CF30 XP to W7 conversion report

Hi,

I posted a question about the viability of this plan some time ago, and received some valuable input. I thought I would report to the group on the results:

I have a CF30-KTPAXAM, with two 160 gB HDs in their own caddies. Originally, the 2nd was intended to be an 'in case' spare; I clone my HD regularly, and if the HD died, a slam-in replacement was arm's length away, and data restoration 1/2 hour later.

With a need for W7 familiarity for my clients, I modified this plan, not wanting to make the personal 'jump' to W7 from XP SP3 right now. One drive now has a clean, full install of 32 bit W7 Pro, the other remains the XP drive. Both are now cloned to backup USBs regularly.

W7 32 bit runs well on the machine, with 4 gB of memory. There is a package of about 35 update drivers from Panasonic available, with step-by-step installation instructions, including order of install. That went very well, with no major problems other than noting (and correcting in procedure) a few typos and minor errors in the instructions.

Everything works, with one minor exception (noted below), although W7 is not the clean machine that XP SP3 is quite yet. I will now test, at my leisure, various needed applications and devices for compatibility, with the comforting thought I can still slap the old drive in an go earn my beans and weenies with my clients with software that I know works.

So far, the only glitch is the touch screen. It worked properly with W7 after driver install and calibration. When I returned to XP, there was no touch screen function. Clearly, the only common element was the BIOS; I looked and found the W7 touch screen driver install had changed the tablet/touch screen choice to 'auto'. I returned it to 'touch screen', and XP touch function returned.

When I next switched to W7, the touch screen worked, but was 1/2" off. Calibration would not work; I suspect I will need to return the BIOS to 'auto' for the screen selection in order to recalibrate. I'll hold off on that for now, unless I find myself with excess idle time. It's a shame that something so simple was the only fly in an otherwise pristine 'ointment'.

Why did I not 'dual boot', you ask? W7 is an HD hog; just the installation with no real software or documents took up 26 gB of the 160 gB drive. I'm at 65 gB on the XP side now with needed stuff. I feel that slowly adding docs and software to the W7 side of such an installation would quickly take me too close to the limit, especially when I want to load up the HD with movies for long plane trips. Call me silly, but big blocks of open hard drive have the same effect on me as a zero-balance credit card bill and money in my savings account!

Probably should get two larger hard drives, and do that, though. Maybe....

There ya have it....thanks for the help.....and feel free to ask any questions if you plan a similar adventure.

Total cost: Generic drive, caddy from flea-bay ($60), and a full install (not OEM) of WP7 Pro ($220).

 

Good freakin' luck with this! It won't ever work. I can't get my CF-30 to calibrate either. Also can't get the sound to work . Everything else is fine including the bluetooth and internal Sprint card.

 

Well I can't say that it is surprising but it was nice to see that the upgrade went as expected. Nice writeup!

 

man I must have gotten lucky with the touchscreen fairy, cause so far no calibration problems. And I have been switching from my XP drive to my W7 one quite a few times. not so much now since I want to get comfortable with W7.

 

You have a Mark 2 or Mark 3!!! I have a Mark 1

 

Well... I just got in my 320GB, 7200 RPM SATA drive to load W7 on. I figured the same as antennaman.... I would just pull the working drive out of my laptop and install the new 320GB and spend a few hours installing W7. I have an MK1 so I know I'll have some issues with the touchscreen. I'll need to get those figured out. Then we need to make a sticky for CF-30s as we have for the 29 and 28 models.

I figured the same.... I can play around with W7 but instead of fronting the money for another caddy.... I'd just take the 2 minutes it takes to swap drives and swap back in what I know will work. I don;t care about touchscreen and sound so much now as I know we'll figure all that out.

I need to do some reading for the CF-30, MK1 installation of W7.... I know someone around here posted it (Toyo?) and I'll print it out and have all the drivers downloaded and ready to go on my USB key. I only have about 6-7 other laptops and desktops around so getting online to read and download is not an issue in the meantime. I also have several CF-29s getting ready to go on ebay that I could always use in a pinch to get info...

I'll keep everyone posted.

 

Each mk# has its issues with W7
I have not been using my cf-30's enough to resolve the couple of problems that I have with them



Alex

 

Well.... Get crackin' dude!

 

The mk-1 has been restored back to XP
The mk-2 is sitting on the shelf ....waiting to resolve touchscreen calibration issues ( its out 3/8 of an inch) and no panasonic drivers will work, only the genaric W7 touchscreen drivers
Using the cf-19 ...Nice to have options

 

Well.... I have a ton of work to do tomorrow so I will most likely do it at some point over the next week or so. Maybe Sunday...

 

I will help by emailing Rick the drivers I've been using that work GREAT on my Mark 1... We've been communicating via PM to try to get a wright up on this... we'll put this on toughwiki.com too once/IF we figure this mystery out

 

Here is what I have to do to get the Touch working properly when going from XP to 7 OS's.

Device Manager, uninstall driver for Touch.
Programs & Features~Uninstall FCL Touch.
Devices & Printers~Right click on your Toughbook~Click on Device Installation Settings~Uncheck Do not let Windows download & install drivers.
Reboot
QUICKLY install the Panny driver for the W7 Touch.

I know it sounds like alot, but it's actually very easy and it all works. The driver Windows installs for XP is year 2006, can't remember the version #.

 

I would think this method is best feasible when you are NOT connected to the Internet on your Toughbook, that way Windows won't have a way to automatically download whatever drivers it feels like. I sure hope people find success with it, as the biggest thing keeping me from buying a Toughbook is reading every story about how every TB owner can't get their touchscreen to work in Windows 7

 

Hi,

Thanks for the update; your method works, but I observe I need TWO reboots when switching systems for stable touchscreen operation on either system.

When W7 is operating and the touchscreen is all set up and calibrated, I shut down, swap drives, and bring up XP. The touch screen does not work. A reboot will return it to working.

Swapping back to W7, on boot the touch screen works, but is 1/2" off calibration to the 'southwest'. Attempting a tablet recalibration (it's not a tablet!) results in 'data input error' when you touch the crosshairs with your stylus.

Escape out, reboot, and everything is fine. Doesn't even need a re-cal.

It appears related to the "auto" setting in the BIOS for the touchscreen. W7 wants to think of this thing as a 'tablet'.....and XP (correctly) as a touchscreen. The 'last' setting sticks until the second reboot, then things are okay.

Can you duplicate?

Is it possible the CF30 W7 driver package I got mistakenly has the 'tablet' driver, rather than the touchscreen driver? I received TouchscreenDriver_v1.0.1.0_30K_30L_w732_ss6980.exe in my package.

Last question:

Now that I have it (weird but) stable, should I go ahead and reenable letting Windows download and install drivers, or am I stuck without that feature for all eternity?

Thanks.....

 

I would think that if you have everything working... You can let it go back to updating.

I was just talking to a neighbor that just loaded W7 on his Dad's PC.... He said part of the instructions were to disconnect from the Internet at times so that W7 gets the drivers that YOU want it to get other than surfing the net to get it.

Toyo... Was this working touchscreen on your MK1 CF-30?

 

I think the driver for the touchscreen, included in the Panasonic W7 transition package, may possibly be incorrect, or problematic.

Nothing in the XP configuration or calibration software referred to a 'tablet'; I have a TOUCH SCREEN configuration/calibration under Fujitsu on XP. W7 shows it as a 'tablet' calibration. Further, I'll note that tablet software (invoking an available and ever-present just-off-the-edge on-screen keyboard) appeared when W7 was running. I did manage to hide all that, but it seems to be a pointless use of resources to display an keyboard on a touchscreen, above the actual keyboard.

I'm also not enthusiastic about the operating system making BIOS changes that require 2 reboots to resolve, but I guess eventually I will settle on one operating system and that issue will become moot.

 

Hopefully I'll have some time today to play around with this...

 

Rick, my MK1 is non touch. This all relates to my 3.

It doesn't matter if your connected or not. The VAST majority of the drivers are installed in the OS. Plug in an Ipod without being connected and watch it load the proper drivers. I almost committed myself to a crazy house until I figured that one out. You have to be sure to tell it not to download or INSTALL drivers.

Antennaman, You have to be sure you don't accidently click on the 19 driver package which is right next to the 30 on that page, as you well know. Did that one by accident also

 

I can verify that on a CF-19 Mk2 touchscreen model that I have the same behavior when switching caddys between XP and Vista.

XP, first boot, the touchscreen doesn't work and there is an unknown piece of hardware that Windows can't install. Second boot, touchscreen works and is in calibration.

Vista, first boot, touchscreen works, but is out of calibration by 1/2", didn't try to recalibrate. Second boot, touchscreen is back in calibration and works fine.

Both OS are loaded from restore discs.

Glen

 

So it sounds like we all need to do a couple of reboots and see how that works for us. Give me a moment and I do the ol swap a roo

 

And????????????