help me find a driver

[scotswahey]

Hi All

having a nightmare that can be quickly solved if i can only find the driver.

so i have the sony vaio vgn-aw41mf over 10 year old but its still my workhorse.

worked fine and the feckin upgrade to win 10 due to win 7 support ending.

long story short days and days of googling and frustration i have now put on a fresh instal of win 7 everything fine except webcam. ok thats the back story heres what i need.

in device manager i have no built in webcam or imaging device section.

the webcam is showing as base system device its the only yellow exclamation laptop has.

tried everywhere to find the driver i think the manufacturer is ricoh?

many others have suffered this issue and i think the closest i got to a solution was this guys answer below

If anyone is having trouble getting this driver to install on their Windows 7 Vaio, the problem is not the driver itself, but the installer, which does not work with Windows 7. I had the same problem as everyone else, but I downloaded/installed the Universal Extractor (link removed cause it flagged as spam) and the driver installer (link removed as it flagged as spam). I ran the Extractor on the Driver's Installer, which extracted all of the files. I then executed the x64 installer file (RIDCAM-14566600-US\TEMPEXEFOLDER\DPInst64.exe). This properly updated the driver and my webcam has been functioning normally since. Hope this helps others!

Someone must have a clue what driver i need 

so again i have the sony vaio vgn-aw41mf with win 7 home premium the original OS the issue is no webcam recognised. I have installed all available drivers from sonys support page

[scotswahey]

another solution might lie here in something called Sony Visual Communication Camera driver but again i cant find version for my laptop

[scotswahey]

ps when i do try to run the RIDCAM-14566600- driver it returns the error can only be used on vista.

tried all the compatibility modes all to no avail

[Blencogo]

Hi scotswahay.

Sadly this is not an uncommon problem.

In about 2008 Sony changed the camera drivers from the Sony Visual Communication Camera driver (VCCP6 is the latest I can find on the VGN-AR51M) to using generic windows video drivers. I am not sure, but think that your model uses Windows generic drivers and the number of times users lose use of the camera is sadly large and I don't know a reliable fix.

I don't think the Ricoh VCCP6 driver will install but I can send it to you if you want to try. This driver has the 'DPInst32 and DPInst64' files you mention from the solution you have seen. The UK Ricoh driver I have in an archive is "Camera Driver (Ricoh) 6..209G - 6.1005.209.0_logo".

It is no longer available for download from Sony EU as support for older Vaios has now been removed. If you want me to send it, PM me an email address and I'll send it as an attachment. Not sure if Google Drive still works!.

Sorry I don't have a reliable solution.

[Blencogo]

Can we keep this in one thread or it will get confusing.

You say you have 2 devices with a warning in Device Manager. Can you give us the Hardware ID of the unknown device? Is it SNY5001?

[scotswahey]

Blencogo

thanks for the information. 

Apologies for the 2 threads ive since gave up on win10 and rolled back with a fresh instal of win7 home premium.

now i only have 1 yellow exclamation showing as the base system device.

Please send that driver to me and ill extract the dpins64 give it a try.

really appreciate your efforts

[Blencogo]

Driver sent.

The missing base system device is the card readers - MemoryStick, CF and 2XSD.

There are four memory card drivers on the support website for your model:-

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/support/laptop-pc-vgn-series/vgn-aw41mf/downloads

[scotswahey]

Thank you once again Blencogo.

So progress in a way soI installed the card reader drivers, scanned for hardware changes and look whats appeared.

Are we getting there?

[Blencogo]

Hmmmm...

Some progress - yes.

I think a ‘Code 10’ error often indicates faulty hardware. I’m guessing in this case it is possibly because this is the wrong driver for your camera.

However, it is a bit strange as the list of drivers seems to include one of the generic Windows drivers ‘usbvideo.sys’.

I think I have a Vaio that uses generic Windows drivers. I’ll have a look and see how it appears in Device Manager and which Windows 7 drivers it uses. I’ll post back later.

As I said earlier on, this is a common problem without a reliable solution - but let’s keep trying!

[Blencogo]

My Windows 7 Vaio has no specific camera driver and uses generic Windows drivers.

Is shows as USB2.0 Camera in Device Manager and it is working fine:-