Dave-H

Hi again. I spent a long time yesterday trying other drivers. Version 7 (7.0.6.4) seemed to be the best bet as it's a much simpler installation, without all those video files for the Elan control panel. That version has what I assume is a much simpler control panel, which does work although it only shows the button options, which don't actually work. It appears to write all its registry entries correctly, although the settings entries seem to be with the service entries on this version (HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Elantech\SmartPad), not under the HKCU\Software\Elantech\SmartPad key. Sorry to say that I am really starting to lose enthusiasm for this now. I actually believe that the touchpad has been designed only to work with the Asus software, which cannot be made to work on XP. Even if by some remote chance a workaround was found (I only want to disable "tap to click", I couldn't care less about anything else!) there is still the graphics driver issue as well. That entry in the Elan tab on the mouse properties, where it's always identified just as a "Standard PS/2 Mouse" rather than as an Elan touchpad, is the killer I think. The driver doesn't know what it is, and therefore can't talk to it. No amount of editing of the INF files seems to ever change that with any driver. It either says that, or there is no device displayed at all. I'm sorry, but I really don't think that this would be any different on a new installation of XP, because it's not actually a problem with the operating system, it's a problem with the hardware. The fact that the drivers don't work on Windows 8.1 either, in fact doing exactly the same thing as they do on XP, would seem to prove this to me. This is probably heresy, but what I'm thinking of doing now is to "upgrade" the XP installation to Vista. That should do an update without me having to reinstall everything, unlike a Windows 7 update. Having looked in the files for Asus Smart Gesture with CFF Explorer, it does look as if it will run OK on Vista, and I'm hopeful of finding a compatible graphics driver too. Sorry to be defeatist after all the help I've been given.

Sounds like the same issue I had a week or so ago using Yahoo's e-mail system. I suddenly found I couldn't send with Eudora, although I could receive OK. Windows Live Mail 2009 wouldn't work either. I didn't try Outlook Express but I'm sure it would have failed as well. It appeared that the SMTP server had stopped accepting TLSv1 logins, and the clients concerned could not use anything higher. I fixed it with a Hermes Mail update to Eudora, which adds TLSv1.2 capability to it. Someone later reported that it was working again for him on Outlook Express, and I then confirmed that by sending from Windows Live Mail, so it might have been just a temporary glitch, but it was failing to send for several days! Even if this wasn't permanent, I'm sure ISPs will stop accepting old protocols eventually.

I tried an experiment seeing if I could update the mouse driver in Device Manager. I pointed it at the INF file in the folder where the driver files were unpacked, and something very odd happened! I wasn't offered any choice of drivers, it immediately installed something called "Finger Sensing Pad", by a company called Sentelic. This has installed another folder in Program Files called "FSP", containing a lot of dll files and a program called "FspUip.exe" which appears to be the control panel. If I run it, no window appears. The program runs for about five seconds in Task Manager, and then closes. I am at a complete loss to see where this program has come from, there is no mention of it in the INF file we've been working with, it doesn't seem to be referenced in any of the other files in the installation folder either! The Elan tab is still there in the mouse properties, but there is now no device listed. EDIT: OK, I found where it came from, there were two INF files in my INF folder with two different versions of this software. I thought if you asked the system to look for a driver in a particular folder that was the only place it would look, but it seems it looked in the whole INF folder too! I have no idea why those files were there, but they're not there any more!

Neither of the INF mods seemed to make any difference. DriverView shows ETD.sys loaded and apparently OK. Incidentally, ETDCtrl.exe is running from boot, from the registry "run" key. I guess that's normal behaviour. Attached is the INF file from the Asus driver on Windows 8.1, in case it provides any clues. AsusSmartGesture8.1.inf

OK, I will try the INF mod and report back. The Regmon log is attached. I'm not sure why the entries for RapportMgmtServ are there at the bottom, it was supposed to be filtered to only show the ETDCtrl.exe entries. Regmon.log

I didn't think that registry permissions were an issue with XP? The Dell control panel is certainly accessing the registry, and actually appears as ETDCtrl.exe, which would bear out that it's just a Dell "skinned" version of the Elan control panel. It's doing a lot of "QueryValue" entries, but not "SetValue" entries, except on the "SmartPadDisplay" key, nothing on the "SmartPad" key. I'm still thinking that the device entry on the "Elan" tab on the mouse control applet should say something other than "Standard PS/2 Mouse". Surely it should say "Elan Smart Pad" or something like that. I can't help but think that the driver still isn't working because it's misidentifying the hardware.

I tried that Dell driver, with pretty much the same result as with the others. The Dell control panel appears to work, but changing any settings on it does not "stick", when I go back to the page again the settings have reverted. It doesn't seem to be changing the relevant registry settings.

@win32 Yes, that is a pity, but thanks very much for the suggestions, this is teaching me something new every day! I may re-visit the option of trying to get just the driver and settings part of Smart Gesture working, ignoring the control panel, but I'll try the driver that @jaclaz mentions first. I'm beginning to think that we will never find a driver that just works as it is, but I haven't quite given up all hope yet! Cheers, Dave.

OK, I made the same change on AsusTPApi.dll. The error is now that FlsFree can't be found in KERNEL33.DLL. I guess that function isn't in the xompie version either?

Thanks, I made that change, and the same change on "Import Directory" on AsusTPConfigure.exe, but I'm still getting the same error about "LCMapStringEx" when I try to run it.

I assume this is the file called "kernelxp.dll"? I've renamed it to "kernel33.dll" and put it in the system32 folder. Opening dwmapi.dll in CFF Explorer, I can see something called "Import Directory" and something called "Import Adder", but no "Import Table".

With that dwmapi.dll now I'm getting "The procedure entry point LCMapStringEx could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.DLL". That looks much more like the sort of message I'd expect, but doesn't look too optimistic!

Thanks, I will give that version a try!

Ah, right! They were set to "0006" and "0000" originally, Vista of course, which looks hopeful that the program will work on Windows 7 if I end up having to go down that route. Now I've changed them both, I'm getting a different error message - "The application failed to start because dwmapi.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem." That file does not exist on the XP drive, but does exist on the 8.1 drive in \System32. Copied that across and the message is now "The procedure entry point -CxxFrameHandler3 could not be located in the dynamic link library msvcrt.dll". Looking at the Asus file in standalone Dependency Walker there are quite a few error reported, as you would imagine. Shall I send you a copy of the file to analyse yourself? If it's possible for that file to be made to work without errors, I think there's a fair chance that the rest can be. It is part of the control panel though, so would it perhaps be better to concentrate on the actual driver files? I really couldn't care if the control panel doesn't work, the important thing is that I can change the settings and they work, even if I have to do it in the registry!

OK, with some more registry transplants from 8.1 I now have an icon for the Smart Gesture control panel in the Windows Control Panel. That runs AsusTPConfigure.exe, which reports as not a valid win32 application. Started on that with CFF Explorer VII (the version I already had, I hope that's OK) and I have changed the MajorOperatingSystemVersion value in the "Optional Header" section to "0005", and the MinorOperatingSystemVersion value to "0001". It hasn't made any difference, is that all I should need to do? The Dependency Walker section doesn't seem to show any errors. I notice it was built with Microsoft Visual C++ 8. Is that an issue?

OK, I'll do that and report back! It may be a while as I've got to go off and do some other stuff now.

Oops, our posts crossed! That driver is just AsusTP.sys as far as I can see, no settings panel or anything. As I seem to be using AsusTP.sys already, is there any reason to try a different one?

I've now tried replicating the 8.1 installation on XP, copied all the files and registry entries. Also manually updated the mouse driver, which is now an "ASUS Touchpad", using AsusTP.sys in addition to the normal MS files. I used the INF file in the Windows 7 x86 folder. I now even have an icon in the system tray for Asus Smart Gesture, but it's inactive. Trying to run the control panel fails unfortunately, because virtually every executable file says it's not a valid win32 application. Surprisingly, not all though. AsusTPLoader.exe, which is presumably producing the system tray icon, is running quite happily! So, should I try CFF explorer on all the executable files? The registry settings are all as they are on 8.1, but of course they're not doing anything!

This is the version I have installed on Windows 8.1 - http://freedriver.org/drivers/notebook.php?n_firm=Asus&driver=008259.rar&n_model=X102BA The file that's apparently failing is called "getmytouch.exe". If I let it install until the error comes up, and then look in the installation folder, that file is in the Program Files\Asus\Asus Smart Gesture\Install\x86 folder. If I try to run it I get the "not a valid win32 application" error, so a non-XP compatible file I assume. When I tried once before I actually got more detailed error messages from the installer, which don't seem to be happening now. I'm pretty sure one of them was indeed for getmytouch.exe, and I suspect that the other was for "check_hwid.exe" which resides in Program Files\Asus\Asus Smart Gesture\<OS name>\AsusTPDrv\x86.

Like you, I do of course use a mouse rather than the touchpad whenever possible, and I still can, but there are times when I have to use the touchpad as there's nothing to put the mouse on! I'm wondering now if it might be possible to get Asus Smart Gesture (which works fine with the touchpad on 8.1) working on XP. The installer (it uses the Windows Installer mechanism) doesn't immediately croak on XP, in fact it appears to install right up until the last moment, when it says "A program required for this install could not be run". After that it rolls back. Maybe I could try transplanting its files and registry entries from the 8.1 installation, you never know!

I thought I would try on 8.1 the version 11 driver mentioned in that Superuser post, but unfortunately it's 64 bit, and I cannot find a 32 bit version of it. I also tried version 8.0.7.0 on 8.1 as well. Like version 10.4.3.5 it did exactly the same thing on 8.1 as it had on XP. This version does produce a "Multi-finger" icon in the Windows Control Panel, unlike version 10.4.3.5, but it just produces a blank window with no settings in it. I am getting a horrible feeling that the touchpad hardware in my notebook, although fundamentally an Elan unit, may have been customised in some way by Asus, and may therefore only work properly with their software, not the standard Elan software. I guess that finding a 32 bit version of an 11.xx version of the Elan software, which will install on 8.1, is the only way of proving that. If that won't work properly on 8.1 either, that could well be the answer, and if it is I don't know where we can go from there. There's no guarantee in that case that I would even be able to get the touchpad to work properly on 32 bit Windows 7!

OK, I uninstalled Asus Smart Gesture from Windows 8.1, and installed the Elan 10.4.3.5 driver instead. All appeared to install normally, but the end result was exactly the same as on XP. The information file is attached for comparison. I suppose if nothing else it proves that the failure of the driver to install properly has nothing to do with the operating system. The problem can only be that it isn't designed for the installed hardware. I installed it on 8.1 "as is", in that I didn't make any modification to the INF file. I can try that if you think it might make a difference, but I suspect that it won't. ETDDeviceInformation8.1.txt

I will only use Windows 7 as a replacement for Windows XP if it's not possible to get this working. I think I can live OK with the basic VGASAVE graphics driver, but not with the touchpad the way it is! The new information file is attached, all the entries are still 0/D0 after a reboot, but the "tap to click" function is still working unfortunately. I will try putting the same driver onto 8.1, and if it works properly there we can then compare things. ETDDeviceInformationNew.txt

I did look at that before. Do you think it would help if I uninstalled the Asus Smart Gesture program (which is working fine) and install the Elan driver, which would be more comparable to the one I'm trying to use on Windows XP? I could of course actually install the exact same driver we're experimenting with on XP rather that the latest version 11 one, assuming that it's compatible with 8.1 of course.

The data in the registry is still 0/D0. It hasn't changed since I modified it. That's in HKCU\Software\Elantech\SmartPad. The other key, HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Elantech\SmartPad, was still as before as I hadn't changed it (as I didn't realise that it was there!) There are both 0/D0 now