Sony has expanded its use of the VAIO brand, which can now be found on notebooks, subnotebooks, desktops and media centres. Network media solutions by Sony will also carry the VAIO brand.
VAIO notebooks are currently shipped with Microsoft Windows 8 or with Windows 8 Pro
In mid-2005 a hidden partition on the hard drive, accessible at boot via the BIOS or within Windows via a utility is used instead of recovery media for many VAIO laptops. Pressing [F10] at the VAIO logo during boot-up will cause the notebook to boot from the recovery partition; where the user has the choice of either running hardware diagnostics without affecting the installed system, or restoring (re-imaging) the hard drive to factory condition – an option that destroys all user installed applications and data). When first running a VAIO system out of the box, users are prompted to create a set of recovery DVDs, which will be required in case of hard disk failure and replacement with a new drive. In cases where the system comes with Windows 7 64 bit pre-installed the provided recovery media restores the system to Windows 7 32 or 64 bit. Therefore, the user must create their own recovery disks.
