Dave-H

Hi Jaclaz, sorry for the delay again, but I have good news! It seems that by setting the registry entry to "0" the Elan control panel then does work properly, and the settings are being changed by it. I think my mistake before was not rebooting after changing the settings. I assumed as the cosmetic changes were there just by changing the settings, that was it. Obviously not! The only setting on the control panel which still doesn't seem to do anything is the "Button Setting" option, which still doesn't seem to change anything, but I'm not worried about that, I can't imagine I'd ever want to turn off the touchpad buttons or change their functions! So, what I have now is a driver with looks like an Elan one, in that it's an Elan icon in the system tray. Doubly clicking that produces the mouse properties, and then clicking "Options" launches the Elan full control panel to change the settings. That's exactly how some of the Elan drivers were when installed and used normally on Windows 8.1. It's all fine with only seven files in the Elantech folder, all from driver version 11.4.14.1. So, as long as the INF is as optimised as it can be, are we there?

OK, fair enough! I guess I just assumed it was older than the Asus Smart Gesture control panels because it looks a lot more basic and primitive and it's included only in the driver with the lowest version number by quite some way (4.9.0.0). Of course as we've seen the stated driver version numbers don't seem to mean a lot anyway!

One other really strange thing is that ETDSimpleUI.exe does change the "Tap_One_Finger_Enable" setting, even though it's a much older (and more basic) control panel than the Asus one! I will play with those other settings and see if they change the behaviour.

Running ETDUI.cpl launches a full Elan control panel, perhaps not unexpectedly. I've attached two Regmon logs, one using the Asus control panel, the other using the full Elan control panel, just changing the "tap to click" option on both of them. Also I've confirmed in the registry itself, the Asus control panel is changing the "HKCU\Software\Elantech\SmartPad\Tap_One_Finger_Enable" value. The Elan control panel is changing the "HKCU\Software\Elantech\SmartPad\Tap_Enable" value. Only changing the former actually changes the touchpad behaviour. So, the Asus and Elan control panels are changing different registry keys to apparently change the same setting. RegmonAsus.log RegmonElan.log

Sorry that's an awful lot to try to answer, I'll do it in stages if that's OK? But, once you have it, what happens when you click on it? I mean, does it "produce" something if not better, different from Asus_UI.exe or it does nothing useful? ETDMcpl.dll doesn't do anything if you click on it, why would it as it's a dll file? Is that what you meant? If you meant what happens when you (double) click on the Windows Control Panel icon, it launches the Asus control panel, as specified in the relevant registry entry. I've tried removing Asus_UI.exe from the folder, so there are now no extra control panel files. I thought it might be useful to see whether it's possible to get away without having to separately source any of them. With registry setting "0" the system tray icon now produces the Mouse properties. Clicking "Options" on the Elan tab produces the full complex Elan control panel. Removing EDTMCpl.dll removes the tab, so I suspect that the control panel UI data is in that file. All very good of course, as it's a good control panel and is available with no additional files from other drivers, but unfortunately although you can change its settings, and they are remembered, they are not actually changing the behaviour of the touchpad. Perhaps as this is an Asus based driver it stores its settings in one place in the registry, and the Elan CP is writing them somewhere else? With registry setting "1" there appears to be the same result as "0". With registry setting "4" we now have a "Touchpad" tab in Mouse Properties instead of an "Elan" tab. It carries Samsung branding. "Options" also brings up the complex Elan CP. BUT, if ETDAniConf.exe is added to the Elantech folder, the behaviour changes, and with the registry vale at "0" double clicking the system tray icon directly brings up the control panel, but it's the simpler version of the Elan control panel! However the "Options" button on the Elan Mouse Properties tab still brings up the full version! With the registry value is 1, both the system tray icon and the Options button on the tab produce the simpler control panel. With the registry value "4" the behaviour is the same as when it's at "0". Confused? I certainly was! Anyway, it does look as if it's possible to have a control panel without having to bring in any files from outside version 11.4.14.1, where the other files are from, which is good. Incidentally, Lenovo.exe, which is the control panel packaged with 11.4.14.1, looks to be pretty much the same as ToshibaTP.exe, same window with the same options. I mentioned that there was no checkbox next to the "Tapping" option, but now having looked at its "help" text, it says that "One-Finger tapping always performs point/click/select function...." (my emphasis), which implies to me that with this control panel the "tap to click" function cannot be disabled, which makes it completely useless as far as I'm concerned! So, we can have perfectly good control panels without any extra files, but that's no good if you can't actually change the "live" settings with them! Is it worth investigating why that is?

Well all I have in the Program Files\Elantech folder now is - ASUS_UI.exe 10.0.0.26 ETDCtrl.exe 11.0.0.13 ETDUn_inst.exe 10.0.0.9 ETDApix.dll 11.0.0.8 ETDCmds.dll 11.0.0.8 ETDFavorite.dll 11.0.0.7 ETDMcpl.dll 11.0.0.10 ETDUninst.dll 10.0.0.1 That is it, nothing else, and the driver works fine with the Asus control panel (without any videos, but who cares!) ETDMcpl.dll is only there to support your icon in the Windows Control Panel, I don't think it's needed otherwise. Actually I think the sluggishness of the control panel could very well be being caused by the fact that if you remember I'm using a very basic graphics driver at the moment, where the refresh rate is extremely poor. I'm sure if we can ever magic up a proper working graphics driver it will be a lot better! Only ETDSimpleUI.exe works well with its videos, so would be the only other one I'd want to use, but it's missing a couple of three finger options which are on the Asus control panel. I actually think that's OK, it does the job, and at least as far as I'm concerned I won't be changing the settings at all anyway once I've got them the way i want them (basically that's everything on the touchpad disabled apart from the basic mouse functions!)

The files from the Toshiba driver don't work even if ETD.sys remains the older version. ETDCtrl.exe is running but there is no system tray icon and the settings have reverted to the defaults. The error in Device Manager has gone away though, so I guess that was being caused just by the incompatible ETD.sys. I've put the original versions back. With the registry entry at "7" I now have an Elan style icon in the system tray instead of the Asus style one, which is working, and an Elan tab on the Mouse Properties, which is also working. I moved the ToshibaTp.exe file into the Elantech folder and removed the others, and all its video files, replacing the others. I had to add ETD_DLL.dll to the Elantech folder as the control panel said it was missing. That control panel is very slow and unresponsive though, and seems to be missing some items. There is no check box beside the "tapping" label for instance. It's also not showing any videos, like the Asus control panel. The Elan Simple Control Panel seems to be the only one where the videos are actually working. Frankly I don't think what I've got now is any improvement on what we had before.

Always remember Dibya that those criticising your work, usually unjustifiably as the issues have been caused by them, almost certainly wouldn't have been able in their wildest dreams to do what you've done. Please don't let a few id*** stop you sharing your work, the vast majority really appreciate your efforts I promise!

I'm now really convinced that the ETD.sys that we're using (11.0.0.31) is the only version that will actually work for us on XP. I don't think we've had any functional driver at all on XP with any other version. I think it's possibly the one and only version at the very start of the 11.x series that happens to work on XP and can also talk to my hardware. Possibly all the earlier ones won't talk to the hardware, and all the later ones just don't work on XP. Whether it works on XP by accident or design I don't know, I'm just glad that it does! I will try experimenting with the other files.

No luck with the files from those newly discovered drivers I'm afraid. I replaced the two exe files, the five dll files, and the etd.sys, and the result was the same with both. In both cases ERDCtrl.exe is running fine, but there is no icon in the system tray and Device Manager is showing a corrupted driver message, and the touchpad is dead.

OK, I'll try substituting the files from those later drivers, and report back!

As I'm sure you've already determined, neither of those drivers have ETD0108 in their INF files, so definitely won't work on my system without modification I wouldn't have thought. I guess I could try just substituting the files we're using from 11.4.14.1 with the equivalent files from either or both of those drivers to see if it still works. That would be justified I think as we will then be used later XP compatible versions.

Yes, I have been very puzzled throughout this exercise just how the stated versions of the various drivers seem to have no correlation at all to the versions of the files contained in them! Anyway, now we have a working version I'm not too anxious to go into trying other versions, even if they might be a bit newer. Unless they install and work properly on XP without modification, which I'm happy to try but I feel is very unlikely, my vote would be to stick with what we've got, if we can perhaps get the INF down to a more sensible size and then produce a package which works as is with no unnecessary files included and with easy access to a functional control panel, that's "job done" as far as I'm concerned.

OK, I restored everything back to the way it was first thing today. and the errors have gone away. I tried different versions of Asus_UI.exe, and the version 10 ones seemed to be pretty much the same as each other. 10.0.0.16 was perhaps marginally the most responsive. The one thing that does kill it I've found is trying to get its videos to work. Moving the avi files across to the Elantech folder from the same version as Asus_UI.exe came from does not make the videos display, but the UI slows to a crawl, as if its trying to find them or something. Maybe, unlike the ETDSimpleUI, it needs more than the video files' simple presence in the folder to make them work.

Setting it to "4" produces a "Touchpad" tab (Samsung branded), but not an "Elan" tab. EDIT: Setting it to "0" does produce an "Elan" tab.

Asus_UI.exe (all versions) is also starting to throw .NET errors every time it's closed now. I think maybe it's time to restore the registry and the Elantech folder back to how it was before we started doing all this!

I'm afraid that the Elan tab on the Mouse Properties is still obstinately refusing to appear even with all the registry entries in place, and ETDMCpl.dll in the Elantech folder. I tried rebooting, and that didn't bring it back either. The "UI_Theme" entry is still set to "5", I assume that's OK.

Sorry, I have no Elan tab anyway at the moment, which is why the test was invalid! How should I restore it to do the test again, which registry value?

I think it's probably just running better as it's a different version of Asus_UI.exe. The version in 11.5.20.3 is 11.6.0.0, the version in 11.5.2.1 (the version with agesture.dll in it ) is 10.0.0.16!

No it isn't. The key was already there, I deleted it and your reg file seems to have just put back what was there before.

Sorry, I really messed up the formatting on that previous post, I ended up with nested quotations for some reason, and I can't see any way to correct it! I hope it's still clear enough.

The Mouse Properties comes up, with the "Touchpad" tab. Selection "options" brings up the ETDSimpleUI interface, as you say. It disappears if ETDMcpl.dll is disabled.

OK, with all the files in place, the results of the different registry settings were - 0 -Double clicking the system tray icon runs Asus Smart Gesture (Asus_UI.exe). The Mouse properties has the Elan tab, and selecting "options" runs a complex non-functional Elan control panel. 1 - Double clicking the system tray icon runs Asus Smart Gesture (Asus_UI.exe). The Mouse properties has the Elan tab, and selecting "options" runs a simpler non-functional Elan control panel. (This may have happened before as well, but I didn't notice that the two control panels were different!) 2 - Double clicking the system tray icon runs Asus Smart Gesture (Asus_UI.exe). The Mouse properties has a "Dell Touchpad" tab which seems to be non-functional (dead links as before). Still a memory exception from RunDLL32.exe when it's closed. 3 - Double clicking the system tray icon runs Asus Smart Gesture (Asus_UI.exe). The Mouse properties has an "UltraNav" tab. The "Trackpoint" section settings button brings up a simple Trackpoint control panel, the "Touchpad" settings button brings up another instance of the simple Elan control panel as in "1". Still non-functional, settings are not changed by it although the UI says they are. 4 - Double clicking the system tray icon runs Asus Smart Gesture (Asus_UI.exe). The Mouse properties has a "Touchpad" tab (Samsung branded). The "options" button brings up the ETDSimpleUI.exe control panel, which is functional. 5- Double clicking the system tray icon runs Asus Smart Gesture (Asus_UI.exe). No extra tabs on the Mouse Properties. So now the system tray icon always brings up the Asus Smart Gesture control panel.

Yes, in details view it was exactly as you said. Adding that string to the registry has given it a title. I don't think later versions of the Elan driver had a Windows Control Panel icon anyway, only the earlier ones did. The later ones get to the settings via the Mouse Properties tab, so instead of the system tray icon directly invoking the touchpad control panel, as the Asus drivers do, it invokes the Mouse Properties and you then have to go the Elan tab and select "Options". A rather more roundabout way of doing it, I'd much rather that double clicking the icon brought the touchpad control panel straight up! The very latest Asus Smart Gesture drivers, which I've used on 8.1, do have a Windows Control Panel icon again, so there seems to be no consistency as to whether they do or don't, I guess it depends on different manufacturers' specifications for their customisations of the drivers.

The icon in the Windows Control Panel has the correct image, but no text underneath it as it should have. Hovering the cursor over it does produce a popup saying "Customize the Smart-Pad Multi-finger Setting". ETDMcpl.dll is in the Elantech folder. I'll check out the other options and get back to you later on. I've copied the necessary files. The asgesture.dll file doesn't seem to exist in 11.5.20.3, so I've taken it from 11.5.2.1, along with its associated Asus_UI.exe file. I have to say that the Asus control panel is now running a huge amount better with those files, to the extent that I'd now be happy to use it! There are some settings which the Elan simple control panel does not include.