[SOLVED] Elan PS/2 Touchpad Driver for XP

[Dave-H]

It does indeed have a touch screen, which is the right resolution for Windows 8.1 apps, unlike my previous netbook (designed for Windows 7), which only had a 1024x600 screen.
That's the reason I bought it, but I'm now starting to have regrets! Quite apart from the physically inferior touchpad, the fact that it's AMD based and not Intel based has caused a lot of driver problems, although the touchpad and the graphics are the only ones I haven't yet found for XP.
When I bought it, it had been "upgraded" from Windows 8 (which it was designed for) to Windows 10, presumably by its previous owner, but it was crawlingly slow. It has 4GB of (non-expandable) memory, but the processor is only single core 1 GHz, unlike its predecessor, which was a dual core 1.6 GHz Intel Atom, so that's another area where the hardware is actually inferior to the previous machine.
Not surprisingly, the touch screen doesn't work on XP!
Whether it can be made to I don't know.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Dave-H
Addition

[RainyShadow]

According to the .snp files you posted previously, it looks like both XP and 8 have installed a generic driver from input.inf for your touch screen. Does it work in Win8?

At the Asus "support" site i see only BIOS updates, one app, and few documents, regardless of which OS i select...

The last BIOS version mentions a fix for the "touch panel" (not 100% clear if that's the screen or pad). Are you on this BIOS version?

[Dave-H]

Windows 8.1 is using the "Asus Smart Gesture" program, which works fine, although it took me ages to find a 32 bit version of it!
I assumed it included a driver, but maybe it's just a control panel.
As you've seen I'm sure, the machine is actually a 64 bit machine, although I'm running 32 bit operating systems on it.
You're right that there seem to be hardly any drivers on the Asus site for the machine, in fact selecting any OS for me brings up nothing on the first page.
Whether that is correct or a fault I don't know.
I got the 8.1 drivers from here -
http://freedriver.org/drivers/notebook.php?n_firm=Asus&n_model=X102BA
I also found XP compatible drivers for the audio, wi-fi, and Ethernet, just the graphics and touchpad are eluding me so far!
I do have the last BIOS installed, version 219. It was already on the machine when I got it.

@jaclaz

I'm doing a full Windows Defender scan on Windows 8.1 at the moment, which is taking forever (6 hours and counting!)
I'll get back on the touchpad driver investigations tomorrow.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Dave-H
Addition

[RainyShadow]

6 hours ago, Dave-H said:

Windows 8.1 is using the "Asus Smart Gesture" program, which works fine, although it took me ages to find a 32 bit version of it!
I assumed it included a driver, but maybe it's just a control panel.

Just to clarify, i was asking about the touch screen, not the touchpad.

So, it works fine in Win8, but doesn't in XP?

There is a "TabletPC" folder on the XP CD, do you have that installed?

[Dave-H]

Oops, sorry I misread your post!
I haven't manually installed anything to support the touchscreen, but it does seem to be working OK in 8.1, but not in XP.
I will have a look at that folder on the CD, but not until after I've got as far as I can with the touchpad and graphics.
I may still end up going to Vista!

My full Windows Defender scan on 8.1 took about 8 hours BTW, it didn't find anything, and annoyingly hasn't actually registered has having taken place, the program still says that my last scan was on March 29th, and it's still telling me I need to run a scan!
 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Dave-H
Amendment

[Dave-H]

19 hours ago, jaclaz said:

Next test.

Use the 10.0.0.20, (with the modified .inf with the ETD0108 added) BUT try editing the .sys with CFF explorer so that the MajorSubsystemVersion to 5.

To recap, this 7.0.5.5 version has;

MajorOperatingSystemVersion:0006
MinorOperatingSystemVersion:0000
MajorImageVersion:0006
MinorImageVersion:0000
MajorSubsystemVersion:0005
MinorSubsystemVersion:0001

and *somehow* it works (without working touchpad).

While the 10.0.0.20 has:

MajorOperatingSystemVersion:0006
MinorOperatingSystemVersion:0001
MajorImageVersion:0006
MinorImageVersion:0001
MajorSubsystemVersion:0006 <- the test is with only this one changed to 0005
MinorSubsystemVersion:0001

and it works (and it doesn't) in different ways.

No idea if it will make any difference.

Before that, while you have the 7.0.5.5 still installed, what happens running the DellTpad.exe?

jaclaz

@jaclaz
Running the Dell control panel with 7.0.5.5 installed still doesn't save any settings, I can change them but when I re-run the program they have gone back to as before.
Interestingly, the "tap to click" function seems to be fixed at "off" now, it was fixed "on" with the other drivers.
The "Device Select" screen is fixed at "disable", which does appear to be correct at the moment!
Manually changed registry entries don't "stick" after a reboot.

I reinstalled 10.5.2.0 (with ETD.sys 10.0.0.20) after doing the CFF Explore modification.
The touchpad is now dead with that version, and I have a code 39 error in Device Manager, "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing."

[jaclaz]

42 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

I reinstalled 10.5.2.0 (with ETD.sys 10.0.0.20) after doing the CFF Explore modification.
The touchpad is now dead with that version, and I have a code 39 error in Device Manager, "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing."

Good (bad).

Try to restore the value with CFF explorer (on the installed ETD.SYS) and reboot/disable/restart the device.

What happens?

It is possible that you need to correct the PE checksum (or something else) to have the system accept the edit?

jaclaz

[Dave-H]

After putting the ETD.sys parameter back to the normal "0006" on the copy in the Drivers folder, disabling/re-enabling the device did not make it functional again, but the error was now 10, "Device cannot start".
Uninstalling it in Device Manager and re-scanning then produced an "Unknown Device".
Manually reinstalling the driver in Device Manager and rebooting as instructed produced a dead touchpad again.
I checked the ETD.sys file in the Drivers folder, and it still had MajorSubsystemVersion set to 0005, so I guessed it must have reinstalled the changed version from the installation folder.
I then changed the version in the installation folder back, and tried again, and still ended up with a dead touchpad, so I guess it's still picking up the modified ETD.sys from somewhere.

I will try a complete uninstall and reinstall and see if that produces some semblance of life again.

[Dave-H]

I uninstalled the driver and cleaned the system and am now back to the generic MS mouse driver.

Something occurred to me which really should have before now!
My previous netbook also had an Elan touchpad, and I still have the driver that I used then, which is version 8.0.5.2.
Unpacking that and looking at its ETD.sys, which is version 8.2.0.35, and looking at it with CFF Explorer it shows 6/1, 6/1, 6/0.
Now that driver worked perfectly on Windows 8.1 and Windows XP, with the hardware in the old netbook, an Asus 1025CE.
So, at least that version of ETD.sys must have been capable of working with XP, whatever CFF Explorer says.
I will give it a try again, but I suspect that it won't work with this hardware, even if I modify the INF.

 

[jaclaz]

Good, so we can now exclude that the data in the optional header of the .sys is relevant for XP compatibility.

At this point - once you will have tested the 8.2.0.35 - it is probably the case of finding a later driver that works for the ETD0108 on a later system (I lost count, what do you have on 8.1 - apart the Asus software - also an Elantech driver that works)?

jaclaz

[Dave-H]

There is no Elan driver on 8.1, only the Asus Smart Gesture program.
I uninstalled the Elan driver which had been on 8.1 when I saw that it wasn't working any more (if you remember I just put the drive from the old machine into the new one).

With 8.2.0.35 the result is pretty much as before, except that the Elan control panel shows no settings at all now.
If I try to use the Dell control panel, the first thing is does is to swap the buttons over on the USB mouse, which really threw me until I worked out what was happening!
It's one of its settings which comes up the wrong way around, and cannot be saved the other way around.
It has always worked for some mouse functions, like button swapping (only on the mouse, not the touchpad) and pointer speed.
None of the touchpad specific settings do anything though.

[RainyShadow]

So, did you find a driver (regardless of config app) that works without modding in XP?

And did you try to install that same driver in Win8?

[Dave-H]

No, I haven't found any driver that works on XP with the present touchpad, with or without modding, that's the problem!
The Asus Smart Gesture program works fine on Windows 8.1, but is not XP compatible.

 

[RainyShadow]

38 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

No, I haven't found any driver that works on XP with the present touchpad, with or without modding, that's the problem!

I thought you said previously that some driver worked...

I'm not asking if you can change the driver settings or whatever. I'm asking if the cursor moves when you swipe on the touchpad!

Don't tell me that a driver doesn't work when it has permanently enabled tap to click, please!

By that same logic i can declare any Windows install that doesn't start with my preferred desktop background picture as non-working, LOL.

Are we speaking the same language?

 

P.S. i checked at work today for that X102BA we've had... unfortunately it is long gone. I was hoping to try these drivers myself and report some results...

Well, it may come back for warranty servicing someday, lol. Then it comes straight to me (i deal with the warranties). Not holding my breath though.

Edited April 14, 2020 by RainyShadow

[Dave-H]

Sorry, yes in that respect most of the drivers I've tried do "sort of work", in that the touchpad still functions, just as it does with the generic MS mouse driver.
There are some drivers, including earlier ones I've tried recently, where it doesn't work at all, and the touchpad is dead, but it's OK with the later ones.
What has never worked on this system, and is the real problem, is changing the settings of the touchpad.
If I can't do that, I might as well use the generic MS PS/2 mouse driver, but I really do need to do that!

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Dave-H
Typo