UPDATE! (May 4, 2021): A reader named Delka commented an alternative way of getting this device to work. Give his method a try if the original method doesn’t work for you.
Here is Delka’s method verbatim:
หมายเหตุ: ตัว Wireless LAN Adapter (UWA-BR100) ได้มีการหยุดผลิตไปแล้วและไม่มีจำหน่ายอีกต่อไป. ถ้าหากท่านยังไม่มีตัวอะแดปเตอร์เหล่านี้, ท่าน. Sony uwa-br100 usb tv dongle is a usb wireless lan adaptor that enables you to connect wirelessly and access internet through your wireless lan ready tv. As of july 2017 sony will no longer support dash and functionality will end. Operating instructions before proceeding, 1. Where can both use with the use it does.
There is still a way to make this shitty thing to work in Windows 10 and below. In Win10 21H1 version, still works with a method a found.
Download this driver for Windows 8 and Windows 10: https://down.rocketdrivers.com/drivers/36485
Manual UWA-BR100 Device Driver Update Steps: The default driver versions for UWA-BR100 devices can be obtained through%%os%% or through Windows® update. Built-in drivers will support basic functionality of your USB Wireless Adapter, but usually not more advanced features. Follow our full step-by-step guide to update your Sony device drivers. Therefore a usb wireless lan adapter like the sony uwa-br100 is not needed to connect the tv to the internet. The sony wireless adapter uwa-br100 wireless connection. The uwabr100 wireless lan adapter will provide wlan connectivity to any sony bravia wi-fi ready blu-ray/ dvd player or television.
Setup, just ignore the errors.
And then use the “Update driver” option in the device manager.
Go to the option that “have a disk” and select the driver you just downloaded.
You should select the Windows 8 inf file. “athuw8.inf”.
It’s in the win8-driver-win8 folder.
Sony Usb Wireless Lan Adapter Uwa-br100 Driver
After that, u should see ur device as “Actiontec Wireless” blah blah but who gives a damn, its works.
Have a nice day, fuck you SONY.
UPDATE (Nov. 7, 2020): Some people are saying that this “hack,” or whatever you want to call it, no longer works with the “latest” version of Windows 10 (whatever that means — I assume they’re talking about version 2004). Others say this hack still works just fine. So I just want to be upfront and tell anyone who finds this page that unless somebody figures out a workaround and shares it with me so I can post another update, this “hack” may not work to get the UWA-BR100 correctly installed on your PC.
However, just two months ago, I verified this hack still works on a fresh install of Windows 10 (version 2004, build 19041.508), so I don’t know why it still works for me but is not working for other people.
If anyone experiences this issue, please let me know specifically what version number and build number of Windows 10 you’re running. (Type “winver” without the quotes into the Windows 10 search bar or magnifying glass icon. Then run winver. It will display your version and build numbers.)
And keep in mind that this Sony USB dongle works automatically with Linux. No messing around with drivers is required to get this thing working if you’re running Linux. “It just works.” Here’s a user-friendly version of Linux with an interface that any Windows user should feel comfortable with: Linux Mint.
The Sony USB Wi-Fi Adapter UWA-BR100 is a son of a bitch.
Long story short to make the Sony USB Wi-Fi Adapter UWA-BR100 work in Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10:
1. Plug the Sony UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter into your computer. The driver installation fails. Que lastima. (What a pity.) Keep the Sony UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter plugged into your computer though.
2. Download the driver for the Atheros AR7010. I was able to get it at this website that is broken as of May 21, 2016. If that link doesn’t work, just Google around to find the driver elsewhere (Here’s another place to download it). (Here’s YET another place to download it). Here is a working link I created on April 6, 2020, to download the driver files : click here to download the driver files.Please let me know if “they” take down the driver files again, and I’ll reupload them.
If the weird Czeckoaloavaxiaskian site works for you, great. I clicked on “Click for download.” It’s not a big file, about 33 megabytes, but it took a few minutes for the site to let me download it. It said “Searching file. Please wait…” for awhile. It’ll prompt you where to save the file eventually. (Obsolete info)
3. Unzip the file and run setup.exe. You’ll get an error message saying something like the device isn’t attached or it’s disconnected or something. Just click OK or Yes or whatever you have to tell it to allow the driver installation to proceed anyway. Even though the installation “fails,” it puts the driver into your Windows’ local database of drivers, which is necessary for the next step.
4. Open the control panel. Open the device manager. Use the device manager to tell Windows to use the Atheros AR7010 driver for the Sony UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter. This step and the next steps are shown in the pictures below.
Update!- Sept. 21, 2016
Here are additional instructions to get this little bugger to work in Windows 10. Big thanks to my main man Carlos Francisco Ferreira from Brazil who figured this out.
So you do all the same steps like we did in Windows 7 or 8.1, but then when you get to the part seen in the screenshot directly above, Windows 10 hides “Atheros AR7010 Wireless Network Adapter” from your list of available drivers for some reason.
To make it appear, click “Have Disk.” Then browse to find the file netathurx.inf. It is located at [*wherever you unzipped the zip file*]win7-9.2.0.19-whql-fullDriversWin7x64. The netathurx.inf file is in the x64 folder. Just click that file and then “Atheros AR7010 Wireless Network Adapter” will magically appear in your list of available drivers!
Then you just install the driver the same way we did for Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, and voila! You’re surfin’ the net with the Sony USB Wi-Fi Adapter UWA-BR100 in Windows 10!
And even though it’s been more than three SIX(!) years since this blog post was originally published, we can still proudly say, “Fuck you, Sony!”
😀
[Original directions. Only here for shits and giggles now.]
Fuck you, Sony USB Wireless LAN Adapter Model No. UWA-BR100
If you’re here, it’s probably because you plugged this piece of shit into your computer expecting Windows to automatically install the driver for it and bing-bang-boom DEVICE ACTIVATED and you’re surfing the ‘Net! But you’re here because that’s not what happened. Nope, Windows doesn’t automatically install the driver for this piece of shit, and it’s Sony’s fault, probably. (I don’t know anything about computers, especially network stuff.)
What follows is how I got this device to work in Windows 7 Ultimate.
First, a bit of background: My wife is hella dumb when it comes to technology. And before I married her, she used to make her technology-purchasing decisions based on tea leaves or something. Point is, she bought random shitty stuff before I took over all tech duties in the house. (One time I read a “tech dad” blog in which the guy referred to himself as his home’s “dadmin,” and I wanted to end all life on the planet.)
So in about 2010 or so when everybody just had to buy a Blu-Ray player, she went and bought a Sony Blu-ray player, model BDP-S370/BX37. This piece of shit advertised itself on the box as having Wi-Fi ability straight out of the box, but that is a fucking lie. Nope. What everyone who purchased this Blu-ray player came to find out is that to enable this fucker’s Wi-Fi ability, you have to buy a completely separate USB Wi-Fi adapter. And not just any USB Wi-Fi adapter. Oh no. It has to be this goddamned official Sony brand UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter. And it costs $70. Motherfucker! Most USB Wi-Fi adapters are like $25! What the fuck? Sony, you assholes!
So my wife went ahead and bought the official Sony Blu-ray player Wi-Fi adapter because she wanted to be able to watch Netflix. She plugged the adapter into the Blu-ray player, and it worked, kinda. It would drop its signal all the goddamned time and it took forever to get through a show on Netflix. So she wound up using the fucking Wii to watch Netflix instead. Waste of goddamned $70.
So whatever. We had this very expensive yet pretty useless Sony Wi-Fi adapter just sitting around gathering dust. One day I thought, “Why not plug this fucker into a regular computer and use it as a Wi-Fi adapter?”
So I tried and… Nothing. Windows can’t install the driver for it. It’s weird. It names the device CEWL 1 and says, “Sorry. Can’t do shit with it.”
So I googled around. First I found the official word from Sony regarding their very special Wi-Fi adapter: “Sorry, but the UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter is specifically designed to only work when installed in the Sony BDP-S370/BX37 Blu-ray player. It will not work in any other device.”
Fuck you, Sony. You lying assholes. A USB Wi-Fi adapter is a goddamned USB Wi-Fi adapter. Don’t you fucking lie to me.
After further googling, I found some people saying that you can get the UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter to work in Windows by installing different drivers for it. They said the driver for the Atheros AR7010 Wireless Network USB Adapter would work for the UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter. That is true, but they made shit more complicated than it needs to be.
People said to download the drivers from http://www.atheros.cz/getfile.php or http://www.wireless-driver.com/atheros-ar7010-wireless-usb-windows-driver/, unzip them, open all the fucking config files inside, and replace certain lines inside the config file with new lines. I tried that but I couldn’t find the lines I was supposed to modify in the first place. So instead, I tried to just use the Atheros setup.exe program to install the driver. That didn’t work either.
Sony Usb Wireless Lan Adapter Uwa-br100 Driver Windows 7
This is what worked for me: I right-clicked on the UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter in my Device Manager and clicked around to manually install the driver for it. Windows gave me options to install whatever the hell drivers I wanted for it. I could install drivers for floppy disk drives, USB-powered vibrators, one-button mouses in case I’m an Applefag, whatever. Windows warned me that manually installing a random driver could break everything, but I soldiered on, and was able to manually install the Atheros AR7010 Wireless Network USB Adapter driver for the Sony UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter, and it worked.
Wireless Lan Adapter
Here are some screen captures of the process:
Bada-bing-bada-boom, I’m surfin’ the ‘Net on a Sony UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter!
Eat it, Sony! You fucking liars! How you like this Internet? Yeah! You like that, you lying cunts? Lie to me about this Blu-ray player being Wi-Fi-ready, then lie to me that the exclusive Wi-Fi adapter for it won’t work anywhere else. Fucking liars.
I’d also like to note that when I plugged the Sony UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter into a computer running 32-bit Linux Mint 17, it worked instantly and automatically. Sony must have inserted secret code into this device to tell Windows, “Hey man, don’t let me work on you,” when you plug it into a Windows computer. But Linux don’t listen to nobody, least of all piece of shit proprietary motherfuckers like Sony!
Fuck you, Sony!
Sony Wireless Lan Adapter Uwa-br100 Driver Download
Epilogue: I taped a little note to the Sony UWA-BR100 Wi-Fi adapter with instructions on how to make it work on a Windows machine, so when I forget this adventure, or if someone else should try to use the device, they won’t have to go through the headache I just did to make it work.
In conclusion, fuck you, Sony.