Sony Vista Premium Upgrade Problem

[ColTom2]

Hi:

I have a Sony VGC-RA716G desktop computer with Windows MCE2005 installed
that I have wanted to upgrade to Vista Premium for sometime now. However,
the Windows Vista Upgrade advisor indicates that everything for the upgrade
is fine EXCEPT my installed Giga Pocket MPEG2 Encoder/decoder board w/tuner.

I have sent numerous inquiries to Sony about when and if they were ever
going to issue a Vista driver for this hardware and have gotten absolutely
nowhere. I might add other Sony owners have encountered this same problem
with similar results.

In reading various postings apparently some have been able to make this
MPEG2 hardware work with Vista Premium, while most others have not. The ones
that have said they were successful have never specifically indicated
exactly how they were able to make it work. One indicated that he ran all
Sony Vista updates, even though they were not applicable this hardware, and
was finally able to watch Live TV. However, he apparently really had no idea
as to what he had done to make it work.

I want to purchase and use the Vista Premium Upgrade version, which of
course is cheaper. But if I do purchase the upgrade I do not want to lose my
TV with MCE.

If anyone does know how for sure that I can upgrade and use my currently
installed MPEG2 board I sure would appreciate hearing from you. Hopefully
someone can provide me with specifics on how to do so.

Also if you do not know a solution to my problem, does anyone have a
recommendation for purchasing a replacement MPEG2 encoder/decoder board
w/tuner that will work with MCE2005. I went by Best Buy and looked at a ATI
TV Wonder 650 which is supposed to be Vista compatible, but when I went on
the internet I find that this board has problems with Vista and MCE with
encoding/decoding.

Thanks,

Col Tom

 

[Robert Martin]

I use ATI Elite 550 Tuners with Ultimate.
I also use Snapstream BeyondTV. It's the best
for TV recording and watching.

As far as a upgrade,

Go to you local retailer that sells OEM versions.
Buy a new Hard Drive around $60 for a 320GB
Buy Ultimate OEM around $200 to go with the new hard drive

Unplug your old hard drive!!!!
Install new hard drive.
Do a clean install to a new Hard Drive.
Then if you have problems you have your old HD to just plug in
and boot.

Vista on a older system can be difficult!!
By old I mean 2 years.

Good Luck,

Robert