techblog 

I have a SE P990i - not a bad device if over the last 3 years you’ve been able to stomach the infinite software updates/bug fixes/patches and workarounds - mine’s actually now usable.

Running the bundled software ‘PC Suite’ is required for backups (amongst other things) - and backups are essential. But having changed to a x64 system (XP) it turns out that Sony Ericcson do not support x64 systems (except within Vista Ultimate x64 - but not confirmed) - ie. PC Suite won’t install - and that’s SE’s offical line and last word on the matter. They’re not replying to customer service emails on the matter, either. Not even an automated reply - just silence (I think this will be my last ‘phone from SE).

Some get round this by dual booting 64 and 32-bit Windows and running the software when necessary under 32-bit - but I’m not too confident in this area and wanted a more ‘familiar’ solution. There are other solutions (while staying within x64) for SE’s slackness kicking around the web - however all of them involve only partial sucess - ie. you can have the ‘phone recognised by the system as a mass storage device, have the drivers working so the USB cable can charge it, even update the OS via SE’s update service - but you still can’t get the PC Suite to synchronise and perform backups. After numerous attempts and tweaking I have however managed to get them all working correctly. This obviously was the result of sheer hard work and luck was not involved in any way. Cough. I can’t guarantee it will work for other SE models, though my P990 was very happy.

Needless to say, backup your ‘phone before messing with it - although this concerns the software on your PC, not your ‘phone, so you should be just fine.

First, here’s a summary of the current solutions and drawbacks, with links:

• http://webmotion87.googlepages.com/sonyericssonp990(i)undermicrosoftwindows Summary: Extract the .exe and 64-bit .msi file - modify and re-run. This will give access to the SE Update Service but not the PC Suite.
• http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php?t13052-50.html Summary: Extract the .exe and retrieve the .msi file. Mess about with the installation .msi and then re-run it. This solution nearly got me up and running - but failed - I got the same old “This operating system is not adequate..” error in the final stages.
• http://www.wilson-it.com/sony_ericsson_download.htm. Summary: Some clever people at Wilson-it rewrote the SE drivers; quote “Basically the DSS-25 has a USB to Serial converter chip in it made by FTDI Ltd that was slightly modified for SE. We modified a BETA x64 driver of that chip to work with the SE DSS-25. Why SE couldn’t do this I have no idea.”. This solution will, on it’s own, allow you to recognise the device (the ‘phone, not just the sync-station as claimed) on your system via USB so you can charge it. Allegedly the update service will work as well (needing just a USB connection) but I haven’t tested this bit (you’ll know why, if you own a P990 ;-). This is not a fix for the installation of PC Suite, mind -however some people have reported success.
• Do both. Install the drivers and then re-run the modified .msi. Summary: You can get a bit further but sadly, for me, it was the same old installation error in the end.
• Bluetooth only: Apparrently, “floAt’s Mobile Agent 2.1 beta 3 ( http://fma.sourceforge.net/ ) works great with Win x64 and my Z800i. Synchonizing and file transfers, no problem”. Summary: Not tested this as I’d like to stay with the OEM software, so cannot comment. And it’s Bluetooth only, as stated.

Tweaked version:

1. Download the Wilson-it drivers (http://www.wilson-it.com/sony_ericsson_download.htm) and install them (all of them - when one is finished, it will prompt another). This will enable USB charging.
2. Get the latest PC Suite (67mb) from SE’s site (http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/support/softwaredownloads/p990i?cc=gb&lc=en) which is “PC Suite for Smartphones 1.5.8″ or use an existing (older) version - I used my older version that came with the original CD.
3. Download an .msi extraction tool such as Orca (I used this from http://www.technipages.com/download-orca-msi-editor.html) or other program (strangely the most ‘popular’ seems to be something called “Less MSIérables” - but their site is offline and still is so I have no idea what it’s like)
4. Use a program such as WinRar (http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm) to extract the PC Suite for Smartphones .exe package. Extract to a new folder where you can get at the resulting files.
5. From the resulting WinRar extracted files, run the “PCSuite.exe” (not the PCSuitex64.exe some solutions say “do” but that didn’t work for me) until you hit a wall (error report or such) - do not cancel or abort the installation just yet. Search your C:\WINDOWS\temp folder for the “still running but about to disappear when you abort the installation” .msi file - this will be called “PC Suite for Sony Ericsson.msi” or possibly “ah7v5gdo6.msi” or similar ‘random’ string. Tip: if you search for this before you begin and leave the window open, the window will update when you run the .exe showing you the right file.
6. Right click on this to edit within Orca (or drag and drop into Orca). Whilst open in Orca, locate the entry “LaunchCondition”, right-click and and “drop table”. So far, this is the standard solution which didn’t work (yet) for me.
7. My tweak - an additional error for me was “The current version of msxml6.0 is not compatible with…”. So, whilst still in Orca, locate (using the find tool) “msxml6″ in all entries (I found two) and choose “drop row”, thus deleting that call/check. I suspect the critical one is in the InstallExecuteSequence table.
8. Save the resulting file (note that’s Save and not Save as) - this will overwrite the .msi in memory. Still without having aborted the initial installation, double click and run this .msi file - this will bring up a new install window. Keep going and it should install the PC Suite. If it complains about drivers, decline Windows’ offer to search the web and locate the extracted Wilson-it drivers in the same directory as last time.
9. If you have no luck at this point with the installation of the PC Suite try the x64 version of the .exe and the subsequent .msi. I know I ran both or all variations before finally running the “PCSuite.exe” and resulting .msi which worked.
10. At this point, although PC Suite runs (hopefully) it wil still not recognise the ‘phone. I tried restarting the PC, as well as unplugging the ‘phone repeatedly. I swear this did not work - until around 48 hours later when I plugged my ‘phone in to charge - when suddenly Windows detected ‘new hardware’ and asked for “drivers”. Pointing Windows to the same extracted Wilson-it drivers as before (surely they’ve already been installed?) allowed PC Suite to recognise and connect to the ‘phone. Maybe it’s just a question of a few restarts and re-re-plugging in of the ‘phone. Not very technical this very last bit, but at least it worked.

In hindsight, I suspect that if you install the drivers last - after the “.msi PC Suite” part - you may have a quicker result than I did.

Useful links:

http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php?t13052-50.html
http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=170665