Hi Biencogo - I had already done the recovery from the recovery area which you suggest (without any improvement) when I posted (hence my frustration) and the issue is not 'unrequired software' at this stage, but inability to decide whether or not various installed software is required.This is  due to functional issues. E.G. I would very much like to explore various sony instals and options  via the  'sony care' sidebar, but  if it either won't open at all , or has huge blank areas when it does, or if I keep getting error messages such as 'viaoshell is missing'  I'm not going to get very far. I even tried downloading the  'instruction/ operational manual' directly from the sony website (to my other PC - the one I'm using right now, whilst recovering the Sony again, this time directly from the discs I made, to see if that works better than from the recovery area). Perhaps you would be so kind as to try to download this yourself, too, (zip file ae9d100111) and let me know what you think of it ?

Thanks for trying, Biencogo, but I'm afraid you are only following in footsteps already well-trodden by myself. The vaio manual in start menu merely tells you that it must be 'updated' before it can be read - and the update which  follows is as unreadable as that which both you and I have now read. Also visited all the other links you suggested - and more - before resorting to first recovery ... but to no avail. (e.g. the email proforma 'send' button doesn't work and I'm blowed if I'm going to spend a fortune to be fobbed off on the phone). Hence my 'let off steam' posting. To be honest, I rarely yell publicly unless I have exhausted every other means of research and course of action, and my plaintive cry was more to shame Sony than anything else, as I think it's just a case of very bad software design and configuration at the initial programming stage  (they really need telling that sometimes 'less is more') and poor follow-up support,  if you know what I mean. I just wish they would give folk  the option to recover just windows and essential drivers and then choose what they want from the 'extras' - or at least spend less time on treating us all like kids who need a complete program to 'help us to connect to the internet', etc.or filling up every toolbar with 'special offers' - and more time on just getting the important stuff to work first time ! Thanks again for bothering, though :-)