I've looked at Genden and think £200 odd quid is too much for me to spend on something i may only use a few times a year to purely check fault codes,clear them.my laptop is vista and did hear it doesnt work with 409.1

But could i just buy this cable http://www.gendan.co.uk/product_VAGUSB.html

and then download a shareware version of vag-com?

does anyone know if it would work on a Fabia vrs? 2005. or is to new and needs a CAN connection?

Yeah that car will need a CAN connection i think. Those cables aren't very good at the best of times, i struggled with one for the best part of 6 months

What about the VAGCOM owners map in the sticky at the top of this forum, if anyone's near by you im sure they'll sort you out any time you need it for a few bottles of whatever they drink or maybe £10

does anyone know if it would work on a Fabia vrs? 2005. or is to new and needs a CAN connection?

Refer to this chart for compatibility: Compatibility Chart

Looking at the chart, you may be able to use the low cost unit from Gendan with VCDSLite. The question is will VCDSLite have the coverage for you car that you might want. VCDSLite is basically a revised 6 year old program. It was revised to work on Windows Vista and 7 but it did not receive any feature/platform support improvements to my knowledge. Before you would decide to buy a VCDSLite license, make sure VCDSLite in shareware mode is doing most of what you want it to do.

See the Function Table for a comparison of a full version to the "Lite" version of VCDS

Edited 9 April, 201016 yr by bearthebruce