Upgraded/downgraded to Windows 8.

[glyningram1979]

Ok. I have a Sony Desktop VPCL13M1E.

Was running on Windows 7.

Last night, I made the foolish mistake to 'upgrade it' to Windows 8, paying £24.99 for the privilage. Took about 6 hours to download. When it finally finished, after about a further hour of waiting, my computer was ready. And I now may as well chuck it in the bin. I have lost my Microsoft Office suite for starters. It deleted it. I don't have a copy on disk, so, unless someone somewhere knows how I can download a copy for free, my £150 version is gone forever.

Meanwhile, it's ****** my computer entirely. All the Vaio software has gone in the upgrade, so I can't even use the touch-screen anymore (it used to work just fine. Now it's dead). The resolution also doesn't look 'right.' It's just a mess, basically.

I'm thinking of just giving in and reinstalling Windows 7 but... Does anyone know if there's software updates/drivers out there etc that will get my PC to some kind of useable state??

Hope someone can help. Please be quite simple in your answers. I'm not a computer technician.

By the by, anyone considering getting Windows 8: Don't. It's ****. PLEASE, THOUGH, SOMEONE HELP ME SORT MY PC OUT. It's barely 18 months old.

Message was edited by: -Soup-

removal of expletives

[Blencogo · Accepted solution]

Hi glyningram1979  and welcome.

You are right, it was a mistake to try an upgrade to Windows 8 without reading the Windows 8 FAQ Sheet provided by Sony.  There is a sticky thread at the top of this forum by Thalamus and here is the direct link: -

http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/topics/landing/windows_upgrade_offer

If you put your model into the 'model checker', you will see that your model is not supported for an upgrade to Windows 8 and Sony do not provide drivers, utilities and applications for your model.  When this is the case, it is best to avoid Windows 8 until some workarounds have been developed.

What to do now?

When you installed Windows 8, you should have followed Sony's Upgrade Guide and when the Windows 8 Installer gets to the "What to Keep" page you should have chosen to  “Keep Windows settings, personal files, and apps.”  This would have kept some of the Vaio Software and your copy of Office. Do you have an activation key for Office? I don't think the Office Starter is available any more.

You have 2 choices: -

1.  Take your Vaio back to factory set-up using your Recovery Discs (You did make some didn't you?) or the Hard Disc Recovery Partition (if this still exists).  This will replace Office Starter and the Vaio software (including the Touch Screen driver).  You will have to install all Windows and other software updates but at least you will have a workable Vaio.

2.  If you made no Recovery Discs and the Recovery Partition is formatted, you can buy replacement discs from Sony and return to Windows 7 or you can try to get as much of Windows 8 to work as possible.  Sony only support an Upgrade Migration by keeping your existing apps so it will never work completely as it did with Windows 7.  I see the model VPCL221M1E is supported by Sony and you can find the drivers under the Windows 8 Tab here: -

http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/VPCL21M1E_B/updates

You can try the Touchscreen Driver - it should install on your model.  You can try the Graphics driver, although it has a different nVidia GPU it may install.  Other Utilities may also be installable but this will be trial and error.

Returning to Windows 7 is the safer option - you can then try an UPGRADE to Windows 8 at a later date.

[brndrhm]

i have a sony all in one vpcl13m1e running win 7 and managed to upgrade to windows 10 but the nvidia graphics card was not recognised it just had the microsoft generic driver which made the graphics/icons too large, having looked at the spec of the next model up vpcl21m1e on the compatability checker for win 10 the graphics card had no problems so i decided to download the graphic driver for that model but the win 7 one and everything seems fine. so far though i still have a problem with the cd drive not recognised,hope this is of some help to people experiencing the same problems