Older Sony Voice Recorders on Windows 10

Older Sony Voice Recorders on Windows 10

The problem

I recently broke out my older Sony voice recorders to begin using them again for EVP work in the field and at home.. I had a couple of Sony ICD-P720s and upon connecting them to my Windows 10 system, I was  surprised to see they were not supported in Windows 10.

The Windows 10 system recognized a voice recorder, but the driver to make it work was not available.

So, I did some research and found a post that said I could download the Sony Digital Voice Editor Software version 3.3.01 and the drivers would install. The bad part was that Sony has removed this support for the latest version of the Digital Voice Editor from their site. I needed the 64-bit version of the software. Just my luck.

This is par for the course with a lot of electronics manufacturers these days.

I find these electronics companies to be rather ridiculous for removing software support for older hardware just to drive sales of new products. It goes against common sense, but Sony is a corporation after all and desires sales.

I DID find a complete ISO for the 3.3.01 version on archive.org, but it didn’t support my PX recorders after I installed it. I do have a couple of the older P520 and P620 recorders I rarely use anymore and this version of the software will support those.

Worse yet, the 3.3.01 version of the software is purposely hobbled to NOT work under Windows 10! It will run in compatibility mode if you select “Vista” when you run the setup program. I tried to jury-rig the package with a known good 64-bit PX driver install but it proved more hassle than it was worth and I backed out everything to start fresh.

No matter. I figured I’d find a way around this limitation. I DO have a Windows 7 system that has a 32-bit version of the software on it, so it wasn’t hopeless but I really want to use that system only for really necessary cases of old hardware. I wanted a Windows 10 capability for these PX-720s.

Luck was on my side. I found the answer in a slightly older version of the Sony Voice Recorder Software that Sony left a link to on their site.

The Fix

After I scanned around some more, I found the following link to the 64-bit version of the software WITH PX support!

• https://www.sony-asia.com/electronics/support/downloads/Y0015358

This is the prior version of the Digital Voice Software (3.2.01), but it DOES support the 64-bit version of the driver I needed. I downloaded it, installed it and Voila! I can download my voice files on a Windows 10 system!

Better yet, no compatibility mode was needed. It just ran the install like any other package on Windows 10.

I have no idea how long Sony will leave this version up, so get it while the getting is good. I will preserve a copy of this software just in case someone else needs it.

Now I can keep using my older recorders and happily keep on EVPing with my trusty P-720s!