Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
I just successfully did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate on a CF-18 MK2 Touchscreen, model CF-18FHAZXBM, to be exact. All buttons work, the touchscreen works (more about that below), and it is reasonably quick. I took this opportunity when I installed a Transcend 64gb PATA SSD. My CF-18 was miserably slow on a stock install of XP with the original hard drive. I'd upgraded by adding a 1gb stick of RAM for a total of 1.25 gb, but while that helped, it was still very slow, so much so that I purchased a CF-19 Mk2. I always figured that an SSD might help, but after an abortive attempt last year with a faulty Kingspec SSD, I'd given up for the time being. I'm putting this how to together since rcx's original thread was for the digitizer model, and a lot of info on the Touchscreen model was getting lost in the size of his thread.
I followed the How To for the CF-18 Mk1 by rcx here, and the vast majority of the credit goes to him:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/418424-howto-install-windows-7-cf-18-mk1.html.
But that procedure assumed a digitizer model, and I have a touchscreen model. The problem is that Windows 7 doesn't recognize the CF-18 Mk3 touchscreen as a touchscreen, but only as a mouse. This appears to be a common problem with older touchscreen computers. As a result, even with the proper drivers installed, the front keyboard, enter, and screen rotation buttons on the front didn't work. Weirdly enough, auto rotation of the screen worked fine when I put it in tablet mode. The problem and the fix turned out to be rather simple and I give others credit in the referenced post for turning me on the the fix, but that post didn't state why the drivers buttons didn't work.
Part of the problem is that the CF-18 Mk3 touchscreen and touchpad both use a single driver by Fujitsu and are recognized as a single device in the device manager. They are also PS/2 devices and not USB, which Win7 apparently also doesn't like.
It also turns out that the three buttons involved depend on Windows 7 recognizing the computer as having a Touchscreen. Since Win7 doesn't recognize the CF-18 touchscreen as such, the control panel item for the touchscreen doesn't appear, even though tablet components and button drivers are installed. I figured out how to get the control panel to appear thru a registry edit I found elsewhere, but even that didn't activate the buttons. If WIndows doesn't see a Touchscreen it recognizes, the buttons don't work, period. A real PITA!
The solution, as alluded to near the end of the thread referenced above, is to install the Wacom digitizer drivers, even though you don't have a digitizer installed!. Once I did that, the buttons all work. The touchscreen still operates as it did under XP, as a mouse, which mean that gestures don't work. But it works as a mouse, tapping and double tapping works, the mode changer in the status bar works, and handwriting works, just as they did under XP.
Ok, the details.
0. Do a clean install of Windows 7, preferably with SP1 installed. In my case, the sound worked, as did the wired lan. Go ahead and install all of the Windows updates assuming you have internet through the wired lan. There may be over 100 updates if you don't have a slipstreamed copy of Win 7 to install from. I even found that I could get a decent resolution on my screen by right clicking on the desktop and changing the resolution, which made the rest of the install better. (You still need to install the Intel drivers in the painful manner as outlined in the thread as part of the next step in order to enable screen rotation).
1. Follow the steps in the first post of http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/418424-howto-install-windows-7-cf-18-mk1.html exactly. I printed out a copy of the directions in the first post, and checked them off as I did each item (also see step 2 below). Follow them to the letter, and restart EVERY time a new driver says to!
2. I didn't install the Bluetooth drivers as I don't have the stock Bluetooth device installed, nor did I use the stock wireless drivers as I have a Broadcom wireless-n mini PCI card installed (see http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/695784-cheap-dual-band-b-g-n-wlan-upgrade-cf-18-a.html#post8934912 for details. I also didn't install the dock lan driver as I don't have a dock. The Wireless Switch Utility doesn't work with my wireless card, but should on a stock wireless card. Sound worked out of the box, so I didn't need to install a driver for that either.
3. At this point, everything except for the front three buttons referenced above should all work correctly. It will take several hours to do all of the above in steps 0 and 1. You won't have "Tablet PC Settings" or "Pen and Touch" control panel items at this point. Open the "Mouse" control panel item, and it should have a tab for the Touchscreen. Go ahead and calibrate and test your touchscreen now. This is the control panel item you will use to change settings for both your mouse and your touchscreen. If you don't have a touchscreen tab in the Mouse control panel, you didn't do something right. If your screen doesn't auto rotate when you put it in tablet mode, you didn't do something right! You also shouldn't have any unknown devices in the Device Manager,
4. Download the Wacom digitizer driver from here: ftp://ftp.wacom-europe.com/pub/WINDOWS/cons508-6_int.exe. This is a slightly different version of the driver mentioned in the thread referenced above, but works fine.
5. Use the installer and install the Wacom driver you just downloaded. It doesn't check for a digitizer at all. It will take several minutes to install. You don't need to restart your computer!
6. Test your Keyboard, Enter, and Rotation buttons on the front of your CF-18. They should now work.
7. You should have three new Control Panel items, the "Tablet PC Settings" and "Pen and Touch" items mentioned above, and another item "Pen Tablet Properties". Ignore the later one as it won't open as you don't have a Wacom digitizer installed. The other two items will open, but they don't control your touchscreen! You CAN use the "Tablet PC Settings" "Button" tab to change what your front buttons do as outlined in the above post. There is no other use for these control panel entries as far as I can tell.
My CF-18 is now much faster. Windows 7 does a better job of memory management than XP, and handles SSD's better, so it was a definite improvement. It starts up and shuts down much quicker, although startup can still take awhile to settle out, but it is responsive in the meantime. I'm careful not to use memory hogs like Adobe Acrobat Reader, but as long as I am careful with what I load, it is very responsive.
This SHOULD work with other versions of the CF-18, but specific drivers may vary some. YMMV.
Enjoy!
Jon
How to: Install Windows 7 on a CF-18 Mark 3 Touchscreen
Discussion in 'Panasonic' started by jonlowe, Dec 1, 2013.
