Sony VGX-XL201 manual

Sony VAIO VGX - XL201 Media Center PC Clean Instal l Guide Version 1.0 Author: William Warby[...]

Introduction When I p urchased my VGX-XL201 Media Cen ter PC, I fully expected it to arrive preloaded with a myriad of freeware, trial ware and Sony- branded software produc ts and I wasn’t wrong. Such is the trend when you buy almost any PC these days, and I don’t doubt that many consumers are very grateful for it. I am not one of those consum[...]

Product Keys This guide was written with the assump tion that methods d escribed in Club V AIO forum thread s for using the Windows produ ct key from the sticke r on the back of your PC would work in this sligh tly different scenario. My e xperience h as been that following th e instructions in this guide to the letter, I was u nable to activate Wi[...]

Creating the R ecovery DVDs When you first power on you r PC, you will have to go through the motions of finali sing your in stallation of Windows. This involves pairing the wireless keyb oard to the PC, choosing regional settings and time zone , accepting Microsoft’s EULAs, enab ling automatic updates, naming you r computer, sett ing and Ad mini[...]

• Run the VAIO Recovery Utility an d select “Create Recovery Med ia Kit”. • Press “OK”.[...]

• Press “Next”.[...]

• Choose the type of DVDs you want to bu rn. I don’t h ave any double layer record able DVDs mostly becau se they are hu gely more expensive th an single layer d iscs at the moment) so I used 2 DVD-Rs. I rec ommend doing the same since I this guide will assume the file struc ture of the 2 disc approach. • Press “Next”.[...]

• Press “Start” and give feed the application with blank discs as required. I made two copies of ea ch for good mea sure but you only need on e set. • Burning th e discs on my V GX-XL201 took about 2 0 minutes for the Application Rec overy Disc and 30 minutes for the System Recovery Disc. • Label your DV Ds as instructed by the app licati[...]

Returning to the Fa ctory Install ed Image Should you e ver feel the need, you can restore your system to it’s factory default image at an y time using these discs by b ooting from the System Recove ry Disc. When the System Recovery disc boots, you will have some op tions to choose fro m: You can recover just the C : drive, leaving your D: drive [...]

Preparing for t he Custom Op erating System Install Image You need some files from the C: drive and from your Sy stem Re covery DVD. Althou gh you can pull these files in when you n eed them from their cu rrent locations, for con venienc e I advise copyin g them so that you have everythin g you need all in one place ( this is particularly usefu l i[...]

Files from the Sy stem Recovery DVD Copy the contents of [System Rec overy DV D]VAIO Applic ationsDrivers to C: CleanInstallDrivers Tip: These files can also be found at C:Drivers, and c an also be do wnloaded from the VAIO Link website Copy the contents of [System Rec overy DV D]VAIO Applic ationsHotfix to C: CleanInstallHotfi x Tip: All [...]

Creating the C ustom Operati ng System Inst all Image Sony do not provide you with an installable ope rating system CD, so you need t o obtain one somehow. W indows XP Media C enter Edition 2005, t he operating system we will be using in this guid e comes on two CDs. I don ’t know whether it is possible to obtain these CDs from Sony, becau se I a[...]

• Run nLite and press “Next”.[...]

• Insert MCE 2005 CD1 and press “Browse…” to selec t your DVD d rive. • nLite will ask you where you want to save the CD installation files fo r modification. Click “OK”.[...]

• Browse to C:C leanInstallOS_Default and clic k “OK”. • nLite will copy the content s of the CD to your hard drive.[...]

• nLite will ask to copy CD2 t o the same location as CD1. I nsert CD 2 and press “Yes”, then browse and select your DVD drive. • nLite will copy the content s of CD2 to C:CleanI nstallOS_Default.[...]

• Don’t click “Next” yet. It h as been my experience that you may wan t build your nLite m odified operation system install image a few times b efore you get it right, so you want to be able to easily get bac k to this p oint. • I recomm end taking a bac kup of your C:CleanI nstall folder at th is point, for example to a n external h ard[...]

• Copy the contents of C:CleanI nstallOS_Default to C:CleanI nstallOS_Custom. This is s o that you are modifying a c opy of the OS rather t han the original, an d you can quick ly start again if th ings go wrong. • Click “Browse” an d browse t o C:CleanI nstallOS_Custom. • Click “Next”.[...]

• If you have run nLite before and you are going bac k to tweak th e image, settings you u sed on previous run s will be shown h ere. Select th e occasion you want to u se and press “Load ”, or if you saved sett ings to a file, press “Import” to load the settings n ow.[...]

• This is where you select how much or how little cu stomisation you wan t to do with your c ustom operating system image. • “Hotfixes and Update P acks”, “Drivers” and “Bootable ISO ” are required for th e purposes of th is guide, b ut I recommend sele cting all the options I have selected in this screenshot.[...]

• This is where you can em bed Microsoft hotfixes into the installation. In theory, you should be able to em bed all of the h otfixes provided by Sony. I haven’t t ried this however, beca use prefer to run Windows Update after installation an d get the most current hotfixes that way. • The one hotfix you do nee d to include is KB835211.exe ( [...]

• This is where you embed device drivers into the installation. • Click “In sert” and select “Multiple Driver Folder”. Br owse to C:CleanI nstallDrivers and click “OK”.[...]

• nLite will scan the folder you selected for d rivers which it can use in th e image. It won’t be able to use all of the m because some of the drivers provided are in the format of a setup executable rather than an unpackaged I NF driver (for the VGX- XL201 t his includes TV Cap ture, Wireless LAN and Intel Quic k Resume). Still, it’s a good[...]

• I don’t know which of these RAID drivers you actually need, but selecting all of the m does no h arm so I recommend doing that. Select all the drivers and click “OK”.[...]

• Once you have selected all th e drivers, you should see something like this.[...]

• In order t o prevent you from rem oving stuff you actually want on the ne xt page, this compatib ility list lets you choose what functionality you actually n eed from Wind ows. Just select everything you might p ossibly want to use in Windows.[...]

• None of this is requ ired for th e purposes of this guide, bu t it’s cool to be able to knock out things from the installation you d on’t want. Also, if you knock out enough c omponents, your final image will fit on a CD rathe r than a DVD. I select lots of things in this list, inc luding all languages and keyboard layouts other th an the o[...]

• Change as many or as few of these options as you like. T he only one you need t o enter is your produc t key. This can be foun d on the sticker on the back of your PC. • Suggestion: Set “Unatten ded Mode” to “Fully automated”. U nder the Users tab , set an “Organiz ation” and t he “Full Name” of the Adm inistrator accou nt. If[...]

• Again, this p age has no impac t for the purposes of this guide. Chan ge the options as you see fit.[...]

• The patc hes tab also has n o relevance to this guid e, but I recommen d the settings I have selected h ere. • The “Maximum unfinished simultaneous c onnections” option h as to do with a security fix Micr osoft put in place that limits unfinished TCP/IP connect ions to 10. It can however negatively affect P2P file sharing performance. •[...]

• I love this t ab. Again, noth ing to do with this proc ess, change all or none of these featu res and it’ll m ake no difference to the process. Wh at this tab does t hough, is allow you to change hundreds of settings th at you probably go th rough man ually after you’ve installed Windows. It won’t do every last thin g you want to change b[...]

• You’re ready to kick off the process of actually ch anging the installation C D contents. P ress “Yes”. •[...]

• The process is complete ( nearly). We still need t o embed the files we copied from the C : drive. • Copy the contents of C:CleanI nstallI386 to C:CleanI nstallOS_CustomI3 86, replacing an y files that alread y exist. • If you have gone over the 700MB limit for CDs, I strongly re commen d copying the following folder s to C:CleanI nst[...]

• I suggest burning the installer t o an ISO image. T hat way you c an copy it, back it up and easily recreate it if the disc gets lost or d amaged. Ch oose settings as shown in this screen shot and pre ss “Make ISO”. • Save the I SO to wherever you like. I saved mine to C:CleanI nstallWinLite.iso. • You’re done with nLite.[...]

• Use your preferred tool to burn the image to a DVD (or a CD if you’ve m anaged to hack out enough from the insta llation that th e ISO is under 700MB). • I used Roxio DigitalMedia SE which is p reinstalled on the PC. It’s not a very full-featured burner b ut it’s good enough for th is job.[...]

Installing the C ustom Operati ng System Inst all Image OK, by t his point you should have an operating system disc c ompletely customised to your requirem ents with your Win dows produc t key, device d rivers and any other c ustomisations you saw fit to make. The annoying t hing is that if th is disc doesn’t work for you, depend ing on how far y[...]

After the d isk as formatted your compu ter will restart. If you u sed nLite to fully automate th e installation, the next time you interac t with your compu ter will be when it has finished in stalling and Windows has l oaded. During the installation on my PC (presum ably after the graph ics card driver is loaded ) the screen resolution is in crea[...]

Post-Installati on Cleanup • For some reason unknown to me, as I ran through the installation, this w orked example Wind ows created two entries in b oot.ini instead of one. This has th e annoying effect of makin g you wait 30 seconds or press an y key during start up. I don’t know wh y it did t his, but it’s easy to correct. • Press “Sta[...]

You may want to format your D: drive n ow if you didn’t d o so already during th e installation p rocess. At this point I like to reassign m y drive letters, b ecause Wind ows will almost certain ly have p ut removable drives b efore the DVD drive which is one of my pet hat es. Do this using Disk Manager which c an be accessed by selecting “Man[...]

Software Instal lation Now you should be at t he stage where you have a working, clean installation of Win dows, bu t you’re not finished ye t. There is at le ast some software which Sony p rovide that is u seful or even nec essary. At this point I like to join my wireless network activate my copy of Wind ows (it’s probab ly nagged you to do th[...]

Intel Viiv Softwa re You’ll probably find you act ually can’t install t his one until after you run Wind ows Update. It come s up with an error during insta llation which is fixed by a hotfix alth ough I d on’t know which one. Intel Viiv software le ts you create a Media network for sharing content with other d evices on your n etwork, includ[...]

equivalent product to do it, b ut it saves you several step s in the reinstall process an d is a n ice clean way of getting b ack to a fresh newly installed operatin g system (assuming th ere are no significant hardware changes in between reinstalls). Now you nee d to consider what software app lications are missin g from your installat ion that yo[...]

Codecs and Vi deo Playback You’ll find u ntil you’ve installed WinDVD or e quivalent, you c an’t complete Media Center setup. When you come to select the num ber of speakers you h ave it will probably tell you t hat “The video decoder has eith er malfunctioned or is not installed”. It is not installed. You don’t n eed to install a c omp[...]

I have found that if I choose slightly d ifferen t settings, I end u p with a jittery signal in Media Center on live TV, and sometim es no sound on live TV. I’ ve also managed to break soun d completely on my system once b y messing about with different options in K-Lite C odec Pac k and I cou ldn’t recover from it, so you do need to select the[...]

Application Re covery DVD There is a ve ritable treasure trove of s oftware on your Applicat ion Recovery DVD. M ost of it you w on’t want – in fact, the only ap plication on there that I want is Roxio Dig italMedia SE, and only that because I don ’t have any other software for burning CDs and DVDs n or do I have the desire to buy or steal an[...]

Create yourself a folder where you want to extract the application s to. For now, I’ll a ssume its C: SonyApps. Create an MS-DO S batch file (just crea te a normal text file with the exten sion .bat, e.g. Extrac tCD.bat and put the following test in t he file: C:KCAP.EXE E:A PRSP-006356-08 .pac C:SonyApp s C:KCAP.EXE E:A PRSP-009681-01 .p[...]

C:KCAP.EXE E:A PR3SP-012765-0 0.pac C:SonyAp ps C:KCAP.EXE E:A PR4SP-008670-0 1.pac C:SonyAp ps C:KCAP.EXE E:A PR4SP-009472-0 2.pac C:SonyAp ps C:KCAP.EXE E:A PR4SP-009576-0 6.pac C:SonyAp ps C:KCAP.EXE E:A PR4SP-009948-0 0.pac C:SonyAp ps C:KCAP.EXE E:A PR4SP-010848-0 0.pac C:SonyAp ps C:KCAP.EXE E:A PR4SP-011614-0 0.pac[...]

SP-006356 -08 Java Runtim e Environment 1.5.0.06 SP-009681 -01 Adobe Reader 7.0.5 SP-010812 -01 Adobe Ph otoshop Element s 4.0 SP-005054 -04 Memory Stick Fo rmatter SP-010923 -01 Adobe Prem iere Element s 2.0 SP-007028 -03 Music Server Con troller SP-007630 -06 Installs some c rappy HTML c ontent th at links to a special offer for disc ounts when b[...]

SP-010838 -02 VAIO Med ia Integrated Server SP-010862 -03 VAIO Med ia Redistribution SP-011275 -08 WinDVD BD fo r VAIO (This d oesn’t seem t o be the regular version of WinDVD, bu t special Blu-Ray version, presu mably for the VGX-XL202 Blu -Ray model) SP-011275 -10 WinDVD DB fo r VAIO (Seems t o be exactly the same as SP-011 275-08 except the da[...]

Conclusion That’s it. By th is point hopefu lly you have a clean operating system install on your VGX- XL201 VAIO Media Center, and only the software you want in stalled. I hope you found t his guide useful. Respectfully I ask that you don’t contac t me for support relating to your Sony VAIO PC or relatin g to this guid e. I am just a PC owner [...]

Acknowledge ments Thanks to Blen cogo, a Club VAIO member who he lped me over the initial hurdle of installing the operat ing system on a P C with a SATA disk drive an d Viiv RAID configu ration. Thanks to Akash 84, also a Clu b VAIO member for his thorough writing up of the process he wen t through to make a clean operatin g system install for his[...]