Sony Walkman NWZ-S638F Installation Problem Solved

[justin1972uk]

I just bought one of these yesterday and had hours of "fun" trying to get my PC to recognise it was connected...

The player was advertised as "Plug & Play", so I didn't bother installing the software from the enclosed CD. After plugging the player into the USB port, Windows XP recognised it as a removeable media device but couldn't install it.

I right-clicked on my My Computer, to look at the Properties. Under the Hardware tab, I chose Device Manager and saw the exclamation mark against the Walkman. I right-clicked it and chose to Uninstall, then plugged the player into another USB slot.

This time, I inserted the enclosed CD and tried to install the player by choosing the location of the driver myself (my CD drive). It seemed to find something but failed to complete with the error message "A service installation section in this INF is invalid"...

I uninstalled from Device Manager and then unplugged the player again.

After a short Google, I realised other Windows XP users were having the same problem - and it wasn't necessarily a Sony Walkman problem, but a generic issue with MTP (media player) devices and Windows XP Service Pack 2.

The problem was solved by downloading a fix from Microsoft, here:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=71641&/umdf.exe

I downloaded this to my desktop, double-clicked it, let it install and then rebooted my PC.

The next time I plugged the Walkman in, it installed no problem.

[CrowdAds]

[Dreamnine]

If you have automatic updates running on your PC you should never have this problem.

[justin1972uk]

Originally Posted by Dreamnine

If you have automatic updates running on your PC you should never have this problem.

I do have Windows Update set-up to update automatically. However... I don't believe the Microsoft fix has ever been released as an official patch, as the Terms & Conditions advised that it was still in beta testing.

[Dreamnine]

My PC and my netbook had no problem recognising my Sony, so I don't know what the problem could be.

[Baggins]

Originally Posted by justin1972uk

The problem was solved by downloading a fix from Microsoft, here:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=71641&/umdf.exe

Thank you so much for your tip. I have been looking for this for hours! Even the customer service couldn't help.