Windows 8.1 on Sony Vaio VPCSD28EC

So the wife started to use her Sony Vaio again, and just as luck would have it, it broke itself. According to her, notification windows with Chinese characters started popping up. She tried escaping them away, but they kept coming back, so she powered off the laptop. When she tried booting up again, the laptop would display the Windows 7 splash screen, then hang.

We bought the laptop in China a couple of years ago. My guess is that it's actually running Chinese Windows, and the guys in the shop simply installed some translation software to make it look like English Windows. That would explain the Chinese error screens, now that the system is malfunctioning.

At this point, I have the option of pressing F10, and restore from the hidden system recovery partition, or do a clean install. You can probably guess which option I chose. My only worry with doing a clean install of Windows 8.1 is that the function keys won't work as intended anymore. Other people managed to get the function keys working properly after a clean install, but their Vaios are better supported with proper Windows 8 upgrade drivers from Sony. For the Vaio VPCSD28EC, the support page is here. The download page is pretty sparse though. Just the original drivers and applications, plus Windows 8 versions of Vaio Care and Vaio Control Center.

After installing Windows 8.1, Ethernet and WiFi are detected properly. Windows Update downloaded the Bluetooth and AMD Radeon graphics drivers. I executed all the drivers and application installers from the support page. Some installed properly, while some aborted themselves due to non-compatibility with Windows 8.1. Also installed the upgrade apps for Vaio Care and Vaio Control Center, but didn't seem to do anything. The function keys for volume control and page navigation work, but not for brightness control and sleep. It's a good thing those can be done from Windows itself.

For brightness control, an option is to enable adaptive brightness. Another option is to bring up the Charms Bar (hover on lower-right corner), select Settings, then Brightness. Or simply Winkey+I. Problem solved.