Installing Windows 7 Ultimate on Vaio

or...
UPGRADING VAIO's WINDOWS HOME PREMIUM TO WINDOWS ULTIMATE

This procedure is a summary of the original text in portuguese, which contains the context and details.

When installing a new operating system, one of the challenges is the drivers' setup.
Here, I tell you a fast and easy alternative from my direct experience.

Suppose that you desire to upgrade the original Windows, usually Home Premium, to Ultimate, or yet install the Ultimate from scratch.
Anyway, you may get this situation: opening the device manager you get many warnings telling you that some drivers are not working properly.
How to fix this?

Burn a DVD with the whole content of C:\ProgramData directory from you original installation.
The one that comes with your notebook.
Certainly you've done an image, or backup. Restore it on another partition and burn the DVD.

Note:
if your Ultimate is an upgrade license, install the Ultimate without formatting the original partition, otherwise, if full, format it.
Why?
It happens that if you ignore this detail, you may have problem with your windows activation.

Sometimes you can have the right drive.
The point is not about what you have, but how you handle it.

Once the installation is complete, go to the device manager and check the devices with warnings (yellow icon), indicating that they are not properly installed.
Right click over it, and choose "update driver" option.
Certainly, you can get this by many ways, but what matters is to get the panel where you can point the directory from which the driver is supposed to be found.
Point to the DVD that you burnt, on the root, or top (ProgramData folder).
Just click to go.
Check the return.
If successful, go to the next.
If not, don't worry, go to the next anyway.

IMPORTANT TIP:
Begin with the most important drivers - first motherboard's.

After you've finished, restart the system.
Check again the device drivers.
Repeat the procedure one more time over the remaining ones, that still have warnings.
If still unsuccessful, download from Vaio site the respective executables to install the defective drivers.

The point is that sometimes one driver installation may depend on another.
If you were successful with the main drivers (motherboard's), you'll have a good probability to fulfill you task with the remaining ones, using the executables.

I tried using just the downloaded executables, strictly, but It didn't work.
In my case, motherboard did not install from the executables.
And without motherboard working, the system got instable, and the others failed too.

The procedure shown here, using the stuff from the original installation was successful for all defective drivers, except the USB, which I used its executable.

If you get problem running the executable, try to change its properties.
Got to the compatibility tab, switch to execute as administrator, and check to use "compatibility mode". Try first Windows XP(service pack 2),
according to the Vaio's direction about a notebook with Intel i5.


This procedure, using the original stuff, was very successful for me, when the "usual one" failed.

Good luck.