The Dell driver lists more options than the Sony driver after you do the registry hack for the Dell driver. Both drivers seem to support multi-touch gestures in principle (for the Dell driver another registry hack seems to be required), but neither driver's multi-touch feature works on my FW11 though.
The original Dell driver link posted here is a little dated now, though no substantial changes have been made since then as far as I can tell. Still, for those wanting the latest version you can find it on this
Alps driver search query (I currently use the one dated 7/25/2010).
Like some others here I also get the "Failed to load launcher dll" error message whenever UseCustomGUI is set to 0 during startup/application launch. So, what I do is simply leave it at the default value (=1) until I need to fiddle with the settings and then when I'm done fiddling I again switch it back to its default value. Whatever modifications I've made will still work, this registry key only hides/displays the GUI. Also, assigning Easy Launcher or Easy Capture to a gesture will give you an error message (adding the EzLaunch.Dll file from the other thread didn't help, at least not for me). Additionally, the dropdown lists for the button actions are blank, though working, so you'll have to guess or try them out for whatever function you're looking for.
Edit: It took me a while to figure out that the upper horizontal strip on the touchpad supports back/forward navigation simply by sliding your finger left or right along it. You just need to check the "Use Back/Forward Buttons" under the Gestures tab in the extended Dell settings for it to work and it works both in Firefox and IE. I've also finally figured out the purpose of circular scrolling, thought initially it was for back/forward navigation and had a hard time trying to get that to work, LOL... In fact, though it definitely would be nice to have, I don't particularly miss multi-touch gestures that much now that I can right-click and middle-click using the touchpad corners as well as zoom in/out, navigate and scroll horizontally/vertically using the four strips on the touchpad...
BTW, here's a small batch script that temporarily opens the extended Dell settings and resets the key when done (the commented lines can all be removed). I've added a shortcut to the Quicklaunch toolbar for easy access:
Code:
:: If RunDll32... doesn't work, try Control... instead.
:: For the script to work, it has to be launched from a local HDD and as Admin
:: (right-click -> Run As Admin or create shortcut with permanent Admin privilege)
@ECHO OFF
REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Alps\Apoint" /v "UseCustomGUI" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
RunDLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL main.cpl @0,0
::Control main.cpl @0,0
REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Alps\Apoint" /v "UseCustomGUI" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
If anyone else wants to try this, make sure that you run the hex editor (for instance XVI32) in admin mode and that you also close all processes with the description "Alps Pointing Device" before saving the files.
