A little help for those suffering with ALPS touchpads

I have myself a Sony Vaio Z series, and yeah they are overpriced, but I have to say it's an amazing little notebook, best I have had! But words can't describe how disappointed I was to find out that it uses an ALPS touchpad. I have a netbook (ASUS 1005HA-V) which has a touchpad about the size of a postage stamp, however at least it is a Synaptics postage stamp. With the multi-touch gestures enabled it really is surprising how productive that small touchpad can be.
So to find out the touchpad on my Z series is crippled for all but the most basic functions is more than frustrating. This is a top of the line notebook after all. Can you imagine buying an Aston Martin only to find out that power steering isn't only not standard, it's not even an option!

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However, I am not one to give up. I am by no means a computer expert and am not claiming to be. Please do NOT try what I have done. Ever. Really. In fact I'd go so far as to say if you value your laptop stop reading now, I really don't want to be responsible for any problems you may have.
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As most would know, a capacative touchpad is a a capacative touchpad. They really are the same thing physically, regardless of manufacturer. The only difference are the drivers. So I've done a little digging around to see if it's possible to substitute drivers from another manufacturer. Long story short: no.
But what if you could use a different driver from the same manufacturer?
ALPS Electric is parent company to Cirque, who you've probably never heard of. And you wouldn't have, because you have a notebook/netbook and it has a built in touchpad. Cirque develops external touchpads for various uses, but the most exciting one for me is the touchpad mouse. For an example of what I mean, check this:
http://www.cirque.com/desktoptouchpad/touchpad-mouse-overview.aspx

Yup. That's pretty much just a notebook touchpad, but external, for desktop uses. Interesting huh? I had a look through what they offer and one of their products is called the Cirque Easy Cat. Essentially what we're looking at is a touchpad with two mechanical buttons, which is offered on a PS/2 connection.
Well that's what I have in my laptop. It connects on internal PS/2, it has two mechanical buttons, etc. But here's the difference - Cirque develop their own drivers and software for their touchpad range. And their "GlidePoint" software includes "advanced gestures":
http://www.cirque.com/solutions/notebookSolutions.aspx

Starting to see where I'm going here?? Sorry to be so long-winded, but anyway...
I uninstalled the Vaio ALPS driver and tried putting on the Cirque driver for the Easy Cat PS/2. (I should say now that I'm using Win7Pro x64, but as long as you select the right driver for your system, I presume the results will be the same.) After uninstalling the ALPS driver and restarting, I had no touchpad functionality. It wasn't there, pointer didn't move, you know what I mean. So I installed the Cirque GlidePoint driver/software (version 3.5.6 is the current version) and restarted. I navigated to this pre-downloaded file and installed this just using the keyboard by the way, but you can use a USB mouse.
Restarted my notebook and behold! Touchpad working! only the most basic functions like tap to click, no side-scrolling etc. But it does work. And most importantly it is recognised in the Device Manager as: "GlidePoint 3.5 PS/2 Touchpad". Aha!
So, much like Logitech devices and their "SetPoint" software, you have to set up the Cirque Glidepoint software by going into Glidepoint, not via Mouse settings in Control Panel. I loaded "Glidepoint Control Center" from the start menu aaaand...
"There are no active devices available to configure. Path: Software\Cirque\GlidePoint Touchpad\3.5"
Bummer hey. But I had a look through the FAQ on the Cirque website:

"Why won't GlidePoint® software load on my laptop when using my PS/2 port?
Most laptops ship with the built-in pointing device connected internally to the PS/2 port. Several methods resolve this type of conflict (some may require that you check with the manufacturer of your laptop PC for assistance):
[snip snip]
Purchase a USB touchpad for supported OS: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP. (Currently the Cirque Easy Cat® USB is the only Cirque product supported under ME, as shipped utilizing native Windows HID compliant mouse drivers.) Windows will not support two device drivers. If other pointing device software is installed, the non-GlidePoint® driver may be safely removed without loss of control from the internal device. To remove the software:

1. START > SETTINGS > CONTROL PANEL > ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS.
2. Scroll down the list to find the pointing device software for your laptop. (You will not lose the ability to use your mouse).
3. Double-click on the item to begin removing the software.

Now the GlidePoint® software will load properly, and control both devices. To adjust the speed setting individually, go to the GENERAL tab (or DEVICES tab for current drivers) and click on CHOOSE A DEVICE TO CUSTOMIZE. "

Second last sentence there - control BOTH devices! Very interesting stuff! But unfortunately this is about as far as I can go. So I'm asking for help with this one. If you have an ALPS touchpad in your notebook, and most importantly know what you are doing, and have access to a Cirque USB touchpad (there are a few other manufactures like Adesso who use the Cirque software) could you follow my steps and plug in the USB touchpad and tell us whether GlidePoint DOES control BOTH devices? Will it enable GlidePoint's "advanced gestures"? If it does, I suppose the next step will be a work around to see if we can trick Glidepoint into thinking a USB touchpad is attached so we can load the software.
Another possibility is tricking the notebook itself into thinking the PS/2 touchpad is an external, not internal device, however I'm not sure if this would involve tweaking the BIOS and possibly damage the notebook - I just don't know enough about this stuff and please don't try it unless you think you do!

So that's where I'm going to have to leave it, but with a bit of help we may have a work-around to get basic multi-touch and gestures working on ALPS touchpads. Please link this thread to anyone you think may have the knowledge to help with this, and hopefully this bears some fruit!

Thank you for reading such a long post too!

 

Actually I know of some Dell notebooks that use modified Synaptics drivers for their ALPS touchpads. Have you experimented with anything like that yet?

 

Hi XGX2007, thanks for the reply.
Yes I have heard of people experimenting with those. I think it only works with a few select models of ALPS touchpads though, others who have tried have had major trouble removing the driver after it has gone haywire.
How would one know the part number/model of the exact ALPS touchpad they have? I'd be willing to try it, but want to know that the modified drivers are at least in the same ballpark.