CF-29 MK3 and Windows 7 Sound and Hotkey Problems

Can anyone give me a hand with getting the sound and hotkeys on a CF-29 MK3 (H3M50BM) to work. The Panasonic Hotkey driver for XP installs but upon reboot gives an error in Device Manager with a yellow marker saying Windows 7 has disabled it due to "instability problems." The CF-29 MK 4 and 5 Hotkey drivers will not install under windows 7 at all, with Windows 7 reporting that "This machine does NOT support." Has anyone had any success with other Hotkey drivers on a CF-29 MK3?

Also I do not have any sound under Windows 7, despite the drivers loading properly and no other error messages. Does anyone have any experience with this problem and the best way to fix it?

I can live without the hotkeys, but I need the sound.

 

Have you read the posts on how to install W7 to a CF-29? Everything should be there... And located in the stickies...

EDIT: You can read HERE and thank Azrial and a few others...

 

I've searched the forum prior to posting but did not find much info about upgrading a CF-29 Mk3 - Azrial for example is running a CF-29 MK5. Granted there seems to be no problem upgrading these newer 29's (CF-29 Mk 4-5) to Windows 7 - the problem for me is that I cannot use the newer drivers that they are using because when I try to install the drivers I get the error message "This machine does NOT support." and the driver installation is cancelled.

If anyone has had success installing the hotkeys on a CF-29 MK3 please post - otherwise its back to XP.

 

You are not "installing" the drivers when you get that message, only extracting them to the HDD. They extract to a folder such as C:\util2\drivers. After extraction, you must either run setup from the folder or from device manager point the device that you are trying to install to the folder where the driver is. It depends on what driver you are trying to install.

To get around the "This machine does NOT support." you should use WinRAR to extract the files. You still may not be able to install the driver as the hardware may be different but, you should get farther into the process.

Glen

 

Did you do a full install or an upgrade?
Before I did my windows 7 upgrade I made a copy of "util" folder and placed it in my Program Files and then I upgraded to windows 7 and what ever drivers I was having a problem with I went into windows.old and grabbed them.
That said I have not been very happy with windows 7 on this. Before I could watch a movie with no problems but now the 29 crashes or runs the movie very slow if it evens plays it. It did run better with a 8GB ReadyBoost but still not as fast as XP . I now have 2 HDD's and 2 caddies....one with XP and one with Windows 7 which I now do not use much. Now put Windows 7 on a CF-51 1.6 Duo and it runs like it should.......FAST with NO problems.

 

Finally success - I was being thrown off because the hotkey driver was an .exe file and I never made the connection between that and a compressed archive. Using Glen's advice I ran my copy of 7zip and extracted the hotkey drivers from the CF-29 Mk5 and installed them without a hitch. Then installed the other two hotkey programs which go along with it, and the hotkeys were functional.

Then pressed the function key and mute/unmute (F4 key) and sound, beautiful sound.

 

I am glad that you were able to get your CF-29 working correctly, however this is how we all did it.

 

The next time you get the "This Machine Does Not Support" right click~Properties~Compatibility~Click on XPSP3 or Vista whichever one you know it works on. That procedure has never let me down before, just make sure you do this on ALL the files in that program that have the compatibility option.

 

I got it unzipped but now it goes to run but does nothing

 

The driver downloads and it says to restart...but then it says "driver blocked due to compatability" also it has a yellow ! on it in the device manager

 

Well I spoke too soon...Downloaded MK5 drivers...downloaded 7zip...extracted in 7 zip...updated driver info on device manager and they work.

 

Awesome! Just don't give up. Somehow or someway you can always get it working by hanging around here

I gotta try that WinRar. Alot of people seem to enjoy that program.

 

Good news!

Toyo is correct, you usually just have to prove to the machine that you are more stubborn then it is...

This site and forum in particular is a huge resource of folks to help you resolve the problems that Panasonic does not address and some that it does.