Webcam not working after Vista upgrade to Ultimate

[kichimera]

I have just bought a Vaio VGN-FE41S, with Vista Home Premium installed. I downloaded all MS updates.

Next day I paid for the upgrade to Vista Ultimate and installed that followed by appropriate updates from MS.

Two things then happened. The PC fell silent, and the web cam is not recognised now. I have recovered sound, but am unable to get the camera going.



NB. It says "Motion Eye" alongside the camera lens.

Does anybody have advice please?

[SonyJohn]

Hi Kichimera,

I have the same issue, I have a VGN-AR 21S and I upgraded from XP Media Centre to Vista Ultimate. I too have lost the use of the motion eye camera, I think this is something to do with the Sigma Tell CODEC HD audio driver [see device manager], I have tried to download the new driver 6.10.0.5286 from Sony Downloads but it doesn't install correctly although the computer propertities say the device is working properly.

Other issues I have are Sonic Solutions DLA Driver is not compatible with Vista and causes an incompatibility dialogue box to constantly reappear.
Start up programs are blocked.
The installation wizzard does not always install downloads properly.
Skype will not function.
I guess there are more issues I have not experienced yet.

Generally most aspects of the upgrade have worked but I have no solutions for these issues.

I have telephoned Sony Tech and Microsoft Tech for help on these issues on many occassions to no avail.

I will watch this thread with interest and hope there is a genius out there willing to come to our aid.

Kind regards John.

[kichimera]

Thanks for the interest.

I now have a further issue in that what I can hear when playing via Media Player does not come out in the earphones.

What is very odd is that the TEST function for the earphones produces sound. But the earphone socket logic ignores any other sound source.

Have I wasted my money on this machine?

[SonyJohn]

Hi Kichimera,

Our issues seem very similar and I have read that others have experienced the same. I wish I could help you but so far nothing easily fixable has turned up. Sony Tech say they are still developing new drivers for similar issues and have announced they should be released by end March. [ About now-!].

I have done an upgrade [3 attemps] but not a truely clean install, however the Vista Ultimate upgrade software is sold as being compatible with specific versions of XP and therfore should work without a clean install if you follow the install task list for your specific computer given by the Windows Upgrade Advisor softwore.

At this point in time I prefer to be able to revert back to XP with the simple restore option of pre-installed software. I understand it is possible to load both operating systems and choose at boot up which to use but being a novice I am likely to end up with nothing if I try a solution that is too sophisticated.

Don't give up - you've not wasted your money - eventually Vista will take over from XP and these experiences will add to our learning of computers in the longer term.

And Hey-! If you find a solution before me please let me know and I'll buy you a pint and drink it for you.


Kind regards John.

[kichimera]

I can report some success.

Today I discovered where to download updates - which for me is

http://www.vaio-link.com/downloads/downloads.asp

I spent all evening going through them all - downloading, installing, and of course restarting where required.

One of the updates crashed repeatedly - some message from C++ and advice to contact the support team though it didn't say how to do that, and the message couldn't be copied via Ctrl-C so I am unable to be more precise.

The camera is working.

The sound comes to the headphones unlike before.

A curious artifact remains from all this though...namely that when I click on music in Windows Explorer it plays as expected, but NO PROGRAM shows up, so I cannot stop it if I have selected the wrong one for example. I closed Windows Explorer and loaded Task Manager vua Ctrl-Alt-Del and selecting Task Manager.

The running applicatiopns window was blank, ie. it showed no program running the music (eg. Media Player which I would have expected to pop up), although the music played merrily on!

Anyway a better situation so a Thank You to Sony.