Dumb driver question...

How do I properly install drivers so that are working when Windows boots?

I did a clean install of Windows 7 Pro x64 on my Acer AS1410. Then I installed the Acer supplied Synaptic touch pad driver but it won't work until I log into my user account. At that point I believe it works for all users, but I would like it to load the driver automatically on system boot.

How do I do that and what did I do wrong?

Thanks in advance.

 

It loads the driver on system boot. The funny icon that shows up on the system tray isn't the actual driver.

 

As surfasb said, drivers are loaded before the login screen is displayed. Are you referring to perhaps the Synaptics application that runs in the system tray?

 

Thanks for the quick replies. I didn't expect to see the icon on the login screen, I'm not that dumb!

My touch pad was really, really, really slow until I logged in. I just reinstalled it. This time I right clicked and selected "Run as administrator". Upon reboot, the track pad seemed to work as it should.

Could it be that I installed it as a user the first time? When I open the task manager, Synaptic runs under my user name. Is this normal?

I've been mainly using Linux the past few years so I'm not up to speed on Windows these days.

 

It is possible that when you ran it the first time at the user level without administrator privileges the setup program did not actually do anything. When installing drivers or software, Run as administrator is one way to fix installation problems.

 

Thanks. I'm not sure what I did the first time as it was several weeks ago and I really hadn't had much time to play with Windows until now. I did another reboot a few minutes ago and it seems to be working properly now, so I guess it's fixed.

 

This is unlikely. The Synaptics program does not require admin privileges.

The slowness of the touchpad could be attributed to all the housekeeping Windows initiates when any username is logged for the first time.

Synaptics should be running under your username. That is normal.

 

Synaptics has updated their Win7 drivers in rapid-fire the past few weeks.

Make sure that a) your running an actual Win7 driver and b) it's the current version.