Dave-H

ETDsimpleui.exe and ETDsimpleUI_win8.exe both work fine, I can change the settings using them and they work and stick. I'm not sure what the difference between them is, they look exactly the same to me! DellTouchpad.exe I don't have any more I'm afraid, I junked it with most of the many other collected driver versions when I was going to give up. I had so many I was getting very confused as to what was what! I don't doubt that it would have worked as well though.

OK I tried that version, it took ages to install, but it eventually did, and it works! It appears to be an earlier version of Asus Smart Gesture, packed like a normal Elan driver, whereas the later versions look completely different in file structure, with a cab file and msi file. It has no visible control panel, unlike later versions that put an icon in the Windows Control Panel, and there is no tab on the Mouse Properties. The only way of invoking its control panel seems to be by double clicking the system tray icon. Surely this won't install on XP?!

Thanks, I will give that a try! I was experimenting with installing version 15 without some of its files, to see if it was possible to get a working driver with a bare minimum of files present, but I wasn't getting very far! I'll let you know what happens with this one.

Just tried again with version 15, and running the top level setup.exe again says it's installed, including a long "installing drivers" animation, but it doesn't ask for a reboot when it's finished, apparently correctly, and nothing seems to have actually changed at all on the machine, even after a reboot. If I then run the setup.exe in the x86 folder, it immediately goes to the "completed" screen, as presumably it thinks that the driver is already there. However there seems to be no way of uninstalling it. I guess I will have to install via Device Manager again and then uninstall it to do further tests. EDIT: The setup.exe in the x86 folder does exactly the same as the one in the top folder. Installing from scratch using Device Manager woks fine though, so it looks as if the setup files don't actually need to be run for a successful install. When using the update facility on Device Manager the INF offers "Elan Input Device", and when I try to install it it says that Windows cannot verify that it is compatible with the hardware, but if I go ahead anyway, it installs and works.

Running the version 15 setup.exe from the top level (not the one in the x86 folder) appears to work and complete with no error messages, but doesn't actually do anything. No files are actually copied, and the mouse in Device Manager is unchanged. However subsequently doing a driver update of the mouse in Device Manager, and pointing it at the INF file in the x86 folder does work, and produces a working installation, without any modification to the INF file. Perhaps I should try uninstalling and reinstalling again disabling some of the executables and dlls by renaming them, to try and determine which files are actually needed for the driver to work at a basic level, even if that means that there's no control panel and the settings can only be changed by directly editing the registry. Otherwise a lot of time could be wasted trying to make files work on XP which aren't actually needed anyway.

OK, now working fine again on 8.1 with version 15 of the driver! Can I just ask, before we start profiling exe files and dll files, surely there is absolutely no point in doing this if the problem is actually with ETD.sys? From all the experimentation we've done, the only time that the driver has actually worked, even on Windows 8.1, is with the version 15 version of ETD.sys. No others have worked on 8.1, and none at all have worked on XP of course, or we wouldn't still be here! If version 15 of ETD.sys is the only one capable of actually recognising the hardware correctly, no amount of tinkering with the other files is going to do any good surely? Also if that version of ETD.sys is incompatible with XP in some way, and cannot be made compatible, there's no point anyway because it still won't work, even if all the other files are loaded and running correctly.

Thanks for the words of encouragement @jumper, I was starting to need them again! I transferred the exe and dll files over, and needless to say it still didn't work. ETDCtrl.exe is now running happily in the background, but the Elan tab in the Mouse Properties is completely blank again, which is worse than before! With just the exe files transferred it still looked OK, even if the driver wasn't actually working. I'll put things back to normal so we have a working installation with version 15, and we'll take it from there again!

OK, thanks! There must be others already using this new version I would have thought? Where it seems to be failing, and it's failing on Firefox 59.2 ESR and IE8, which use completely different mechanisms of course, is at the point at which the "do you want to run this" window normally appears. It seems to be loading, in that there is a box where the output should be, but it never goes any further. The fact that is failing in exactly the same way on a plugin-based browser and on an ActiveX-based browser would seem to indicate that it's something further downstream of the actual plugin which is failing.

That's definitely starting to look like "more trouble than it's worth" territory! I will just try transplanting all the executables, and all the dlls across as well this time, just to see if the result is any different.

Well I tried transplanting the executables (not the dlls) and perhaps not surprisingly, it no longer works. ETDCtrl.exe isn't running, although it's set to run from the registry, and if I start it manually, it appears in Task Manager for a few seconds, and then closes again.

Well I'm happy with what I've got working on Windows 8.1, Windows XP is another matter though! If I transplant the hopefully XP compatible executables (and dlls?) over to the working installation on 8.1, and it still works, I would be hopeful that it might work if transplanted to XP as well. I think a lot depends on whether ETD.sys is XP compatible, as only the version 15 version seems to be able to talk to the hardware.

Sorry to bump, but has nobody else come across this? It would be good to know that the browser plugin is working for others on XP with this version!

Well I have kept quite a few post EOS update files, but sadly that wasn't one of them! In fact it doesn't look as if I ever installed it, as it wasn't offered through Windows or Microsoft Updates.

FWIW, I tried doing a driver update on the mouse in Device Manager, and tried pointing it at the INF file in version 15. That has resulted in a fully working installation again, with the added bonus that the original control panel from the Samsung driver is still installed (presumably the file wasn't overwritten as it doesn't exist in the eversion 15 driver) and it still works, and the settings changes are remembered and now actually work. I still also have access to the Elan control panel from the Mouse Properties tab, so I can now change the settings in two completely different interfaces! It does look as if it needs version 15 of ETD.sys, but I was wondering if maybe it would be worth trying substituting all the version 15 exe and dll files in the working installation with their equivalents in the version 11 installation, and see if it still works with them? The version 15 files won't work on XP, but the version 11 ones might.

@jaclaz Sorry I'd already uninstalled and reinstalled before I read your message, so I don't know what running those files would have done. @RainyShadow I've now reinstalled using the original ETD.sys and ETD.cat files, and it's back to as it was before, with an apparently functional control panel that doesn't actually change anything. The "upper filters" value has not been added to the registry. The others are there, and changing "4" to "5" just resulted in the "Touchpad" tab disappearing from the Mouse Properties! What should I be checking in the "HIDMouseIgnore" registry key? How do I add a "GroupMap" section? I tried changing ETD.sys for the file in version 15 of the driver, after installation, and that made the Mouse Properties "Touchpad" tab completely blank again! It looks as if that version of ETD.sys, which is the only one I've seen work on 8.1, isn't compatible with this version of the software. I suspect that the version of ETD.sys which is compatible doesn't work on 8.1.

I suspect that had it been something more important than just a time zone update, it would have been saved by people. As it is, I guess people just didn't bother.

Tried again after removing the semicolons, with exactly the same result! I think this might be because I'm using the ETD.sys and ETD.cat files from version 15. I will try again with the originals.

According to Device Manager, the driver is using ETD.sys, and it is the version 15 one as substituted. ETDCtrl.exe is running, as is the "Elan Service", but there is no sign of a control panel. I will try again with the INF changes suggested. I added the semicolons because that's how it is in the working version 15 INF.

TouchpadSetup.exe still throws "I cannot find the Touchpad device", both before and after copying the ETD.sys and ETD.cat files from version 15.14.4.1. Running setup from the Elan folder after copying the files produces an installation with no control panel, and a tab in the Mouse Properties which is completely greyed out with no device entries. Device Manager says that the mouser is a "Samsung PS/2 Port Input Device" and says it's working properly. Forcing a driver update in Device Manager only offers "Samsung PS/2 Port Input Device" and installing that makes no difference.

I thought that having a control panel whose settings were actually remembered between sessions was quite a breakthrough! It doesn't appear to be talking to the driver though. Here's the original INF and my last attempt at modification. I commented out the two lines that seem to result in the basic non-functional driver being installed, and added lines to hopefully support ETD0108 mimicking the "ETD0B00" lines. Without those lines it doesn't install at all, although it goes through the motions. With those lines it installs as it does unmodified. I haven't yet tried adding ETD0108 lines matching the "ETD0B01" lines. I notice that although the package is version 4.9.0.0 the actual Elan driver is version 11.7.5.5, which may well be one of the ones I already tried, which I never got working even on 8.1. The one that did work on 8.1 was 15.14.4.1, a lot later. ETDOriginal.inf ETDModified.inf

OK, I uninstalled Asus Smart Gesture from 8.1, and tried installing this version, as is. Tellingly, running TouchpadSetup.exe produced "I cannot find the Touchpad device". However, running setup in the Elan folder did install, with interesting results. There is now a control panel, which is fully populated, and the settings can be changed, and appear to be remembered. However the changes are not reflected by any changes to the behaviour of the touchpad. The Mouse Properties window now has a "Touchpad" tab, which looks the same as before, with "Standard PS/2 Mouse" displayed as the device. "Options" is still greyed out and does not invoke the control panel. In Device Manager, the mouse is now a "Samsung PS/2 Port Input Device". I will uninstall it and add my touchpad to the INF file and try again. It does look more promising than many of the other drivers though, great find @jaclaz!

Yes, I'd already thought about that quite a while ago! The trackpad in my previous netbook is a much better one anyway, and if a physical swap were possible I would have done it by now! Sadly they are just too different for it to be feasible, although I could look around and see if there is another one I can buy for the present machine which will physically fit in and be a better hardware match for the readily available Elan or Synaptics drivers. I'm still convinced that Asus have customised my trackpad in some way so it will only work with their driver. I suspect it will be more trouble that it's worth though just to be able to keep XP on the machine!

OK, I thought we were perhaps getting to a point of diminishing returns here. Unless @jaclaz has something up his sleeve, I think it is time to call it a day on this, you can't win them all! @RainyShadow, thank you so much for all your help with this, it really is much appreciated, and even if we didn't get the result we wanted, I still learnt an awful lot from this. I've been through several problems like this with people on this forum over the years, and in most cases we did get a result in the end, but it's not always going to be possible. It's never for want of trying though, and you and jaclaz have been so helpful with this, no-one could have done more. I'm not going to put Windows 10 on the machine. It had Windows 10 on it when I acquired it, I assume an update from Windows 8.1 which is what these machines were shipped with. It was crawlingly slow with Windows 10, which is why swapped the drives and went back to my old Windows 8.1/Windows XP dual boot from my previous netbook. I'm intending to try Windows Vista, if only because I should be able to update to it from Windows XP without having to do a clean install and have to rebuild the whole thing. Vista is also one of the only two domestic Microsoft operating systems that I have absolutely no experience of (the other being Windows ME!) so I thought it would be fun to have a play with it and see if it's really as bad as many people say. If it's truly awful I should again be able to update it to Windows 7 without too much problem. Thanks again! Cheers, Dave.

Just tried it again after running AsusTPHelper.exe. No difference I'm afraid.

OK, I disabled the Smart Gesture entry on the Windows Task Manager Start-up tab so the programs wouldn't load. I ran the batch file (as an administrator or it wouldn't write to the registry), and it appeared to run successfully, but no difference, the settings were still wrong. Incidentally that "windows.old" folder is a hangover from an OS update many years ago, I'd forgotten it was still there as it's hidden! It's gone now.