Just installed Windows 7, issues with Alps Touch Pad Driver

So, I ran the Windows Upgrade advisor for 64bit Windows 7. I was on 32bit Windows Vista. It said everything was compatible.

After clean installing Windows 7 yesterday, I noticed every device automatically worked without me having to install the drivers that I usually do when I clean install Windows Vista (such as my Webcam, the monitor already supported 1440x900, and port devices).

All I installed was ATI CCC, IDT Audio, then after a long spout with troubleshooting my devices and finally finding the driver through windows update something called Base Device (turned out to be Ricoh Card Reader). This has felt like more of a pain than Vista so far.

Anyway, I went to install Alps Touch Pad and the OS won't let it install at all. What should I do? My touch pad works just fine, but without the Driver Software, I can't use the scroll feature on the edges of the touchpad and it is getting really really annoying.

 

Silly question, but bears asking...

Are you trying to install the Alps driver that came with your 32bit Vista, or have you downloaded the 64bit version and are having problems with that one?
Drivers and Downloads

 

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

That worked, I tried searching dell's site for Windows 7 drivers for the 1535, not 64bit Vista ones. I assumed if a 32bit driver works, then it works in 64bit as well. That worked perfectly. I have a whole set of drivers backed up to external HDD's and CD-Rs but really those are all desgined for 32bit Vista. I guess I'll have to make a new backup for Windows 7. Which means, I'll probably end up reinstalling Windows 7 in the not to far future knowing my ability to royally screw up an OS when trying to update drivers.

What's weird is I got a BSOD when restarting my computer from an installed update from Windows Update. But I let the computer fix itself and no issues since.

 

You're very welcome.

Your driver priorities will be this. 64bit are your first choice, then 32bit if no others exist.

If you're prone to messing things up, I HIGHLY recommend making use of the "Create a system image" function that's included in Windows 7 Backup & Restore. This feature was not a part of Vista and is very helpful. It takes a snapshot of your system and stores it to another drive. Rather than cloning a drive, it only takes the information, not the entire disk space. Even better is that you can navigate to the system images, which are .vhd files, and mount them in disk management as virtual hard drives. You can then explore them in the event that your system image has information that you may have deleted from your current installation.

 

Interesting. Another question: as I said, Windows 7 seemed to have almost all the drivers already installed for my devices inclusing a ICR reciever, my wifi card, LAN port, integrated webcam, etc. I'm checking the link you provided and see that some of the drivers I had to install on Vista have dedicated 64bit versions. Now, is it worth it to install these drivers or is it not necessary since Windows 7 already had driver support for these hardware? The only ones I have done so far are for the Audio (IDT) and Video (AMD) since that will make a big difference in quality and control in applications such as games, skype, etc.

 

Nevermind, I'm looking at the Driver versions of the specific hardware vs the driver version for the one provided by Dell, it looks like for hardware like the ITE CIR Reciever and such are even newer provided by Windows 7. The only driver from Dell I've never understood is the Intel Mobile Chipset, I don't know what it is for. I see no difference before and after, and because of that, I always install it anyway just to be safe.

 

Chipset drivers are for the CPU essentially. It's best to get them directly from Intel and keep them as up to date as possible.