Vaio Care Windows 8

[akaskar]

Hi!

So:

1) I have a VPCSA Vaio Laptop (S-series)

2) I bought it with Windows 7 Pro

3) I was using battery care function, which allowed me to charge the battery only up to 80%

4) Then after some time I upgraded it to Windoes 8 Pro

5) Then I thought about reinstalling Windows 8 (this feature is now available in Windows 8, just like if you use Vaio Care)

6) Vaio Care is gone

So, I thought that since during Vaio Care reinstallation it didn't dissappear, Windows 8 reinstallation would not remove it as well. I was wrong.

Then I tried downloading tons of Vaio software, both for Win8 and Win7 (After Win8 didn't work): Vaio Care, Vaio Power Management, Touch Pad, etc.

However, after I installed the software, the battery care functions weren't there. So now I always have to deattach the charger, to imitate Vaio Care functions.

Can anyone explain me what to do: how to get the Battery Care functions with final links

Thanks for helpful answers!

[Blencogo]

Hi akaskar and welcome.

I presume you have used the "Refresh Windows" option in Windows 8?

If you have, you have done the equivalent of a Clean Install of Windows 8 and all your Preinstalled Sony software and all other programs will have been deleted.  It is not just Vaio Care that will be missing.  It seems that Microsoft do not make these implications clear enough when you use this feature. Your problem now is that Sony do not support a Clean Install.

I don't think there is any way to get everything reinstalled again without returning your Vaio to factory settings using the Recovery Discs you made before upgrading and then upgrading again using the Sony Windows 8 Upgrade Kit and following Sony's instructions exactly.

It is not possible to simply install the Sony provided drivers.  Many of these are upgrades and need the original programs to be already installed or available from within the Recovery Partition. You can try reinstalling the Windows 7 drivers from the Preinstalled Drivers and Utilities Tab on the Support website and then try to install the Windows 8 upgrades but I don't know if it will work and some software is not available for download.

[poid88888]

Ideally run the Vaio Windows 8 upgrade tool provided by Sony. Yes it's big and takes awhile, but it puts things in in the right order. You can remove and upgrade elements later as you want. The tool is here:

http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/swu-download.pl?upd_id=8153

For the battery functions, you still need a couple things from Sony's Windows 7 files, however. Look in your model's Windows 7 files on Sony's site and install the "Sony® Shared Library" and the "Sony® Firmware Extension Parser Device Driver" in particular.

If it's not working yet at that point, you may need to run the Windows 8 "VAIO Care ™ and VAIO® Update Uninstaller" and also separately uninstall the Vaio Control center, and then reinstall the latest Windows 8 versions of the Vaio Control Center, Vaio Care, and Vaio Update. Manual downloads from their website will likely give you more recent versions than those put in by the upgrade tool.

But the critical missing elements are the Sony® Shared Library and Sony® Firmware Extension Parser Device Driver that are listed for Windows 7. They would have simply carried over in an upgrade install, but people are missing them with the fresh installs.

(And if you "refreshed" you computer with the built-in feature, it's going to wipe everything other than the operating system, including stuff like Vaio Care, and make you start over. You'd still be fine just running the upgrade tool as your next step though. It will do everything for you other than those Windows 7 files you need.)