For a while now we early adopters of multi-touch have been watching as newer Touch Screens were released with this thing call MS Touch Pack containing cool touch applications… And wondering how to get our excited little hands on it. Wonder no more. If you have Win 7 Multi Touch the Touch Pack is now available for download.
Posts Tagged ‘Windows 7’
MS Touch Pack for Windows 7 Now Available
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010DELL Release 21″ MultiTouch Monitor
Friday, December 11th, 2009Is this the first standalone Windows 7 compatible MultiTouch Monitor?
21.5″ Wide Screen, 1920×1080, built-in webcam and dual microphones.
Good to see. Put’s pressure on Samsung. 
Upgrading to Windows 7 RTM
Monday, August 10th, 2009Last night I upgrade our 4 Vista PCs to Windows 7 RTM Ultimate. Note there is no direct upgrade path for Windows XP. However MS provide tools to migrate your settings (you could upgrade to Vista first if you were really despite). And yes a clean install is always best, however I just don’t have the time for that. My dev machine however will eventually be a clean install.
Long time to install
All the upgrades took about 3 hrs to complete. One PC said ”Expanding Windows files 21%” for over 30mins. I was just about to give up and reboot when the install started to show life again. In the end all upgrades completed and ran OK.
Multi-Touch PCs for Windows 7
Thursday, June 11th, 2009Windows 7 release is getting closer: Late July for the RTM (MSDN download; In-store Oct 22nd. If you’re in the market for a new PC you should be considering Windows 7 multi-touch. There are lots of touch screens out there but not all are Windows 7 compatible. Standalone LCD monitors are not available yet.
- DELL Studio One 19 (All-In-One)
Released April 2009. 19″ display. All-in-one form factor. Uses the NextWindow multi-touch hardware.
Should run Win 7 multi-touck OK but haven’t actually heard of anyone doing this yet.
- DELL Latitude XT / DELL Latitude XT2 (Tablet)
DELL Latitude XT was release late 2007. It has a 12.1″ multi-touch screen. Very light tablet PC form factor. Powerful enough to run apps such as Outlook and MS Office. I own a DELL XT and the Win 7 touch and tablet features are a delight. The newer DELL Latitude XT2 (released Feb 2009) has better specs. With a slice battery attached these machines will give you 9+ hrs of battery life. Both use N-Trig multi-touch hardware.
- HP TouchSmart TX2 (Tablet)
Released late 2008. A 12″ multi-touch screen. Similar experience to the DELL XT/XT2 but has a beautiful molded finish. My mate has this machine and it is a delight to use. Quite powerful for something so small and light (< 2KG). And about half the price of the DELL XT/XT2. It uses the N-Trig multi-touch hardware.
- HP TouchSmart IQ500/IQ800 series (All-In-One)
The IQ500 (22″ display) and IQ800 (25.5″ display) series all support Win 7 multi-touch.
See my other post. These use the NextWindow multi-touch hardware.
Last Words
To run Windows 7 RC on these machines you will need to download the latest Win 7 touch drivers from the touch screen manufacturers site.
- NextWindow – http://www.nextwindow.com/windriver/index.html
- N-Trig – http://n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=Multi_Touch
Note: Although TouchSmart All-In-One PCs have many model numbers (across countries and feature sets) they all in fact use these same drivers.
Warning: Please read the Readme file carefully. The N-Trig readme warns that the old driver must be uninstalled first. And that the PC cannot do dual boot (XP and Win7) since the old and new drivers come with firmware updates. If you mix these drivers you can damage your notebook hardware.
N-Trig release new Windows 7 Touch drivers
Monday, May 11th, 2009N-Trig (who make the touch hardware for DELL Latitude XT/XT2, HP TouchSmart TX2 computer screens) have finally released a new Windows 7 multi-touch driver/firmware update.
Unlike the last drop this is full featured, supporting Windows 64bit/32bit, and both Pen & Multi-Touch.
Combined with the many small improvements to Windows 7 RC, it is exceptionally fast and accurate to use. After installing, my DELL XT machine would not boot until I pressed F12 and told it where my hard drive was. Weird. After awhile this settled down and I no longer see the problem.
Warning: This is a Windows 7 only driver/firmware update. Do not install on Vista or XP system. Do not dual boot into Vista or XP. Do not try and install an older update over this (you must uninstall first) otherwise you can damage your PC hardware. Please read the release notes before installing.
- http://www.n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=Multi_Touch
N-Trig DuoSense Multi-Touch Beta Package (2.59)
for Windows 7 Release Candidate - Read the release notes before installing -
http://www.n-trig.com/Data/Uploads/Misc/RC-DuoSense%20Win7%20RC%20Release%20Notes_1.pdf
The old N-Trig system (MTG) handled all gestures, and so could provide Multi-Touch support for Vista and XP. The new MTM driver integrates natively with Windows 7 Multi-Touch system. As a result we’re seeing huge improvements in responsiveness and speed.
Impressions:
- A note to everyone on the Touch Team.. Congrats and Well Done! Beyond my expectations!
- In Paint .. allows up to 4 fingers at a time (was more under MTG but much slower). It’s perfect. Previously (last beta) there was a lag as you added more fingers.
- Windows Photo Viewer… seem more responsive.
- Small initial delay when you start to pan, pinch or zoom, then it’s very responsive.
- I’d like to see Two Finger tap to reset zoom. - I can now Touch the outer pixel edge of the desktop. So I can now grab windows that are maximized or close to the edge of the desktop. A bit of clever fudging going on.
- Thanks for listening MS! Perfect. - Two finger Tap in IE 8 – Will Expand/Contract (or restore to 100% zoom). – Love it!
- Finger + Tap other Finger = Context menu.. Nice!
- Multi-Touch on Soft Keyboard has key repeat – Yeah! Almost feels like a real keyboard.
- Latest FireFox 3 has Pinch zoom (no pan) & has basic gestures supported. Cool.
- The new Pen Ink is wonderful. It’s really begining to feel like I’m writing with real ink!
Any one else seeing cool new stuff that catches your eye?
Windows 7 RC now available
Friday, May 1st, 2009Windows 7 Ultimate Release Candidate (build 7100) is now available for download for Beta testers, and for everyone else a little later via microsoft.com.
From Microsoft to MVPs (in my words)…
- Size: 2.47 gigs (x86), 3.2 gigs (x64)
- Windows 7 RC will expire on March 1, 2010 – at this time the system will reboot every two hours.
- The license of windows 7 RC will expire June 1, 2010.
- Rob: Normally you are allowed to upgrade the RC when the RTM version is made available.
- For Beta Testers: Report only serious issues that could delay the release. Don’t report the odd non-reproducible bug.
- Upgrade: Can upgrade from Vista SP1 only (otherwise do clean install). No XP upgrade due to so many changes. No Beta upgrade.
- Help for migrating settings: Windows Easy Transfer utility – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd446674.asp
Links
- Find out what’s new in Windows 7 – www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/whats-new.aspx
- Windows 7 forums for support – social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/category/w7itpro
- IT Pros – Talking About Windows – www.talkingaboutwindows.com
- Windows 7 IT Pro video
- Windows Press Pass Site
- See 10 things IT Professionals Should Know About Windows 7
Additional
There is also a new Windows Virtual PC beta available so you can sandbox and test the release.
Windows 7 can run apps in true Windows XP Mode?
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009Wow this is ambitious. The idea is that Windows 7 will have deep compatibility mode where you can run an application in a kind of XP virtual machine mode box. I gather that Win 7 Pro/Ultimate users can download the required XPM bits free.
PS.
Microsoft’s Application Virtualization product (App-V) has been released to manufacturing and can be downloaded here:
So this is probably what Microsoft are looking at using for Windows 7. Instead of running an entire virtual desktop, it allows an application to run in a bubble. MS purchased V-App (formally SoftGrid) from Softricity.
PSS. MVP Brian Peek explains XPM – Brian Peek.com
WiiMote for Windows 7 Touch?
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009If you watched the Johnny Lee Wii Remote hack videos (below) you can easily imagine using a Wii Remote to turn any screen into a touch screen for Windows 7. The question really is now, who will be first to write a Windows 7 driver for the wiimote
All the demos below are available from www.johnnylee.net web site. Johnny Lee you are a star!
Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard using the Wiimote
Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote
Tracking fingers with the Wii Remote
Windows 7 & Touch Screens
Monday, January 5th, 2009Some more digging into Windows 7 and touch screens.
DEL Latitude XT Convertable
HP TouchSmart IQ500/IQ800 series All-In-One
Which companies make multi-touch screens?
Microsoft say they are working closely with several OEMs including: Elo, N-Trig, NewWindow, Qanta and Wacom.
However there are 2 OEMs that standout, N-Trig and NextWindow.
If you watched any of the PDC 2008 sessions you would have seen Window 7 multi-touch being demoed on a Del Latitude XT notebook (uses N-Trig technology) and a HP TouchSmart All-In-One PC (uses NextWindow technology) . At this early stage that’s all there is available for developers. HP TouchSmart tx2 notebook also uses N-Trig (guess HP are hedging their bets), but there are no Windows 7 drivers available for it yet.
N-Trig are based in Israel with offices in the Taiwan and Austin Texas, USA.
NextWindow is based in Auckland, New Zealand with offices in USA (Pleasanton, California and Chicago).
Windows 7 MultiTouch
Friday, December 5th, 2008Single touch screen solutions have been around for quite a while. MS Win 7 uses a special MultiTouch screen which recognizes multiple touches at once. Apparently Microsoft develops using the N-Trig’s DuoSense API suite.
There are already several W7 compatible screens out there now. You’ll need to download a W7 compatible beta driver from the screen manufacturer’s website.
- Del Latitude XT notebook
- HP TouchSmart (Models IQ504, IQ506, IQ804, IQ816).
Get NextWindow Drivers | - HP Touchsmart TX2 notebook (I think HP are still working on the W7 driver).
As you can imagine most Screen manufactures are promising W7 compatible MultiTouch screens next year.
Cool links and videos
- http://uxevangelist.blogspot.com/2008/09/windows-7-multi-touch-in-depth-look-at.html
- http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUQeq60G1M
- http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm5dNMqf5UY&feature=related
- http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=SqvFTbQASeA&feature=related
- http://uxevangelist.blogspot.com/2008/06/windows-7-nui-stepping-beyond-gui.html
Incredible things in the pipe – Paper Windows & OUI (Organic User Interface)
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