UltraNav driver for new Windows 10 build

[Jason404]

I have just updated to Windows 10 Preview Build 1012 2 on the Fast Track ring. It's working well, apart from not being able to use any Ultranav drivers without the laptop freezing.

When do you think it is likely that Lenovo will release UltraNav drivers for Windows 10? The Synaptic drivers that come with Windows 10 really suck.

[mschaffer]

I had waited until the Synaptics drivers had been released for Lenovo before I tried Win 10. I just received a T450s and put Win10 on it right away. Geez Louize---it's terrible when compared to my old X230. I mean it's practically unusable.

Does else have a comparison or opinion on the Win10 drivers or the T450s?

Of course, the T450s is much less of a traditional Thinkpad than any of my other Thinkpads to date. (<sarcasm> Gee, thanks, Lenovo. </sarcasm>)

[Jason404]

I've been using the UltraNav drivers (v.16.2.19.14) and they work fine on Windows 10. I'm not sure if the T450s is supported. I'm using TPMiddle.exe v0.7 as well, to get the best of both worlds with the trackpoint middle button.

I use the trackpad for gestures, but with this driver version, there are no working Win10 gestures (even the previous relevant Win8 gestures don't work). The only gestures that do work are UltraNav ones (chiral scrolling, two finger scrolling, two finger left/right swipe for Back/Forwards).

BTW, have you not been voting on the surveys for the upcoming ThinkPad Classic?
http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-th ... -the-hood/

[Jason404]

Oh, another thing - middle button scrolling does not work in Metro/Universal/Modern UI apps.

It's about time Lenovo released Windows 10 UltraNav drivers.

[mschaffer]

Sorry, I am getting the UltraNav confused with the enormous Synpatics TouchPad on the newer ThinkPads. I am beginning to think that there's a driver problem in Win10. The TouchPoint is much more responsive with Linux Mint. It is just an overall better "mousing" experience.

BTW, have you not been voting on the surveys for the upcoming ThinkPad Classic?
http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-th ... -the-hood/

Thanks for mentioning this. I just did.

[bluefruit]

Just installed Lenovo new UltraNav drivers for Win10 (19.0.12.61), coming from Win7, it is missing the TrackPoint sensitivity option and found the default setting too slow for me, even with all mouse sensitivity option set to max. Reverted back to the Windows 7 drivers but TrackPoint scrolling doesn't work in metro apps (i.e Edge). Anyone found a way to adjust TrackPoint sensitivity with the new drivers?

[erik]

Anyone found a way to adjust TrackPoint sensitivity with the new drivers?

yes... revert to the previous 16.2.x driver.   i did that on two systems and it fixed both the missing sensitivity adjustment and a bug where vertical scrolling would revert to "1" line after a reboot.

[Jason404]

The Synaptic drivers supplied through Windows Update for Windows 10 have been good since it was released a few days ago.

Now middle button trackpoint scrolling works, even in Metro apps.

However, today was another update (19.0.17.2) and nearly everything is fine, but two finger back/forwards trackpad swiping has disappeared. And some features in the two-finger scrolling have reappeared. Why are the driver features changing?

I use the trackpad for scrolling (two finger and chiral) and back/forwards swiping while reading webpages, although I usually use the trackpoint.

[kai]

The Synaptic drivers supplied through Windows Update for Windows 10 have been good since it was released a few days ago.

Now middle button trackpoint scrolling works, even in Metro apps.

However, today was another update (19.0.17.2) and nearly everything is fine, but two finger back/forwards trackpad swiping has disappeared. And some features in the two-finger scrolling have reappeared. Why are the driver features changing?

I use the trackpad for scrolling (two finger and chiral) and back/forwards swiping while reading webpages, although I usually use the trackpoint.

New driver isn't showing up for me.. I'm still on 19.0.16.0.

Do you know if in 19.0.17.2 you can adjust the speed of the cursor on the trackpoint (aside from in the pointer options tab)? It's still too slow even with speed set to maximum in the Pointer Options tab.

Thanks.

[Jason404]

I'm using a T410. Maybe this driver is not for your machine, so it does not appear in Windows Update.

Yes, trackpoint pointer speed is available from the UltraNav tab in Mouse Options, and I have not seen a driver that does not have this.

[pzahra]

I'm using an X220t and I've been complaining about the following issue on various forums for quite some time and not gotten any helpful response:

The middle button doesn't work with the synaptics driver. Windows 10 just installed version 19.0.17.2 and both the "Use for scrolling" and "Use as middle button" options result in the old Windows 95 scrollbar icon that putters along on certain kinds of controls but doesn't send middle click events. If I uninstall the driver and allow it to use an old generic mouse driver, the middle button works as a middle button (which I use all the time) but I lose the advanced gesture and scrolling capability of the touchpad and the pressure click of the trackpoint. I'd like to use this hardware at its full potential, but this driver disables 30% of what I use it for. Windows 10 does have the (hidden) ability to disable certain troublesome updates, but eventually (as in this case) it does come back.

Sometimes I can get it working with registry hacks, but they occasionally change back, too.

Can anyone here help me get this working correctly (permanently)?

[Insomniac1971]

Hi guys, i know this is a bit OT - but have to ask:)

Is it possible to use Synaptic's driver with the ALPS UltraNav 2? I have the thinkpad R500 2736 model.

There were some models in the old days that could use both drivers.

JBJ

[kai]

The Synaptic drivers supplied through Windows Update for Windows 10 have been good since it was released a few days ago.

Now middle button trackpoint scrolling works, even in Metro apps.

However, today was another update (19.0.17.2) and nearly everything is fine, but two finger back/forwards trackpad swiping has disappeared. And some features in the two-finger scrolling have reappeared. Why are the driver features changing?

I use the trackpad for scrolling (two finger and chiral) and back/forwards swiping while reading webpages, although I usually use the trackpoint.

New driver isn't showing up for me.. I'm still on 19.0.16.0.

Do you know if in 19.0.17.2 you can adjust the speed of the cursor on the trackpoint (aside from in the pointer options tab)? It's still too slow even with speed set to maximum in the Pointer Options tab.

Thanks.

For now I've reverted to driver 16.2.19.14 which is listed for Windows 8.1 for the X220 (6hgx81ww.exe).

It allows the extra scrolling speed for the trackpoint (From 'Firm' touch to 'Light' touch (light is faster)).

Whilst I've not noticed anything missing too much, trackpoint scrolling using the middle button doesn't work in the new Edge browser but I use Firefox/Chrome anyway.

The only thing is that you'll have to disable the driver update for the Synaptics trackpoint/trackpad as otherwise automatic updates will try update it at it's earliest opportunity.

I've tried to dive into the registry to see if it's possible to adjust the trackpoint speed in there (for the new driver and also comparing to the current (old) driver) but nothing obvious stands out for this adjustment.

Hopefully in future revisions they'll add the option back in!

[Jason404]

Since Windows 10 was released, the default Synaptic drivers are fine, but during the betas the middle button scrolling was not working and the driver was very basic, so I was using one for 8.1.

To stop the updates I used PowerShell, as shown here:
http://hmemcpy.com/2015/04/preventing-a ... indows-10/

[bluefruit]

The problem with blocking individual update is when a new version of the driver is released, Windows 10 automatically installs the new driver. Then you got to go through the process of uninstalling the new driver, reinstalling the old one and blocking that update again. I even had the install new driver option disabled in System Properties. Realised this when my TrackPoint sensitivity resets all of a sudden today. Annoying

[nok32]

I have been trying to use Win 8/8.1/10 with an X200T and middle button scrolling will not work in Metro Apps. Windows will accept the Windows 7 trackpoint driver from the Lenovo website, but it will not accept Ultranav. Are there any other options for getting scrolling to work with Windows Apps?

[axur-delmeria]

X200T will not accept the UltraNav driver because UltraNav refers to the Trackpoint+touchpad combo, while the X200T is Trackpoint-only.

I don't have any Windows 8-equipped machine, so I have zero experience with Metro apps.
But recently I managed to get Firefox to enable both middle-button scrolling and middle-click by editing the TP4table.dat file. Note that I did this on an X61T running WIndows 7, but it's possible that it will work on windows 8 as well.

Forgive me as these instructions might be incomplete-- I'm pulling them from memory because I'm typing this post on my main machine (X220) running Linux, and not on the X61T that I mentioned earlier.

Note: It would be much easier to do this on an Administrator-level account.

1. Terminate the Trackpoint driver/monitor program in task Manager (I think it's TP4serv.exe)
2. Find the directory of the Trackpoint driver (usually under "Program Files\Thinkpad" or "Program Files\Lenovo") and open the TP4table.dat file in Notepad.
3. Look for "smooth" using Notepad's Find function. You will probably find a section that looks like this:
because

Code: Select all

[AutoScrollTable]

; AUTO SCROLL TABLE  AUTO SCROLL TABLE  AUTO SCROLL TABLE
; AUTO SCROLL TABLE  AUTO SCROLL TABLE  AUTO SCROLL TABLE
; AUTO SCROLL TABLE  AUTO SCROLL TABLE  AUTO SCROLL TABLE

; List the Auto scrolling records under the [AutoScrollTable] section
; Record Format
; OsName,OsVersion,AppName,AppVersion,ScrollMethod
;
; OS Names            : * WIN NT
; WIN OS Versions     : * 95  98    ; NT OS Versions     : * 4   5
; Application Name    : * string
; Application Version : * or x.x.x.x
; ScrollMethod        : standard or smooth

*,*,iexplore.exe,*,smooth
*,*,winword.exe,*,smooth
*,*,outlook.exe,*,smooth
*,*,excel.exe,*,smooth
*,*,msimn.exe,*,smooth
*,*,cnext.exe,*,smooth

4. Add the new programs one line at a time. In my case, I added firefox after the cnext.exe entry so it looks like:

Code: Select all

*,*,iexplore.exe,*,smooth
*,*,winword.exe,*,smooth
*,*,outlook.exe,*,smooth
*,*,excel.exe,*,smooth
*,*,msimn.exe,*,smooth
*,*,cnext.exe,*,smooth
*,*,firefox.exe,*,smooth

5. Save the file. If it won't save, run Notepad with Administrative privileges and try again.
6. Run TP4Serv.exe and check if it made any difference.
7. I don't know anything about Metro, but if it uses some form of virtual machine, adding the name of its EXE file to TP4table.dat might work.

I hope it works for you.

[nok32]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Scrolling already works well for me in FF. Do you think this will do anything for me, or just potentially risk damaging the functionality I currently have?

[sbisel]

I upgraded my W530 from Win 7 Pro to Win 10 ... the lack UltraNav driver compatibility has driven me back to Win 7.

I did not mind the Win10 interface, the Start menu seems fine. The laptop seemed to perform better too. One thing I liked ... the fingerprint reader became active much sooner when boot in Win 10 than Win 7. In Win 7, the fingerprint reader took 30 seconds or so before it became active.

But the UltraNav function was horrible. I missed the momentum function. After playing around, I decided to install the Win 7 UltraNav drivers. That restored the momentum ... but it was erratic. Sometimes the momentum was enabled and sometimes it was not. Other aspects of the UltraNav were also erratic. For example, sometimes the two-finger scroll worked and sometimes it did not. I also found that the scroll right and left was erratic ... on both the UltraNav touchpad and the red eraser button.

Another aspect of Win10 that was strange ... the volume control bar instead of appearing in a large horizontal bar graph on the bottom of display, appeared as a small vertical bar graph in the upper left part of the screen, sandwiched between the first and second column of desktop icons.

I also found that after boot up or after waking up from sleep mode, that the three icons indicators for keyboard back light and over head light would come on and stay on ... they would not fade away after a few seconds. I had to use the Fn-Spacebar keys to go through them so that would fade away. Very annoying.

I did not like the fact that Win10 did not allow me to copy a menu folder on the desktop as a shortcut. Maybe I just did not know how to do that, but in Win 7, you can right click and drag to copy a folder as a shortcut.

Summarizing ... I have gone back to Win7 as there really are not compelling reason to use Win10 yet. Maybe sometime June 2016 I might try to upgrade to Win10 again ... before the free upgrade offer goes away. Maybe by that time the drivers will be stable and compatible.

Regards,

Steve

[SurrealMustard]

I've been experimenting with the ThinkPad T61p in Windows 10 and am having trouble with the UltraNav. Using the newest Windows 8.1 driver, there is a bug where certain motions will render the trackpad unresponsive (for example, the mouse will stand still if you start at the top of the trackpad and go straight down; if you start at the left and track to the right, a random character will be typed by the keyboard). This is not a problem in slightly older versions of the driver, (I'm using 16.1 right now) but scrolling doesn't work in the start menu or metro apps.

Is there any way to get this going again or any driver in which scrolling and using the trackpad work?

UPDATE (12/4/2015)
After testing no less than nine different UltraNav drivers ranging from version 16.1 to 19.0.17.2, I have fixed the problem. The solution is to use version 18.1.27.30, which is the only version in which scrolling with both the trackpoint and trackpad works properly in both Metro apps, the start menu, and everywhere else. Unfortunately, this version also has some phantom "gestures" enabled (as described in my original post above this update) for the trackpad by default which cannot be disabled through the control panel applet. After looking around online, I found some posts that describe a way to disable them in the registry, but even that doesn't work for some reason; instead, I just went to the same registry keys and shrunk the coordinates for the "gesture-able" areas to nothing, which effectively disables them (you must go into the UltraNav settings at least once to generate the registry keys first before you do this however). Log off and log back in again for the changes to take effect (or maybe you can restart the Synaptics "enhancements" instead). The one and only issue that still remains as far as that is concerned is that it is still somehow ocassionally (if rarely) possible to activate the "slide down" gesture in metro apps (even though it shouldn't be), but it is reduced to a point where it is almost impossible to activate accidentally and is still a million times better than it was before. Overall, I would give it a score of 99/100 for usability.

TL;DR? For minimal pain in Windows 10 (at least with the t61p), use UltraNav driver 18.1.27.30 and find the registry settings described in this thread after making at least one pilgrimage to the control panel applet in order to generate the registry keys that you'll be changing. Log off and log back on to make the changes stick.