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I sympathise with Mr. P Smith's letter "Dial-up Dilemmas" (PCW October 2007, Letters) about the problem of updating PCs through a slow modem line or with no regular internet connection.
I was confronted with a similar situation updating laptops without using the office internet connection, where it is forbidden to connect a laptop in order to prevent infected computers offering backdoor access to the enterprise network.
My research directed me towards two very useful, and free, tools. The first is Bart's Preinstalled Environment bootable live windows CD (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder), which allows a system to be booted from a virus free CD system and then, optionally, to be scanned with, for example, Mcafee antivirus.
And secondly, Autopatcher (http://www.autopatcher.com), which creates a single CD with all of Microsoft’s critical and recommended updates and many other updates (Java run time and Flash player, among others).
Both these tools can be burnt on to CDs and used on any PC and, most importantly, no network connection is required.
Tim Wilson
Hi guys, I'm a student in UK and this is my first post and coming out of EXTREME urgency. I have a vaio FE21M (white) bought may 2006 which is now under 2 year extended warranty(expensive affair). Right now my vaio is at sony's UK repair centre due to a major battery issue and I need your advice asap as I feel im being penalised for no fault of mine. I'll write the story in steps:-
1) 3 months back I had sent my vaio for repair as I felt that my battery was getting overheated and the battery charging(lighting bolt) icon in the taskbar used to never go off even when my battery reached 100% level(unlike my lenovo laptop in which it did go off at 100% and said 'charged'). I assumed from the start that it is normal. At that stage my battery still gave 2 hours back-up(reduced) and sony sent it back saying that it's ok after extensively testing it.
2) A month back one fine day my laptop just stopped recognizing my battery's presence. Even though plugged into the laptop the taskbar showed 'battery not present/on a.c. power only' like it does when you remove the battery. No amount of re-inserting/re-booting for next 3-4 days got it to be recognized by the system and obviously the power adaptor worked fine to run the laptop. The battery gave perfectly good back-up till the night before and just DIED suddenly! I needed the laptop for exams so used it for a month on ac power keeping my battery separate.
Then after 25 odd days when I plugged in the battery a few times(it still din't appear) at home it suddenly got recognized at one boot-up with the battery in,i.e.,the icon showed the battery ID with the charging 'lightning bolt' icon on it and battery details. This amazed me but the battery din't charge up at all even if left charging for more than a day.THE LEVEL STAYED AT 0% with 'charging' being shown!! I obviously called sony to take it away knowing something is weirdly wrong but regretting my laptop recognizing my battery for I knew they would say its dead by 'normal' use!!
*WHAT COULD CAUSE THE BATTERY TO NOT GET RECOGNIZED AND THEN RANDOMLY RE-APPEAR ONE DAY AND NOT CHARGE UP???
3) Sony calls me back and obviously says that the battery is dead and told me to shell out £200+ for replacement and labour since the battery is not covered under warranty. This was totally unacceptable to me after having shelled out £180 a month back on extended warranty and having seen my battery DIE all of a sudden. I told sony what all had happened and asked them for an explanation which they havnt provided as yet. My point is that the battery death IS A CONSEQUENCE OF SOMETHING BEING WRONG WITH MY LAPTOP'S CHARGING MECHANISM OR THE NON CUT-OFF OF CHARGING being the cause.
Sony keeps calling and saying we have passed the info. to the repair centre and they have tested it and said that the battery is dead so it will cost for replacement and i keep telling them to tell me if the 'death' is natural or a result of some other fault??!
I have found examples in US of people having the same problem and sony having mailed out new batteries to them free of charge outside the 3 month period. I faxed sony these documents to ask that why don't I get the same treatment in UK. Till date they keep calling to repeat that I wont get a free replecement but are never able to answer my questions and say they will escalate my case to higher level. It's been 1 and a half months now and I refuse to take back my laptop till they answer my questions which they never do.
**I think they are passing the buck onto me and not seeing it as their fault esp. when i had sent it for repairs 3 months back on suspicion of something being wrong and battery over-heating and back-up times reducing**
So,PLEASE ADVICE ME ASAP AS TIME IS RUNNING OUT AS TO WHAT DO YOU FEEL IS WRONG WITH IT AND WHAT SHOULD I DO??SHOULD I GIVE UP AND PAY FOR A NEW BATTERY OR FIGHT AS IM JUST A STUDENT AND CAN'T KEEP DISHING OUT SO MUCH MAKING ME REGRET EVER HAVING BOUGHT A SONY. THANKS.
Posted by Vidur Gupta | August 21, 2007 5:28 PM
My sony vaio laptop just stopped recognizing my battery's presence. Even though plugged into the laptop the taskbar showed 'battery not present/on a.c. power only' like it does when you remove the battery.The battery gave perfectly good back-up till the night before and just DIED suddenly
PLEASE TELL ME WHAT SHOULD I DO FOR IT TO WORK .
Posted by sandeep | November 24, 2007 9:07 AM