Intel hdc 6 0 1 1002 07 06 2006 C Clearl Intel hde 6 0 1 1002 07 06 2006 C Clearl Intel hde 6 0 1 1002 07 06 2006 C Cleanl Intel hdc 6 0 1 1002 07 06 2006 C Cleanl Intel hde 6 0 1 1002 07 06 2006 C Clearl Intel hde 6 0 1 1002 07 06 2006 C Clearl Intel hdc 6 0 1 1002 07206 2006 C Clearl Sony Corporation HIDClass 6 0 0 2 06 04 2002 C Clearl AVerMedia Technologies MEDIA 1 0 3 49 07 11 2006 C Clearl NVIDIA Display 8 6 1 5 08 10 2006 C Clearl C Delete after install In order to prevent you from removing stuff you actually want on the next page this compatibility list lets you choose what functionality you actually need from Windows Just select Compatibility x he functionality you need in order for the wizard to automatically prevent you from acci entally removing related components everything you might possibly want to use in Windows Cameras and Camcorders DHCP functionality Ethernet and Wi Fi C Internet Information Services IIS CINT Backup Volume Shadow Copy C Prefetch functionality Printers Local Network and PDF C W
4. actually changing the installation CD Applying changes to installation contents Press Yes Preparing selected tasks Integratina hotfixes packs and theme Removi ving components Apply changes YD Do you want to start the process nete Processing Applying changes to installation Preparing selected tasks Integrating hotfixes packs and themes Removing components Processing setup files Integrating drivers Finalizing Finished Total size is 693 55MB Integrated drivers 21 35MB The installation was reduced by 147 36MB The process is complete nearly We still need to embed the files we copied from the C drive Copy the contents of C CleanInstall l386 to C CleanInstall OS_Custom I386 replacing any files that already exist If you have gone over the 7OOMB limit for CDs I strongly recommend copying the following folders to C CleanInstall OS_Custom C CleanInstall Drivers C CleanInstall Hotfix C CleanInstall l386 to a folder other than the existing 1386 folder C CleanInstall SonyUtilities This will make life easier when you need to access these files again later Press Next nlite suggest burning the installer to an Bootable ISO ISO image That way you can copy it Create a bootable ISO to burn on CD DYD or for testing 4 3 ae back it up and easily recreate
5. in this slightly different scenario My experience has been that following the instructions in this guide to the letter was unable to activate Windows after installation using the product key on my PC although it happily let me install Windows The Media Center CDs used came from my MSDN Professional subscription and can confirm that the method described in this document works perfectly with the product key from that source Because this works for me may or may not undertake further investigations into why the product key that came with my VAIO didn t work it could be the process used to create the CD it could be my product key itself the CDs used to make the custom operating system install image or it could be something else haven t thought of If you can shed any light on whether the methods described in this guide work for you using the product key on your PC and why that might be please tell me via the Club VAIO forums so that can update this document Creating the Recovery DVDs When you first power on your PC you will have to go through the motions of finalising your installation of Windows This involves pairing the wireless keyboard to the PC choosing regional settings and time zone accepting Microsoft s EULAs enabling automatic updates naming your computer setting and Administrator password registering with Microsoft or not and setting up your first user account It doesn t matter at all what you do
6. is critical to this process is the RAID driver all others can be loaded after install This is because the Windows XP setup routine does not understand SATA disks configured in a RAID array which is the standard for Viiv enabled motherboards such as the one in this PC In a development blunder that beggars belief the setup routine demands that the RAID driver is on a floppy disk from an IDE floppy drive when almost no PCs still ship with floppy drives today The alternative is what we are doing here embedding the RAID driver in the install CD If you don t do this you will get a blue screen of death BSOD early on in the install te Driver Integration Options Storage Device Textmode Driver Choose the exact type of hardware and OS if listed Driver folder C Cleanlnstall Drivers RAID Mode Regular PNP driver Textmode driver Textmode integration options 090 OLO Hold CTAL to select multiple items Be careful if your controller even needs more than one Don t select different OS versions Cancel don t know which of these RAID drivers you actually need but selecting all of them does no harm so recommend doing that Select all the drivers and click OK nLite O Once you have selected all the drivers Drivers s you should see something like this Integrate drivers into the installation Provider Type Version Date Path SigmaTel MEDIA 5 10 5147 0 08 02 2006 C Cleanl
7. it if the disc gets lost or damaged Choose settings as shown in this screenshot and press Make ISO Save the ISO to wherever you like General Device Burn speed Media WinLite Maximum CD R Empty saved mine to Advanced C CleanInstall WinLite iso ISO Engine Boot sector CI UDF Juick erase You re done with nLite Default Default v Verify Progress Click here to start gt Information If you want to include additional files on your CD DVD copy them to the working directory before starting or just click next if you want to make the ISO later Roxio DivitalMedia SE Burn Image to Disc MATSHITA DVDRW DL E 3 Click the Burn Image button when you are ready to continue Destination Selection Bum Image Use your preferred tool to burn the image toa DVD ora CD if you ve managed to hack out enough from the installation that the ISO is under 7OOMB used Roxio DigitalMedia SE which is preinstalled on the PC It s nota very full featured burner but it s good enough for this job Installing the Custom Operating System Install Image OK by this point you should have an operating system disc completely customised to your requirements with your Windows product key device drivers and any other customisations you saw fit to make The annoying thing is that if this disc doesn t work for you depending on how far you get in the installation before it f
8. know when you might need it if you start having hardware problems At this point after a few tweaks here and there to Windows so have it just the way I want it install a copy of Norton Ghost 2003 which came with my old laptop and take a snapshot of the C drive to a GHO file That way never have to go through this process again can always get back to a clean image of Windows Media Center Edition 2005 with drivers and Windows Updates and Windows settings tweaks already done If you take the image any further on than this you re likely to have a bunch of software on installed that will be out of date next time you want to reinstall your operating system Of course this is an optional step and you need Norton Ghost or an equivalent product to do it but it saves you several steps in the reinstall process and is a nice clean way of getting back to a fresh newly installed operating system assuming there are no significant hardware changes in between reinstalls Now you need to consider what software applications are missing from your installation that you need Most of the applications which come pre installed are on the Application Recovery CD Some of them however are not am pretty sure the following are part of the factory image and not on the Application Recovery CD Norton Antivirus 90 day trial WinDVD old version Google Earth old version and free anyway A James Bond game of some kind Google s Picasa free
9. name suggest renaming the folders so you can find the relevant applications without hunting around The packages starting in WS don t have any actual installer associated with them They run DOS scripts and or VB scripts which make various minor changes to the system They are used by the Sony installer to assist in the uninterrupted installation of the whole DVD they serve no purpose on their own There is one SP package that can t identify SP 009458 01 It runs extremely quickly and makes no obvious changes anywhere Anyway here s the table of what s what SP 007630 06 Installs some crappy HTML content that links to a special offer for discounts when buying Adobe products Avoid SP 010838 02 VAIO Media Integrated Server SP 010862 03 VAIO Media Redistribution SP 011275 08 WinDVD BD for VAIO This doesn t seem to be the regular version of WinDVD but special Blu Ray version presumably for the VGX XL202 Blu Ray model SP 011275 10 WinDVD DB for VAIO Seems to be exactly the same as SP 011275 08 except the data2 cab file is about 5mb smaller SP 011844 03 Ulead BD DiscRecorder Presumably for the VGX XL202 Blu Ray model since the VGX XL201 doesn t have a Blu Ray drive Conclusion That s it By this point hopefully you have a clean operating system install on your VGX XL201 VAIO Media Center and only the software you want installed hope you found this guide useful Respectfully ask that
10. partitions for C and D although this adjustment is fairly restrictive you can t set the C drive smaller than 60GB and you can t create additional partitions although you could adjust your partitions later with a third party tool like Symantec s Partition Magic You also have the option to remove the hidden recovery partition at this point Your other option is to do a complete factory reset which restores the hidden recovery partition from the DVDs recreates and restores both the C and D drives to their factory default sizes and content This works from the recovery DVDs even if you have completely erased and the recovery partition and or changed the partition table in other ways used this method to get back to the factor image for the purpose of creating this guide Preparing for the Custom Operating System Install Image You need some files from the C drive and from your System Recovery DVD Although you can pull these files in when you need them from their current locations for convenience advise copying them so that you have everything you need all in one place this is particularly useful if you want to make back up these files so that you can tweak your custom operating system image later Create the following folder structure Files from the C Drive Copy the following files from C Windows I368 to C CleanInstall I386 Tip You may want to turn off the Hide file extensions for known file types option un
11. KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE APR3 SP 007028 03 pac APR3 SP 007630 06 pac APR3 SP 007741 14 pac APR3 SP 007842 04 pac APR3 SP 009079 01 pac APR3 SP 009458 01 pac APR3 SP 009464 04 pac APR3 SP 009777 05 pac APR3 SP 009803 11 pac APR3 SP 009883 02 pac APR3 SP 009920 00 pac APR3 SP 010222 03 pac APR3 SP 010394 05 pac APR3 SP 010505 01 pac APR3 SP 010672 01 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 010677 04 pac C SonyApps c SonyApps C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C APR3 SP 010678 03 pac C SonyApps C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps SonyApps APR3 SP 010717 04 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 010748 01 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 010792 00 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 010804 03 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 010838 02 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 010862 03 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 011275 08 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 011275 10 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 011460 00 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 011463 00 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 011650 01 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 011777 00 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 011844 03 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 011969 00 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 012255 00 pac C SonyApps APR3 SP 012283 00 pac C SonyApps
12. Sony VAIO VGX XL201 Media Center PC Clean Install Guide Version 1 0 Author William Warby Introduction When I purchased my VGX XL201 Media Center PC fully expected it to arrive preloaded with a myriad of freeware trialware and Sony branded software products and wasn t wrong Such is the trend when you buy almost any PC these days and don t doubt that many consumers are very grateful for it am not one of those consumers know what software want for any particular job and invariably it isn t the software provided by Sony Also due to the pace of software development by the time you receive your PC most of the freeware software will be out of date and Sony like most PC manufacturers these days have a tendency to give you old versions of retail applications like Adobe Photoshop Elements or WinDVD In their efforts to make life easier for novice PC users Sony inadvertently make the process of escaping from the factory installed image difficult even for competent PC users They create a hidden partition on the hard disk that contains the factory installed image and provide software to back up that partition to a pair of recordable DVDs This makes it possible to dispense with the hidden partition and recover the disk space and also provides the means by which you can extract the essential drivers and utilities that make a clean install possible What Sony don t do is give you an OEM operating system CD or any mean
13. ails you may have to reset back to the factory image using the System Recovery DVD in order to tweak the image again unless you have another computer on which you can tweak the image and you had the good sense to follow my instructions and back up the CleanInstall folder strongly recommend having nothing on your D drive or any other partitions you have made on the internal HDD that you aren t prepared to lose You may decide you want to reformat and repartition the whole disc as part of the install process which will mean you will lose any data stored on it Insert your new disc which will now refer to as the Custom Recovery Disc and restart your computer Follow the normal procedure for installing Windows from an original CD Press any key when instructed to boot from the CD and let it load the drivers it needs You don t need to press F6 to load a RAID driver because it will already be embedded on the CD If you get a blue screen of death BSOD after the initial bout of file copying you may not have embedded the RAID drivers using nLite correctly The first interaction you should have is deciding on which partition you want to install Windows If working from a current position of the factory default image you will see three partitions the hidden one at 8111MB and the C and D drives recommend deleting all three and creating two new partitions C at 50 000MB with all the remaining space going to D Of course this is ent
14. art of the imaging process should you want to do it again later You are now ready to create your custom operating install image Creating the Custom Operating System Install Image Sony do not provide you with an installable operating system CD so you need to obtain one somehow Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 the operating system we will be using in this guide comes on two CDs don t know whether it is possible to obtain these CDs from Sony because am a Microsoft Developer Network subscriber and my subscription grants me access to all of Microsoft s operating systems so needed to look no further It is possible to obtain the CDs from Internet sources like torrent sites don t know whether doing so is legal or whether CDs obtained from such sources would work reliably but my feeling would be that it is the product key you use for the installation that determines the legality of your installation and you will be using the legitimate product key on the sticker at the back of your PC Obtaining a working copy of the MCE 2005 CDs is beyond the scope of this guide and will assume from this point on that you have legally obtained copies of these CDs Now that you have your two MCE 2005 CDs you need to download and install a brilliant little free application called nLite This utility allows you to take a copy of your Windows operating system CDs make changes such as embedding drivers hotfixes product keys and settings then bur
15. ave any double layer recordable DVDs mostly because they are hugely more expensive than single layer discs at the moment so used 2 DVD Rs recommend doing the same since this guide will assume the file structure of the 2 disc approach Press Next VAIO Recovery Utility Recovery Media Kit Wizard Create Recovery Media Kit Select the recovery disc and click Start Recovery Disc Name iis Competed System Recovery Disc DYD F or DVD R lt Back Start Cancel Press Start and give feed the application with blank discs as required made two copies of each for good measure but you only need one set Burning the discs on my VGX XL201 took about 20 minutes for the Application Recovery Disc and 30 minutes for the System Recovery Disc Label your DVDs as instructed by the application Returning to the Factory Installed Image Should you ever feel the need you can restore your system to it s factory default image at any time using these discs by booting from the System Recovery Disc When the System Recovery disc boots you will have some options to choose from You can recover just the C drive leaving your D drive in tact Useful if you want to get back to the factory default image without affecting your D drive which probably has all your personal files on Alternatively you can recover both the C and D drives In either case you have the option to adjust the sizes of the
16. bly find you actually can t install this one until after you run Windows Update It comes up with an error during installation which is fixed by a hotfix although don t know which one Intel Viiv software lets you create a Media network for sharing content with other devices on your network including DRMed content downloaded from a growing number of online vendors install this one as well although don t have any content yet which requires Viiv The first one don t bother with It s probably used by a bunch of Sony applications that don t install and certainly isn t needed for playing MP4 files generally if you install a codec pack more on codec packs later Same as above This application is a joke It s a wrapper that provides access to about a dozen control panel applets It s completely pointless From what I ve read this seems to have something to do with special keys like Fn keys on the keyboard always install it This lets you switch from a 2 5GHz band wireless network to a 5 0GHz band wireless network and turn on the Bluetooth device which Sony reliably inform me doesn t actually exist on this model If you don t have a 5 0GHz wireless network this utility will do nothing for you This is a little utility which allows you to configure what the silver buttons on your keyboard do don t use those buttons anyway so don t bother installing this one always install this You never
17. d 4 0 Program Files path B8 Data Execution Prevention Default i x Product Key Wa IL Computer Type Automatic x 2 Misc Turn off Firewall C Turn off Hibernate System Restore Service Enabled m 12 of disk space ia 30 days to keep restore point Tray Preset Change as many or as few of these options as you like The only one you need to enter is your product key This can be found on the sticker on the back of your PC Suggestion Set Unattended Mode to Fully automated Under the Users tab set an Organization and the Full Name of the Administrator account If you want to set account passwords keep them to 14 characters or less otherwise you get a warning during installation Give the PC a name under the Network ID tab and that should be enough to ensure an interaction free unattended install Suggestion If using an LCT TV as your display and possibly other circumstances set a sensible screen resolution under the Display tab Otherwise Windows will start at 640x480 and it will be difficult to adjust because the buttons will be off the screen nLite j e Again this page has no impact for the Options JP purposes of this guide Change the m options as you see fit General Patches E Languages Clean MUI Languages support entries Yes Keep code pages of removed languages Enabled E Misc Keep Windows Media Player compa
18. der Folder Options to make these files easier to identify OEMBIOS BI_ OEMIGLIB DL_ Note These files are required to make your MCE 2005 CDs to accept the OEMBIOS CA _ OEMLOGO GI_ product key from your Sony VAIO computer They are not visible on the OEMBIOS DA__ PIDGEN DLL recovery DVDs so the only way to extract them is from C Windows I386 with OEMBIOS SI_ SETUPP INI the factory default image installed Do not skip over this step unless you OEMCOA JP_ DPCDLL DL_ don t want to use the product key provided with your VAIO PC OEMIGSOEX OOOO Files from the System Recovery DVD Copy the contents of System Recovery DVD VAIO Applications Drivers to C CleanInstall Drivers Tip These files can also be found at C Drivers and can also be downloaded from the VAIO Link website Copy the contents of System Recovery DVD VAIO Applications Hotfix to C CleanInstall Hotfix Tip All of these hotfixes can be downloaded from Microsoft s website but not all of them will get installed automatically by running Microsoft Update Optional Copy the contents of System Recovery DVD VAIO Applications Applications to a new folder C CleanInstall SonyUtilities The above step isn t necessary for the clean install process as you only make use of these files after the custom operation system install image has been loaded However if you do it now you can copy these files to the custom install CD and you no longer need the System Recovery DVD for any p
19. ght off but let the installation continue anyway Now you will want to consider installing a few of the utilities provided by Sony The utilities can be found at System Recovery DVD VAIO Applications Applications It s up to you what you choose to install hence the whole point of doing a clean install but here are my comments regarding each item in this folder perhaps recording live TV install it every time SonyUtils DLL Information about this one online is sketchy but it seems to have something to do with special keys on the keyboard like Fn keys and possibly interaction with the DVD drive s eject button without it the eject button doesn t seem to work once you re in Windows recommend installing this one Sony Shared Library Install this after SonyUtils DLL It is a prerequisite for other Sony utilities including VAIO Hardware Diagnostics and VAIO Event Service Intel Matrix Storage This article http www intel com design chipsets matrixstorage_sb htm from Intel explains what this software is all about From what can gather it has to do with managing your RAID array and gives improvements in data security and hard disk performance With things like this figure why not installed it Intel Viiv Software Sony MP4 Shared Library Sony Video Shared Library VAIO Control Center VAIO Event Service Wireless Switch Setting Utility VAIO Action Setup VAIO Hardware Diagnostics You ll proba
20. indows Activation and Sysprep een A ee C Windows Update Web Site Remote Desktop Media Center Internet Explorer 7 Don t display this window every session nlite OX None of this is required for the Components purposes of this guide but it s cool to t the components you want to remove from the installation while the Compatibility options ff be able to knock out things from the installation you don t want Also if E m Applications Directories c E Drivers 3 our final image will fit on a CD rather i HEC AURON Scanned folders in your installation that are not y 8 H m Keyboards critical or covered in other options Select if you than a DVD I select lots of things in 5 Languages don t use them 9 Multimedia H Network keyboard layouts other than the ones I Operating System Options use you knock out enough components this list including all languages and Services H Directories Be careful not to take out things you might want later because don t know how if it s even possible you might be able to get them back later Total 505 Selected 306 Hidden 40 Compatibility nlite Unattended Set p Regioni Network ID General ae during the installation like U emes setup Automatic Updates l Display l Components LawaiblupOnce aa Users Regional Desktop themes Network settings Unattended Mode Fully automated ml 12 Oem Preinstall E nable
21. io mvnforum viewthread thread 36891 This thread helped me to understand how to make your VAIO operating system product key work with a regular operating system install CD Thanks to philfree another Club VAIO member for his explanation of the KCAP exe utility for extracting pac files from the Application Recovery DVD found here http www club vaio sony europe com clubvaio mvnforum viewthread thread 37599 Thanks to the anonymous author of this article http www myplc com sony sony_apps htm which offers an alternative explanation to the above on how to extract application installation packages from the pac files from the Application Recovery DVD and for providing a download of the utility which makes this extraction possible Finally a special thanks to Dink Nuhagic for creating the superb nLite utility and for making it free
22. irely up to you it s just a suggestion always format a partition before installing Windows on it with a full NTFS format Use a quick format if you re impatient but it only takes a few extra minutes to do it properly After the disk as formatted your computer will restart If you used nLite to fully automate the installation the next time you interact with your computer will be when it has finished installing and Windows has loaded During the installation on my PC presumably after the graphics card driver is loaded the screen resolution is increased to 720p and the Windows installer routine which is fixed at 640x480 resolution moves to the top left corner taking up only half of the screen the rest of the screen is a nice shade of blue This is normal although if you don t set a screen resolution under the Unattended section of nLite on the Display tab once Windows boots it will be back to 640x480 The installation takes about 40 minutes after formatting the C drive Post Installation Cleanup Type the name of a program folder document or Internet resource and Windows will open it for you C poot ini E boot ini Notepad File Edit Format View Help boot loader timeout 30 default multi 0 disk 0 rdisk 0 partition 1 wINDOws bin ely age systems multi 0 disk 0 rdisk 0 partition 1 wINDOWS Wwindows XP Media multi 0 disk 0 rdisk 0 partition 2 WINDOWS Windows XP Media For some reason unknow
23. lication software which is redundant if on Windows XP based systems which have very good wireless software Depending on what you took out of the Windows install CD during customisation in nLite you might see a message telling you that some Windows files have been replaced by unrecognised versions during installation of drivers and you will be asked for the Windows CD If this happens provide the Window XP Media Center Edition 2005 CD1 disc and everything should be fine If you don t take out certain Windows components during nLite customisation this doesn t happen and haven t yet tracked down which components took out that caused this issue Software Installation Now you should be at the stage where you have a working clean installation of Windows but you re not finished yet There is at least some software which Sony provide that is useful or even necessary At this point like to join my wireless network activate my copy of Windows it s probably nagged you to do this a couple of times by now already Then do a Windows Update as many times as required until no updates are left You may find that during your first Windows Update a number of keyboard and mouse related hardware devices are discovered and will need to be installed The drivers should be found automatically or if not they will be on the Window XP Media Center Edition 2005 CD11 disc don t know why these devices are found since the keyboard works strai
24. mmmmmmMmmMmmMmmMmMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM C KCAP EXE E APR3 SP 012765 00 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR4 SP 008670 01 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR4 SP 009472 02 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR4 SP 009576 06 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR4 SP 009948 00 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR4 SP 010848 00 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR4 SP 011614 00 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR4 SP 012644 00 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR5 SP 007819 02 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR5 SP 010851 00 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR5 WS 000002 01 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR5 WS 000003 02 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR5 WS 000005 07 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR5 wWS 000091 00 pac C SonyApps Before running it check the list of files matches your DVD This is a complete list from my Application Recovery DVD but Sony may change the list in the future Adjust as appropriate and double click on the MS DOS batch file to run it Note that the files Sony pac and Sony2 5 pac don t contain any applications or useful information They re required by the Sony installer that installs everything on the DVD When you run the MS DOS batch file all the installers should be extracted to separate folders at C SonyApps or wherever you extracted them to The folders will be named after the part numbers By looking inside it will be obvious what some of them are but not all of them The following table identifies most of them by
25. n the image back to a bootable CD or DVD It can be downloaded here http www nliteos com This guide was written using version 1 2 1 of nLite Note Unless you have done it already the nLite installer will make you download and install the NET Framework 2 0 It will take you to the Microsoft URL to do this and after you have installed the framework you will have to restart the nLite installer e Run nLite and press Next Welcome to nLite This Wizard will guide you through the process of building a custom Windows installation Supported OS Windows 2000 Professional Server Advanced Server Windows XP Professional Home MCE N x64 Professional Windows Server 2003 Standard Web Enterprise x64 R2 Language English Defaut lv nLite Insert MCE 2005 CD1 and press Locating the Windows installation i a Browse to select your DVD drive Locate the Windows installation files to customize nLite will ask you where you want to save the CD installation files for modification Click OK i Locating the Windows installation we Go Product name Language Service Pacl Warning Version Select where to save the CD installation files for modification Path Choose or create an empty folder Size nLite Browse to C CleanInstall OS Default Locating the Windows installation a and click OK Locate the Windows installation files to customize
26. n to me as ran through the installation this worked example Windows created two entries in boot ini instead of one This has the annoying effect of making you wait 30 seconds or press any key during start up don t know why it did this but it s easy to correct Press Start gt Run and type C boot ini and press OK as shown on the left Delete the last line starting multi O disk 0 rdisk O partition 2 and save the file Next time you boot the problem will be gone You may want to format your D drive now if you didn t do so already during the installation process At this point like to reassign my drive letters because Windows will almost certainly have put removable drives before the DVD drive which is one of my pet hates Do this using Disk Manager which can be accessed by selecting Manage after right clicking on My Computer Now you re going to want to install whatever drivers are remaining to be installed If you have followed this guide to the letter there won t be many to do Insert your System Recovery CD or take the files from the Custom Recovery CD if you copied the files onto it and run the following installers I suggest using the order specified here but don t think it s all that important ie For the Intel PROSet Wireless driver installation choose Custom install and deselect the second option Intel PROSet Wireless This is wireless app
27. nd Media Center work e Change AC3 DTS LPCM DVD audio DirectShow audio filter from AC3Filter to InterVideo e Add MP1 MP2 MPEG Audio DirectShow audio filter and set it to MainConcept e Add AAC DirectShow audio filter and set it to 3ivx Pro On the Select Additional Tasks page use the following settings e Reset all settings to their defaults e Make Media Player Classic the default for Nothing MPC might be a good reliable lightweight media player but it s just too ugly to be my preferred media player e Speaker setup 5 1 or higher have found that if choose slightly different settings end up with a jittery signal in Media Center on live TV and sometimes no sound on live TV I ve also managed to break sound completely on my system once by messing about with different options in K Lite Codec Pack and couldn t recover from it so you do need to select the right options The above profile definitely seems to work codecs are very much a dark art to me so once have them working leave them the hell alone At this point you should be able to play a DVD in Media Center or Windows Media Player It s using the decoder from WinDVD InterVideo but you haven t actually installed WinDVD So far as can tell from reading up on the Internet what you ve done is perfectly legal Besides you have a right to use WinDVD anyway it came with your PC Sony just decided not to let you get at if you want to go the clean i
28. nstall route Application Recovery DVD There is a veritable treasure trove of software on your Application Recovery DVD Most of it you won t want in fact the only application on there that want is Roxio DigitalMedia SE and only that because don t have any other software for burning CDs and DVDs nor do have the desire to buy or steal any l Il describe here how to extract the software from the DVD Which bits you choose to install are entirely up to you but would suggest very little if any of it Most of it is out of date poor quality or just plain useless You can t just pop the DVD in and install what you want Sony has an all or nothing way of installing the DVD but that s it However there is a way around this problem All the installers for the various applications Sony give you are on the CD they re just zipped into cabinet files with the pac extension You can extract them and to do this you need to download a little command line utility called KCAP EXE It can be found here http www myplc com sony bin kcap zip or here http www math utexas edu users rogoyski work tr5ap winxp kcap exe Incidentally found out about this utility through the following URLs http www myplc com sony sony_apps htm and http www club vaio sony europe com clubvaio mvnforum viewthread thread 37599 Temporarily place KCAP EXE in the root of the C drive for the sake of convenience The command to extract a pac file to a f
29. ntegrate drivers into the installation Provider Browse For Folder Choose Folder with extracted drivers in subfolders Chipset D Memory Card O Network Quick Resume Technology B Ramp D Sonync Tvcapture ier vl C Delete after install This is where you embed device drivers into the installation Click Insert and select Multiple Driver Folder Browse to C CleanInstall Drivers and click OK Select multiple drivers to integrate C Clean nstall Drivers Audio wDM C Cleanlnstall Drivers Chipset ista C Cleaninstall Drivers Chipset Vista SP C CleanInstall Drivers Chipset win2000 C Cleanlnstall Drivers Chipset win20004SP C Cleanlnstall Drivers Chipset win2003 C Cleaninstall Drivers Chipset win20034SP C Cleaninstall Drivers Chipset P C ARSE RS N EA RENO E Careful Be sure to select only appropriate drivers for your Windows version For example if you integrate 64bit textmode drivers into 32bit Windows there will be file load errors and installation will fail nLite will scan the folder you selected for drivers which it can use in the image It won t be able to use all of them because some of the drivers provided are in the format of a setup executable rather than an unpackaged INF driver for the VGX XL201 this includes TV Capture Wireless LAN and Intel Quick Resume Still it s a good head start and leaves you with less to do after Windows is installed The one which
30. o relevance to this guide but recommend the settings have selected here The Maximum unfinished simultaneous connections option has to do with a security fix Microsoft put in place that limits unfinished TCP IP connections to 10 It can however negatively affect P2P file sharing performance The Unsigned Themes Support option patches a file that should never have needed patching in the first place Microsoft implemented a powerful theming engine in Windows XP and then released a whopping 2 themes to date and locked everybody else out This patch allows user created themes to be used ic sjes love this tab Again nothing to do Tweaks Fa with this process change all or none Various registry tweaks and Services setup of these features and it ll make no difference to the process What this General Services tab does though is allow you to Fay wel chorion change hundreds of settings that you cesta probably go through manually after xplorer Internet Explorer you ve installed Windows It won t do My Computer 5 siceicrk every last thing you want to change B Se but they haven t missed much fivacy E Security You can disable Windows services on l ae the Services tab but usually leave pi Visual Effects this one alone H 0 Windows Media Player Show Advanced E H nLite anji e You re ready to kick off the process of Processing gt
31. older is like SO C KCAP EXE source file destination folder KCAP EXE is not exactly a user friendly utility and will give you no indication of failure on error It will fail if destination folder does not exist so you have to create the destination folder first decided to extract absolutely everything on the CD and put it all in named folders so that could always get to the applications easily should ever want to It took an hour or more but l Il never have to rummage through that CD again looking for any one particular application Create yourself a folder where you want to extract the applications to For now l Il assume its C SonyApps Create an MS DOS batch file just create a normal text file with the extension bat e g ExtractCD bat and put the following test in the file C KCAP EXE E APR SP 006356 08 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR SP 009681 01 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR SP 010812 01 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR2 SP 005054 04 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR2 SP 010923 01 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR2 WS 000087 00 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE E APR2 WS 000089 01 pac C SonyApps C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C KCAP EXE C
32. onal Media Center v3 0 C Cl eantnstall folder at this po int for I Language English United States Ga Locating the Windows installation example to an external hard drive or Service Pack 2 Version 5 1 2600 2180 recordable DVD At any later date you Path C CleanInstall 0S_ Default can then resume the clean install Size 840 91MB process from this point using your backup Once you have this folder structure stored away somewhere you can build the custom operating system install image on any PC with To continue click Next nLite installed nLite Locating the Windows installation Locate the Windows installation files to customize Ga Locating the Windows installation C Cleaninstall XOS_Custom Product name Windows XP Professional Media Center v3 0 Language English United States Service Pack 2 Version 5 1 2600 2180 Path C Cleaninstall 0S_Custom Size 840 91MB To continue click Next Copy the contents of C CleanInstall OS_ Default to C CleanInstall OS_Custom This is so that you are modifying a copy of the OS rather than the original and you can quickly start again if things go wrong Click Browse and browse to C CleanInstall OS_Custom Click Next nLite Presets Import other or load previous settings Right Click for more options Available Presets C Load Last Session on startup If you have run nLite befo
33. re and you are going back to tweak the image settings you used on previous runs will be shown here Select the occasion you want to use and press Load or if you saved settings to a file press Import to load the settings now nlite Task Selectio Integrate Remove Create i Service Pack Hotfixes and Update Packs Drivers Components Unattended Options Tweaks Bootable ISO This is where you select how much or how little customisation you want to do with your custom operating system image Hotfixes and Update Packs Drivers and Bootable ISO are required for the purposes of this guide but recommend selecting all the options have selected in this screenshot niite j This is where you can embed Hotfixes and Update Packs Microsoft hotfixes into the EE EE installation In theory you should be able to embed all of the hotfixes eer i ie ee provided by Sony haven t tried this however because prefer to run Windows Update after installation and get the most current hotfixes that way The one hotfix you do need to include is KB835211 exe http support microsoft com kb 835 221 This is the Universal Audio Architecture system for HD 5 1 audio from Microsoft Do not confuse this with KB888111 exe http support microsoft com kb 888 111 which is very similar but doesn t Gray Prese parce actually work with my Sony PC nLite Drivers I
34. s to install an operating system other than by re imaging the PC back to it s factory default settings This guide is intended for anyone who like me wishes to install the operating system of their choice without the software baggage that comes with the factory installed image It goes into enough detail that a novice user should be able to follow it but it is really intended for intermediate to advanced PC users If you don t know what you re doing you could get yourself into a terrible mess by following this guide and of course it goes without saying that accept absolutely no responsibility for any damage or inconvenience whatsoever resulting from the use of this guide It is provided in the hope that it will be useful but it s use is entirely at your own risk The guide will deal specifically with installing the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system on a Sony VAIO VGX XL201 Media Center PC However the concepts described in this guide are likely to be largely relevant to similar operating systems like Windows XP Professional and media center PCs like the Sony VAIO VGX XL202 When Windows Vista ships in January 2007 will probably create a new version of this guide dealing specifically with that operating system for the VGX XL201 Product Keys This guide was written with the assumption that methods described in Club VAIO forum threads for using the Windows product key from the sticker on the back of your PC would work
35. tibility Enabled DEM Branding Disabled Press Any Key boot message Enabled Remove duplicate files Enabled Remove old BIOS information Disabled Save a copy of your current configuration on the ISO Enabled E Requirements HDD free space requirement Enabled Minimum memory requirement Enabled E Setup look Blale haskaranud Ala Classic This removes the setup background and messages windows 2000 look lt may even speed up installation a little bit nLite tem options in one place to setup before install like path change and General Patches Maximum unfinished simultaneous connections TCP IP patch J 000 iv Also known as the TCP IP patch Enter a value between 10 and 16777215 Current 10 connections Triggers Driver Recompression USB Port Polling Frequency Hz Default iv Increase for smoother USB mouse movement Not for wireless mice Works on Logitech Current 125 MX MS IntelliMouse Explorer 3 Razer Viper and possibly others Triggers Driver Recompression Unsigned Themes Support Uxtheme Patch Enable m This enables you to use any MS Visual Style downloaded from the net doesn t need to be signed SFC Windows File Protection Enabled Default Disable automatic recovery of replaced or deleted system files and folders This disables SFC during and after install drastically decreasing the duration of your installation The patches tab also has n
36. with any of these settings for the purposes of this guide When you have booted into the operating system you might see a balloon message in the system tray appear reminding you to create your recovery DVDs It will belong to a tray icon that that is vaguely recognisable as a CD and a pen Double click this icon or select VAIO Recovery Utility from the VAIO Recovery Tool program group in the Start Menu to activate the recovery application VAIO Recovery Utility Main Menu Select the menu item and click OK we Create Recovery Media Kit _ Recovery Media Kit has already been created Recover Your Computer You can create the Recovery Media Kit again if you lost it Run the VAIO Recovery Utility and select Create Recovery Media Kit Press OK e Press Next VAIO Recovery Utility Recovery Media Kit Wizard Recovery Media Kit Wizard Use this wizard to create your Recovery Media Kit Close all open programs and click Next to proceed E Next gt Cancel VAIO Recovery Utility Recovery Media Kit Wizard Disc Confirmation Check that you have enough recordable discs available If this is the first time you are creating your recovery media you can select the disc type Use 2 DVD R or DVD R 4 7 GB discs Use DVD R or DVD R Double Layer 8 5 GB disc s Cancel Choose the type of DVDs you want to burn don t h
37. you don t contact me for support relating to your Sony VAIO PC or relating to this guide am just a PC owner like you and decided to take the time to write this guide as a courtesy to other consumers who have purchased the same product in the hope that others may not have to go through the same 30 hours of trial and error that had to go through to get a clean operating system installation on my PC It s taken me 12 hours just to write this guide and that s about as much time as want to give for the cause am not an expert in this field or in Sony products in general and do not want to become one For support recommend posting on the Club VAIO forums which helped me to get to the point where could write this guide This guide will be posted on a thread in the Club VAIO forums and if there are parts of the guide which don t work for you or you feel could be improved on please post on that thread in the forums may or may not update the guide but even if don t other users may benefit from the wisdom of your experience Acknowledgements Thanks to Blencogo a Club VAIO member who helped me over the initial hurdle of installing the operating system on a PC with a SATA disk drive and Viiv RAID configuration Thanks to Akash84 also a Club VAIO member for his thorough writing up of the process he went through to make a clean operating system install for his VAIO laptop found here http www club vaio sony europe com clubva
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search