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I have a Sony VAIO VGN-FW190E notebook which I got as a part of my Intel Black Belt award. It came with preinstalled Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-bit operating system.

Since there was no option to get the 64-bit OS when the order was placed, and the notebook came with 4GB RAM which 32-bit OS cannot fully utilize, I have decided to wipe it clean and install Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit instead.

I was aware that Sony doesn't support 64-bit OS on that particular notebook model (even though the hardware is fully capable of that) but I thought I will be able to find all the drivers by "borrowing" them from similar notebook models that come with 64-bit OS preinstalled and I was right (Hint: you can use Vista x64 drivers for Sony VAIO VGN-FW170J) — except for the webcam.

Of course, Vista has installed its own webcam driver, but that generic driver works only with 64-bit applications. In other words, you cannot use the webcam in any chat client because they are all 32-bit. Way to go Microsoft!

After two unsuccessfull chat sessions with Sony Support personnel I have downloaded webcam drivers for 32-bit Windows XP for my notebook model to take a look at the gory details regarding the hardware in question. First I opened the Device Manager, and I found out vendor and device IDs:

USB\VID_05CA&PID_183D&MI_00

Next step was to look at the .inf file, 5U875UVC.inf, and in there I have found the following:

[SourceDisksFiles.x86]
5U875x86.sys=1,,
RUVCXPSCx86.ax=2,,

[SourceDisksFiles.amd64]
5U875x64.sys=1,,
RUVCXPSCx86.ax=2,,
RUVCXPSCx64.ax=2,,

However, I got disappointed quickly after realizing that 5U875x64.sys and RUVCXPSCx64.ax were nowhere to be found in that driver package.

Another fruitless chat session with Sony support (this time I got elevated to the 2nd level support) and all I was able to extract from them was the advice to call the Telephone Support (3rd level) which I didn't want to do because frankly I decided that I have wasted enough time. To cut the long story short, few web searches later I have managed to find some generic Ricoh drivers which had all the required files.

I tried installing those, and of course they work just fine — you can get them here (Ricoh 5U875 UVC webcam drivers, 703KB, Rapidshare).

When installing be sure to select "Have a disk" because Vista will otherwise refuse to load them. You can also edit the .inf file to add vendor and device IDs for your particular webcam model based on this chip.

So, the lingering question of the day is — Why Sony didn't want to provide those drivers to its customers when they clearly exist, and are provided by a third party?

Shame on you, Sony!