[SOLVED] Elan PS/2 Touchpad Driver for XP

[Dave-H]

July 2020.
After a huge amount of research and experimentation, here as a working Windows XP driver for Elan touchpads.
It was specifically produced for the touchpad of an Asus X102B(A) notebook, hardware ID ETD0108, but it may work also with later touchpad versions and on other machines.

Many thanks indeed to everyone who contributed to this, but of course especially to @jaclaz, who never gave up on this even when things looked impossible!

The driver can be downloaded below.
The rest of the thread is from the past, and if anyone has the time and enthusiasm to wade through fifty pages, they can see how we got to the the final result!

Cheers, Dave.

Elan_Touchpad_Driver.zip

Edited July 18, 2020 by Dave-H
Amendment

[RainyShadow]

I'll just leave couple links here:

DevManView

Installing a driver(.inf) file from command line

 

But still i suggest spending 15min. for a clean install of XP.

btw. SDIO shows a proper touchpad driver with a config program.

[Dave-H]

Thanks, I will certainly checkout the touchpad driver.
If I can get the touchpad working properly with full settings available (at the moment it's just a generic P/S2 mouse) that will greatly influence my decision as to whether to abandon XP on this machine or not!
Cheers, Dave.

[Dave-H]

I used SDIO to find the touchpad drivers, there were a huge number of options from many PC manufacturers, a huge package to download, and while I didn't try all of them as it would have taken many hours, I didn't find a single one that actually worked properly of the ones I did try.

They all install, but none produce a usable control panel so you can't actually change any settings. Either the control panel is completely blank, or only a few settings are shown, none of which actually work. As far as I'm concerned, the touchpad is unusable unless the "tap to click" function can be disabled at very least. How people use them with that switched on is quite beyond me, the constant unintentional clicks drive me mad!

I suspect the touchpad on my machine is designed only to work with Asus Smart Gesture, which has no version that will install on XP.

I also found a lot of chipset drivers, but again, none of them will work. Most of them are 64 bit, as it's a 64 bit machine. None of the 32 bit versions have information about the hardware.

As for the graphics driver, I don't think the option to uninstall/reinstall it on every boot will work either, quite apart from the fact that it will horribly slow down the process!
I've done more experimenting, and if I disable the display adapter so I can boot into normal mode, and then enable it, it enables OK, but is still shown as being in 640x480 mode in the Display Properties. As soon as I change that it tries to change the resolution, and then BSODs.
I can't imagine that the same thing wouldn't happen if it was being installed on every boot.
Fundamentally, it's not communicating with the hardware properly, and even if it could be got to work as it should even the once, I suspect it would always be very unstable.

No, I think the time has come to admit defeat here, and accept that some things just aren't possible with XP now.

[jaclaz]

1 hour ago, Dave-H said:

The touchpad is an Elan unit, connected by PS/2.
The hardware ID is ACPI\ETD0108.

Crap!

Driver could be this one (to be tested):

http://dl.driverpack.io/driverpacks/repack/Touchpad_Elan/Elan/Allx86/Asus_nb/11.5.21.6/Elan-Allx86-Asus_nb-11.5.21.6-drp.zip

Can you confirm that you tried this (and that it doesn't work at all)?

jaclaz

P.S.: Also check the following path in Registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Elantech\SmartPad

https://superuser.com/questions/877664/how-do-i-make-my-asus-touchpad-behave-in-a-reasonable-way

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by jaclaz

[Dave-H]

Thanks, I've tried so many touchpad drivers that I really don't know whether I've tried that particular one, but I will give it a go anyway!
I have tried directly editing the registry entries for the Elan software with other drivers, when the normal control panel is not working, but changing the settings never makes any difference.
I suspect it's a bit like the graphics problem, the drivers are just not communicating with the hardware properly.

If it's OK, and I realise this is off topic for this thread as it stands, I would like to concentrate on trying to get the touchpad working properly before going back to the graphics problems.
As I said earlier. if it proves impossible to find a driver that will allow me to change the touchpad settings, especially disabling "tap to click", there is probably no point in carrying on with XP on this machine anyway, as I really don't want to use it the way it is at the moment.

If we get into a long exchange about the touchpad, I will change the thread title to reflect this.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Dave-H
Typo

[Dave-H]

I tried that touchpad driver.
Setup doesn't work (not a valid win32 application) so I guess it isn't XP compatible.
Installing from the INF file does work, but the touchpad is then completely dead!
Device Manager now says it's an "Elan Input Device", but the driver isn't loaded.
The error is -
"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39).
I guess that also means that the driver isn't compatible with XP.

[win32]

1 hour ago, Dave-H said:

The error is -
"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39).
I guess that also means that the driver isn't compatible with XP.

You should look at both drivers' sys files in dependency walker and tell us which dependencies are missing. If there are (which is probably true) dependencies lacking, then it isn't compatible with XP.

But there is a chance that Server 2003 has those dependencies, but that wouldn't help those who can't get 2003.

[jaclaz]

Bummer!

Which driver (sort of) worked ?

Link please.

jaclaz

[Dave-H]

OK, this is an example of a driver that comes closest to working!

https://drivers.softpedia.com/get/KEYBOARD-and-MOUSE/Elantech/Acer-TravelMate-5740-ELANTECH-Touchpad-Driver-7-0-6-4-for-XP.shtml

It's version 7.0.6.4 and it does install despite the fact that when you look at the package contents it appears to be only for Windows Vista and Windows 7!
Some other drivers from that series, like 7.0.5.9 which I've tried, install as well, but the touchpad is then completely dead, despite no apparent errors in Device Manager.

With this driver, the touchpad still works, there are no errors in Device Manager, and there is a control panel, but it's only showing the copyright information and one setting (for the button functions) which doesn't actually seem to change anything.
There is also a tab added to the mouse properties window, which allows the device to be apparently disabled and enabled, but nothing actually changes.

[Dave-H]

Just a quick update.
I looked in the INF files for the driver, and ETD0108 was not listed there, so I added it and uninstalled and reinstalled.
No difference.
If I look at the tab added to the mouse Windows Control Panel applet, the Elan tab says it's a Standard PS/2 Mouse.
There is an option to disable it and enable it, which apparently works, but the "options" button, which presumably should bring up the settings control panel, is greyed out.
It's showing all the symptoms of not recognising what the touchpad actually is.
If it did recognise it correctly I'm guessing that it would show the appropriate options for it.
Device Manager now shows it as an "ELAN PS/2 Port Smart-Pad", but whether that's actually what the touchpad hardware is, I have no idea!

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by Dave-H
Amendment

[RainyShadow]

I checked some drivers in SDIO and indeed the newer ones are compiled for Vista+ despite what the .inf file header claims.

But there are older ones which run or XP. Did you try any of those?

 

https://i.imgur.com/I8bdxit.jpg

 

Weird, for some reason i can't take a screenshot of SDIO, it just captures the underlaying windows, lol. Had to use my phone...

 

Notice the version numbers in the tooltip.

Edited April 6, 2020 by RainyShadow

[jaclaz]

@Dave-H

Yep, it is strange that the original driver, missing the hardware ID, installs nonetheless, maybe there is some "comparibility hardware" setting that acts as a sort of "catch all".

However, quoting myself:

17 hours ago, jaclaz said:

P.S.: Also check the following path in Registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Elantech\SmartPad

https://superuser.com/questions/877664/how-do-i-make-my-asus-touchpad-behave-in-a-reasonable-way

 

Let us assume that:

1) you have the described Registry structure
2) that what the (not working) options tab does is in a nutshell:
a. change some settings in the Registry path
b. make the driver re-read the (changed) settings

What happens if you change a setting in the Registry and EITHER:
1) disable and re-enable the driver
OR:
2) reboot

?

jaclaz

[Dave-H]

13 hours ago, RainyShadow said:

I checked some drivers in SDIO and indeed the newer ones are compiled for Vista+ despite what the .inf file header claims.

But there are older ones which run or XP. Did you try any of those?

  Hide contents

https://i.imgur.com/I8bdxit.jpg

 

Weird, for some reason i can't take a screenshot of SDIO, it just captures the underlaying windows, lol. Had to use my phone...

 

Notice the version numbers in the tooltip.

I actually downloaded with SDIO the whole touchpad package that said it was compatible with my machine, which was huge (several GB!)
When I unpacked it there was a huge number of drivers in there, from many different PC manufacturers.
All those drivers were in there presumably, and I tried all the likely looking ones with no success.

One possible issue, and I'm probably being very silly here, is that the machine is actually a 64 bit machine, although I'm running 32 bit OSes on it.
I'm just thinking, I've always assumed that a "64 bit machine" is that only because it has a 64 bit processor.
Am I right in that, or can other hardware be 64 bit as well?
If that is so, that would go a long way to explaining why both the 32 bit graphics drivers and touchpad drivers seem to be having a problem communicating with the hardware.

I did download the chipset drivers package too, but of course it's 64 bit, which I assume is no use on a 32 bit OS.

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Dave-H
Addition

[Dave-H]

6 hours ago, jaclaz said:

@Dave-H

Yep, it is strange that the original driver, missing the hardware ID, installs nonetheless, maybe there is some "comparibility hardware" setting that acts as a sort of "catch all".

However, quoting myself:

Let us assume that:

1) you have the described Registry structure
2) that what the (not working) options tab does is in a nutshell:
a. change some settings in the Registry path
b. make the driver re-read the (changed) settings

What happens if you change a setting in the Registry and EITHER:
1) disable and re-enable the driver
OR:
2) reboot

?

jaclaz

The fundamental thing that's missing in the registry is the "SmartPad" key where all the settings reside.
The INF file says it should be added, and it has been with some of the other drivers (including ones where the touchpad doesn't actually work at all!)
This again makes me think that the touchpad either isn't a "smartpad" or if it is, it isn't being identified as such by the driver.
When the settings registry key was there and the touchpad was still working with some of the other drivers, changing the settings in the registry made no difference to the behaviour of the touchpad.

I guess if I can find again one of the drivers where the registry key is there, and the touchpad still works, that might be a better starting point?

I've changed the thread title to reflect this discussion BTW.