Sony Support = WIN

So one of the clients I support purchased two Sony Vaio VGN-TZ195N laptops. They arrived with Vista Business pre-installed.



Sony VAIO VGN-TZ195N/XC 11.1" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor U7600, 2 GB RAM, 48 GB Flash Drive, Vista Business)

I started out by removing Vista Business and installing our volume licensed Windows XP Professional software. Everything went great except for one thing...

The on board Sprint broadband card (Novatel Wireless Expedite EV-DO Rev.A) did not have Windows XP drivers on the Sony eSupport website. The eSupport website was pretty honest about it saying "we don't yet offer the SmartWi utility for Windows XP". however I figured I'd be able to hack something together.

I wasn't. I tried grabbing the XP Expedite drivers from the OQO website (which uses the same mobile broadband card) and it didn't work. I tried playing around with Novatel's support website to see if I could finagle it into giving me XP drivers, with no success.

So I had to give up, order Vista restore dvds from Sony (Yes, I forgot to make backups, and no Sony doesn't make some of their shared libraries available on their eSupport website!), wait for them to arrive, and re-install the Sony certified Vista installation.

It was not a happy day for me. It was not a happy month and a half for the two executives that received brand new Sony Vaio laptops loaded with Vista either.

That's where Sony's technical support comes in.

I called, mentioned the problem, told them I downgraded (hah) to XP and that even after installing the new SmartWi utility that it wasn't detecting the hardware.

It would give me four devices, "data interface" with no drivers.

I got referred to level 2 tech support with no hassle at all, told them the issue, waited about five minutes, and I was given a link from one of their technicians to download new Novatel drivers. I installed the drivers, and it worked!

The whole tech support experience? under 15 minutes.

HUUUUGE props to Sony technical support. Wow.

Dell has a lot to learn.