Sony VAIO - revert back to W7 successful

No advice asked for here, it's just a story.

I have several laptops, including a ASUS i3 which I took to W10 successfully. This worked so well that I decided to try the same thing on my favorite machine, a Sony VAIO VGN-FW590C. I was initially attracted to this machine because of the build quality (back in 2009). It's really well built and has been 100 percent reliable since day one.

This machine has a 3.06 GHz Intel Core2 Duo processor, an AMD Radeon HD4650 graphics card, 4gb memory, 500 gb disk, three usb sockets, hdmi port, etc. For 2009 this was an advanced machine, and rock solid. I loved the VAIO and it's no wonder that Sony gave up, there must have been no profit on these machines.

I blame microsoft for what happened next. I listened to the the mermaids singing across the rocks, and finally agreed to the W10 upgrade. As I found out later, the video card has no W10 divers and the result was terrible. Microsoft, I feel should have stopped me and prevented the upgrade. But it let me continue and some kludge graphics driver ended up in there and the world was unreadable on my second monitor, an ASUS panel.

Search for drivers, looked at registry patching with the help of this site, but after days I reverted back to W7. It made it thanks be. If you have one of these "no drivers" graphics cards, don't do it, be happy with W7.

There's no solutions...

TrueNorth said:

No advice asked for here, it's just a story.
If you have one of these "no drivers" graphics cards, don't do it, be happy with W7.
There's no solutions...

You would be mistaken. There are solutions for Windows 10. You didn't ask for advice, but just to let the facts be known for others reading this - there are solutions that work well in Windows 10.

Solved ATI Radeon HD 4200 driver for 64-bit Windows 10? - Windows 10 Forums

Ah, OK. The old Radeon legacy driver was working on my desktop which had a generic HD4250 graphics card. I do understand what you mean about some laptops/tablets needing something more specific. My Nextbook Flexx 10 tablet required the old driver for screen rotation sensor to be installed. When I installed it in Windows 10, the screen was 90 or 180 degrees off. What I had to do was restore the Windows 8.1 that it came with, export the registry key that corrected the orientation, then import that key into the Windows 10 registry.

That's pretty fine work, but beyond the expertise and experience of most people who look here for solutions. I tried several ideas and solicited advice from some of my friends but after the solution seemed beyond something that could be found easily, I gave up.

I think that AMD should have written W10 drivers for their older cards, and I hold it against them that they didn't. I'm a Canadian and I knew a bunch of people at ATI Technologies which is the DNA of AMD graphics card software. I was working at Research In Motion (Blackberry) and we talked with them a lot. I know cellphones a bit better than Windows machines.

I've taken apart several VAIOs and they are really jewels. They were a couple hundred more, but the purchaser got a really superior set of hardware, a nice design and super build quality. I'd buy another one but Sony is outta there.

The final word. I asked our tech guy about the oldest computer around here, a Dell Vostro from maybe 2006 or 2007. It has an nvidia card in it, and nvidia wrote W10 drivers for all their older cards. The Vostro had no problem with W10. Shame on AMD, their solution was "just stop whining and buy a new machine". No more AMD for me, you could get stranded..

.