Vista and multi-touch trackpad

[saisrujan]

I am about to buy a Macbook Air, and I bumped into this review by Notebook Review <www.notebookreview.com>.

The reviewer says

Another obvious problem we encountered with the multitouch touchpad under Windows was the issue of touchpad freezes and blue screens. We suspect there is an issue with the touchpad drivers for Windows since we could consistently cause a failure simply by touching the touchpad with multiple fingers. It's pretty clear there is a problem when multiple touches disable a "multitouch" touchpad.

And goes on to say

Overall the machine seemed to enjoy running inside Vista more than it did OS 10, but bugs were prevalent all throughout bootcamp with the current Apple-provided drivers. The touchpad was the source of many problems, including six bluescreens and 30+ touchpad lockups from "multiple touches." While the features worked occasionally trying to use the scrolling motions or even tapping multiple fingers on the touchpad would be enough to lock until a reboot. The bluescreens would often come at random, with the culprit always being the "Applemtp.sys" driver crashing. More than a few times the machine would bluescreen when I was not even touching anything on the notebook.

I hoped I could use this laptop for regular work (does not require processor-intensive tasks) but now I am starting to worry.

Did anyone who has installed either XP or Vista help me understand if this is something I need to think about?

^BUMP^

Anyone who has installed XP or Vista using VMWare Fusion or Parallels please let me know if Windows works well, or if it gets bothered by the multi-touch trackpad...

Please...

 

[lisag]

A driver does get installed via the Leopard CD Boot Camp drivers but there's no control panel or settings specific to the trackpad that I could find under Vista. It works like your average non-multi-touch trackpad for me. There's no crashing, but no right-click support either via 2 fingers. It just ignores input if you use more than 1 finger at a time.

 

[saisrujan]

Thanks

Thanks for the reply lisag. My friend is at the apple store picking one up right now. Are you using XP or Vista?

 

[jdcrow711]

I did not try to use three fingers yet in IE -- but when using two fingers plus the button for the mouse i can right click no problems. no freezes or crashes with vista through boot camp.

 

[saisrujan]

Thanks jdcrow711! Do you use Parallels / Fusion, or is this a plain boot-camp install on disk-partition?

How much space are you left with after installing Vista?

 

[jdcrow711]

Thanks jdcrow711! Do you use Parallels / Fusion, or is this a plain boot-camp install on disk-partition?

How much space are you left with after installing Vista?

i gave vista a 20gb partition - i dont plan on using it a lot i just hate connecting to work from home through the microsoft RDC and i wanted to have windows when working from home for that purpose. and yes it is straight through bootcamp no parallels.

 

[kamranwpi]

Trackpad

I am also quite annoyed by Apple not supporting right click w/ two fingers, and no 3 fingers support in IE

I am using it on Windows XP

Also, I couldn't install XP using Parallel, it kept on crashing on me

 

[deeznutz]

I am also quite annoyed by Apple not supporting right click w/ two fingers, and no 3 fingers support in IE

I am using it on Windows XP

Also, I couldn't install XP using Parallel, it kept on crashing on me

Bootcamp with XPsp2 on my 1.6/80 does support right click. Make sure both trackpad drivers are installed and functioning (better take a peek at the device manager, bet you have a "yellow" exclamation point).

 

[kamranwpi]

Bootcamp with XPsp2 on my 1.6/80 does support right click. Make sure both trackpad drivers are installed and functioning (better take a peek at the device manager, bet you have a "yellow" exclamation point).

No.. I do have the mouse working, I just can't click (like clicking on touchpad)

Also double click is really weird... you have to hold two fingers on trackpad, and then click on the button to do right click

I am trying to get XP working usign Parralel, but no success, it keeps on crashing on me

 

[duffyanneal]

Unless you absolutely need to run Windows exclusively I would suggest using either Parallels or Fusion. If you do that you won't have any trackpad issues other than new multitouch gestures don't work (two finger tap and scroll do work fine).

 

[duffyanneal]

No.. I do have the mouse working, I just can't click (like clicking on touchpad)

Also double click is really weird... you have to hold two fingers on trackpad, and then click on the button to do right click

I am trying to get XP working usign Parralel, but no success, it keeps on crashing on me

Fusion crashed on me when I first installed it on my MBA. I had to go in a disable the CD drive in the settings. That may work for Parallels as well.

 

[kamranwpi]

Fusion crashed on me when I first installed it on my MBA. I had to go in a disable the CD drive in the settings. That may work for Parallels as well.

How do you disable CD Drive??? I am using CD to install it, even image will crash

 

[duffyanneal]

How do you disable CD Drive??? I am using CD to install it, even image will crash

Fusion crashes after the install is complete. You may have a different problem. Do you have the latest version of Parallels? I just looked in the Parallels support forum and I see that people have installed Parallels on MBAs.

 

[saisrujan]

Fusion crashes after the install is complete. You may have a different problem. Do you have the latest version of Parallels? I just looked in the Parallels support forum and I see that people have installed Parallels on MBAs.

Do you mean to say Fusion doesn't currently work on MBA? I didn't try it yet. Please let me know.

 

[saisrujan]

Did anyone here try vista on MBA using VMWare fusion?

I also have these questions
1. Will it work when Apple releases 10.5.2?
2. Will it work when Microsoft releases Vista SP1?

Any responses welcome!

 

[peterlobl]

XP Pro runs nicely

I use XP Pro thru Bootcamp as it is fast - boots incredibly quick compared to my Gateway Core 2 duo - and native XP lets me edit pages, PhotoShop etc at better than before speed

if you plan on working in WIN for foreseeable future - alas I must - its a great option...

ONLY real sucky thing is lameo trackpad dysfunctionality - geez - its like a slap in the face.. and no mac developer has any way around it yet...

i am going to have to hook a wireless mouse up when in XP just to stop me from biting the shiny case - ouch

by the way - its best WIN micronotebook i have ever used - then u got that entire oS X side to play with..

 

[Duergan]

I'm wondering if there have been any updates to the issue of the multi-touch trackpad causing crashes in Vista. I've seen a few more recent reviews that say multi-touch does work and others saying the operation of the hardware is flawless in Vista (without going into specifics).

Is anyone now running Vista successfully with multi-touch capability on a macbook?

Thanks

 

[ayeying]

I'm wondering if there have been any updates to the issue of the multi-touch trackpad causing crashes in Vista. I've seen a few more recent reviews that say multi-touch does work and others saying the operation of the hardware is flawless in Vista (without going into specifics).

Is anyone now running Vista successfully with multi-touch capability on a macbook?

Thanks

Really old.

Anyways, I never had a blue screen when using multi-touch in vista, when I had it installed. All it did was nothing cause it didn't support the features, but it didn't blue screen or whatnot.

 

[foltzg]

Most functions work on Trackpad under Fusion, not all

I'm running Windows Vista under VMware Fusion. One, two and four finger functions work. The 3 finger swipe to go forward and back on explorer does not work yet.

Anyone have any ideas?
G