Sony Vaio VGN-TX56SN Downgrade to XP Success
Now that I have downgraded my Sony Vaio VGN-TX56SN to Windows XP it runs like lightening. It starts up about 12x faster than it did with Vista, and the whole experience is totally different.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking Vista, I’m just saying that Sony Thailand made a big mistake choosing to supply Vista on this machine.
Sony DO NOT provide XP drivers for this machine, I had to go to the Sony UK site and download drivers for the Vaio VGN-TX5XN, which is the same. The only bit I cannot get working is the bluetooth, but as I don’t want to use blusetooth this is no real hardship for me.
I’m not enterely sure why Vista was so slow on this machine, the Sony shop (Chi Chang) offered to install more memory but I did not see that an increase from 1gb (supplied) and 1.5gb (Max) would make such a difference.
These days I use a Apple Mac for everyday computing, but my little Sony is so easy to carry and has such amazing battery life that it’s hard to resist using it when I’m on the move. Interestingly I read a website with instructions on how to install Mac OSX Tiger on my Sony Vaio, but it’s a bit too much trouble for me, I simply dont have the time.
If you own a Vaio VGN-TX56SN in Thailand (or anywhere) then get rid of Vista and Install Windows XP, it makes such a difference.
I expect to get better battery life too on XP, as with Vista the HD was continously churning away and it took so long to boot under Vista that it must have had a negative impact on battery.
If you need any help with drivers for this model, just ask.
Tuesday, August 7th 2007 at 5:34 pm
Andy, I recieved a Vaio vgn-sz4xwn/c as a present. I agree entirely with your views about Vista, but cannot find the xp downgrade? I have the xp drivers and the utilities. Please can you tell me where to find them. I will keep searching the sony site.
Desperate Dave.
Wednesday, August 8th 2007 at 4:14 am
Your model is different to mine and will almost certainly have different drivers.
My Vaio, which I bought in March, was available with either Vista or XP, but the model number is slightly different. I simply found the model number of the one that had XP when new and downloaded the drivers from Sony UK. (mine is a Thailand model but the drivers for UK models seem to work fine)
In your case you need to search Sony UK for a SZ or SZ4 model that matches the spec of your own Vaio, but with XP as the operating system, in particular it should have the same processor, sound and video chips etc. memory or hard disk size don’t matter to the drivers.
Whilst they will not sell such a model today, sony Uk have the details of models up to about 5 years old on their support site.
I have heard from some people who say that they have made Vista run much faster by changing a lot of default settings in the performance manager. I know my own Vaio was virtually unusable with Vista installed.
Be sure to make the recovery CDs for vista before changing as one day you may want to change back!
Good Luck
Andy
Monday, November 19th 2007 at 8:35 am
Jack…
Here is an extremely helpful post….