2-bits

I might be getting a bit ahead of myself, but I seem to have solved my problem. I think I was right that it does somehow get baked into the hardware - powering down my VAIO, removing the battery and putting it back in seems to have made the computer forget its setting, and now when I check the battery indicator, instead of reading 80% (not charging), it says "Charging." Since this was my primary problem, I don't really need the solution to this anymore, but I thought I would share my solution for anyone else struggling with this problem. I still would like to know how to get the rest of those options back though!

I recently reformatted my hard drive and installed Windows 8. I redownloaded the Vaio Control Center from the Sony website and it seems like some options are... missing. http://i.imgur.com/5Wpq5.png This is kind of a problem. Before I reformatted, I turned on battery protection, which prevents the battery from charging more than 80%. It seems that Control Center bakes this setting somewhere into the hardware, because now its stuck at 80% (even in Ubuntu) and I have no way to change it back. I have other problems (Keyboard backlight, screen brightness controls don't work), but this is my main one. I tried downloading an earlier version of control center, but it would not install, even in compatibility mode. I'm at a loss as to what to do. I could install windows 7 but I don't want to undo everything I installed just to toggle a setting. Any ideas?