CF-19 Windows 7 Tablet Upgrade Tips

I have been struggling with a new Windows 7 install on my Mark 1 CF-19 Toughbook for quite a few hours, flipping between drivers and the like. I have finally got it on, and everything (touch wood) seems to work well.

I'd just thought I'd share a few little tips to help people avoid wasting too much time with it. Everyone may be different, but this is my experience.

Firstly, in my case (with a Mark 1 CF-19), I now use ONLY WINDOWS VISTA DRIVERS. The biggest problem I was having was related to the fact I had installed a couple of the new Windows 7 CF-19 drivers, initially thinking things would go smoother if I used these (they didn't). My experience, with the Windows 7 drivers is that the FN buttons didn't work at all and the brightness on the Tablet Buttons didn't work (the other tablet buttons did seem to work).

I used drivers from the Panasonic Toughbook page ( http://pc-dl.panasonic.co.jp/cgi-bin/itn/toughbook/dl01.cgi). Specifically to my model I selected 'CF-19C/D/E (mk1)' and 'Windows Vista' in 'English'

If you have installed the new Windows 7 drivers don't worry. I loaded the Device Manager highlighted each driver individually Clicked 'Action' and then 'Uninstall', making sure I checked 'Delete the driver software for this device.' before pressing 'OK'. A quick reboot between removing each driver and I was able to get the following out of my system (one by one):

1) System devices | Panasonic Misc Driver
2) Mice and other pointing devices | 'touchpad'
3) Human Interface Devices | Panasonic TOUGHBOOK Tablet PC Buttons
4) System devices | Hotkey Driver for Panasonic PC

Then I reloaded them one by one, by clicking Update Driver on the unknown devices and pointing them to the relative (Vista only) drivers in the 'util2' folder... but note that the Misc Driver did cause me problems (see below).

If you are following this far (because you installed the Windows 7 drivers and are having problems). Make sure you uninstall all other Panasonic Toughbook Windows 7 software and drivers by using Add/Remove programs. Finally, delete the remaining files in 'c:\util2' before unzipping all of the Vista drivers into the emptied folder. (Remember, when clicking the drivers downloaded from the Panasonic website, to wait to 'ok' the 'Unpacking of files competed' screen to come up before moving on to the next... it can take a while sometimes)

TO FIX MISSING PANASONIC MISC DRIVER

One VERY IMPORTANT driver I did have a problem with was the Panasonic Misc driver. This needs to be installed very early on as a lot of the Panasonic software is dependant on this.

When I started the Windows 7 installation, I couldn't find how to install the driver. I went through updating missing devices until there were none, but still other installers asked for the Panasonic Misc driver.

The reason is because it doesn't show up until you install another piece of software (it's a service kernel driver apparently).

The bit of software you need is the 'Panasonic Misc Driver Application', which normally unzips into 'c:\util2\miscinst'. Once unzipped run Setup.exe in the directory, reboot and you now have a new 'Missing Device' ready to have it's drivers updated with the ones found in 'c:\util2\drivers\newmisc'. I think the application was listed as being for Windows XP... but I didn't end up using that one in the end...

It took me ages to work this out. As I mention I found a newer Misc installer in the Wireless LAN update, and this unzipped to 'c:\util_d091051\miscinst'. To find this driver, look on the Panasonic driver website, and when looking at Vista drivers for your model there should be the following driver: "Wireless LAN Driver [This file can be installed only to WLAN model]. Download this and follow the instructions (the instructions seen on the download link)

NOTE: I couldn't get MobiLink to work. I thought I had it, but the versions I have found refuse to recognise the SIM card. The Panasonic drivers I found refused to run.

I hope this is helpful to some of you guys.

Cheers.

 

Thanks. I got almost everything to work the way i wanted. The only thing im having a problem with is that i can not get my touchscreen to save calibration. I can calibrate the touchscreen and it works fine, but as soon as I turn my laptop off and reboot, its calibration is off again. Can you help with this issue?

 

Read this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=431682

 

Hi, thank you h3lpmedic. I read that, but although it mentions the 'newmisc' and 'misc' driver, I couldn't see what to do if there was no mention of 'unknown hardware' in device manager to upgrade with the aforementioned 'newmisc' driver. I completely overlooked running 'miscinst' first.

Although it probably goes unnoticed if you follow guides to the word, it was one of those things that is not not immediately apparent to fix for someone, like me, who tends to shy away from instructions/manuals. Hopefully between the two posts people should be able to upgrade with minimal hassle.

Though unfortunately, I'm still having troubles tracking down a WWAN driver.

 

Hi there, sorry but unfortunately mine is a tablet and as far as I can see the calibration seems to save. I'm not sure what the issue could be.