Anyone know how to modify settings for the Apple Magic Trackpad on Windows (without Boot Camp)?

I was able to install the driver and make it work.

However, tap-to-click appears to be on by default, and I think this would work much better if I could turn that off.

The problem with just installing the drivers is you don't get the Boot Camp control panel so you can't adjust settings.

Has anyone figured out where the settings for the trackpad are stored?

Jim

Posted 2010-08-06T04:18:22.643

Reputation: 141

Greetings from a ServerFault refugee. Could someone please use Sysinternals Process Monitor to see exactly what gets changed when tapping is disabled in the Boot Camp Control Panel on a Mac running Windows, and then let us know with an answer here? I'm tossing a +50 bounty into the ring for good measure. (I have a real Mac at home, but I run Windows in VMs instead of natively, and I'd really rather not go to all the trouble of setting up a Boot Camp partition just to figure this out.)

– Miles Erickson – 2010-09-17T15:32:54.600

1Just for clarity: the context in which I'm struggling to disable tap-to-click involves the use of a Magic Trackpad on a Dell PC at work. – Miles Erickson – 2010-09-17T15:40:25.270

Interestingly, HKCU\Software\Apple Inc.\Trackpad does not appear in the registry when the driver is installed but the Boot Camp Control Panel isn't. – Miles Erickson – 2010-09-17T16:07:52.353

Is it perhaps possible to install the Boot Camp Control Panel without actually using a Mac? – Daniel Beck – 2010-09-20T05:12:30.397

@Daniel It is possible to install the Boot Camp Control Panel on a PC, but it fails to launch when attempting to access "startup disk information"; see jrr's narrative: http://superuser.com/questions/170044/how-can-i-install-an-apple-magic-trackpad-on-a-pc-without-boot-camp

– Miles Erickson – 2010-09-20T16:06:24.383

Folks: the winner of the bounty will be the first person to answer Jim's original question: where is the tap-to-click setting for the Windows version of the Magic Trackpad driver stored? What registry settings and/or files change when tap-to-click is disabled in the Boot Camp Control Panel? – Miles Erickson – 2010-09-20T23:35:23.600

Answers

Attaching a debugger to the BootCamp control panel, one can see that the settings are written with an IOCTL of the format CTL_CODE(FILE_DEVICE_MOUSE, 0x801, METHOD_BUFFERED, FILE_ANY_ACCESS). The data written matches what is found in the Windows Registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Apple Inc.\Trackpad\Mode. I've determined the format of this entry to be:

0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1  0x6F
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | tap to click
| | | | | | dragging
| | | | | drag lock
| | | | [reserved, always 1]
| | | [reserved, always 0]
| | secondary tap
| secondary click
bottom left (0 for bottom right)

I wrote a quick program that will read this registry entry and write the settings to the \\.\AppleWirelessTrackpad device. Download it here (source code available, contributions welcome). Someone with Windows programming experience could add a nice UI and have it run as a service to detect and initialize when the device is [re]connected.

For my personal setup I manually changed the registry setting (0x6b: defaults, minus drag lock!) and run this program as a Windows Scheduled Task (at login). On the rare occasion that the pad loses sync between reboots, I just run the program again manually to refresh the settings.

Here is a sample registry file, save as plain text then double-click to apply:

File disableTapToClick.reg:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Apple Inc.\Trackpad]
"Mode"=dword:0000006e

Additional sample registry files available on the downloads page.

rymo

Posted 2010-08-06T04:18:22.643

Reputation: 928

For defaults, minus tap-to-click, use 0x6e (01101110). For other combinations open the Windows calculator in Programmer mode (under the View menu), click "Bin" on the left, type in the 1s and 0s according to the chart above, then click "Hex" on the left to convert it back and that's what needs to go into the registry.

I hope a fellow superuser can help us all out with a nice UI sometime soon..! – rymo – 2010-09-21T09:05:43.797

Excellent. I had to create the registry entry myself since I can't install boot camp, but this did the trick. I can actually use this pad now. – Jim – 2010-09-21T15:55:27.993

However, two-finger scrolling seems to have stopped working. Did this happen to you? – Jim – 2010-09-21T16:00:58.903

Two-finger scrolling still works for me; what setting did you end up saving to the registry? – rymo – 2010-09-21T16:41:41.497

+50 bounty awarded, thanks! I am out of the office today, but I will report back tomorrow on the results. – Miles Erickson – 2010-09-22T00:01:03.137

This was absolutely perfect, @rymo! Thanks so much. It should be noted that this will not run unless the x86 version of the MS Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable is installed (even if one's system is x64): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84

– Miles Erickson – 2010-09-22T15:49:20.567

@Miles: starting with the 0.3 download, the MS Redistributable should no longer be necessary. – rymo – 2010-09-23T18:27:08.090

1Ah, I had used a string and the value "0x6e". Changed it to a DWORD and it's wokring great. Thanks! – Jim – 2010-09-24T03:37:18.793

@Jim "0x" is programmer-speak for "the following string of numbers and/or letters represents a hexadecimal value". – Miles Erickson – 2010-09-24T21:19:13.833

This is brilliant. Thanks a million. This drove me nuts. – Sebastian – 2010-09-29T15:16:16.383

I really, really want to buy you a beer right now. Drag lock was driving me crazy. – Philihp Busby – 2012-08-25T00:19:39.117

Is there a way to make the driver start up with / remember the settings set in the registry (besides running padset.exe via the Autostart folder)? – Lucas Hoepner – 2014-03-14T09:33:01.427

You sir, deserve a medal – Dennis Haarbrink – 2014-05-14T09:02:12.160

I make a GUI version to make the registry settings. Please check ist out and tell me what you think. But beware it is a beta version. Look here http://www.mannis-world.de/blog/?p=15#more-15

manfred

Posted 2010-08-06T04:18:22.643

Reputation: 21

This is not supported, your best bet is to ask Apple Support but I guess they won't help either...

It seems best to learn the behavior, please note that just touching the track pad to move your mouse does not trigger a tap. A tap only triggers if you touch the track pad fast and remove your finger...

I can move over my desktop shortcuts by continuously moving while jumping my finger without any of the shortcuts being opened, I can only open them when I do a fast tap (or click a mouse button if present).

Tamara Wijsman

Posted 2010-08-06T04:18:22.643

Reputation: 54 163

@Jim and I are struggling to change our behavior, but we really want to change the setting. Apple Support is not our best bet because the Magic Trackpad is not officially compatible with PCs. – Miles Erickson – 2010-09-20T23:45:41.793