How to kludge an A4Tech trackball in Win7
February 1, 2013 11:02 AM Subscribe
Got an A4Tech Trackball recently, but the ancient drivers won't install in Windows 7. Is there an alternate driver or application I can install to get the second scroll wheel to work, add acceleration, or change scroll speed?
I got tired of not having a scroll wheel on my Trackman Marble, and those break too often for my liking. (Unfortunately the suggestions in the last post I made on that were unsuccessful for me.) TrackballlWorld.com listed this A4Tech TB as twenty bucks, which I figured was cheap enough to give it a try. It's not a bad unit (though "USB for Windows 98" made me laugh), but could use some tweaking. The drivers included do not install at all (in fact the included minidisk (!) has manuals for two other mice entirely) and the driver pack I got from A4Tech's website (shown above) won't install either, whether by automatically from the shown setup file or manually from the mouse control panel. So the right scroll wheel shown is acting as an inverted version of the left wheel. Also, scrolling is somewhat slower than I'd prefer, and the mouse control panel's scrolling tab doesn't seem to change this.
I did find X Mouse Button Control which, although I can switch the functions of the buttons on the right side (much more ergonomically friendly), isn't really a driver and can't add what it can't interpret properly, and isn't allowing me to change scroll speed or add acceleration (faster cursor movement depending on how fast I twitch the ball).
Is there any other solution I could try to a) get the second scroll wheel to work, or b) add some tweaking changes to cursor behavior such as I describe?
I got tired of not having a scroll wheel on my Trackman Marble, and those break too often for my liking. (Unfortunately the suggestions in the last post I made on that were unsuccessful for me.) TrackballlWorld.com listed this A4Tech TB as twenty bucks, which I figured was cheap enough to give it a try. It's not a bad unit (though "USB for Windows 98" made me laugh), but could use some tweaking. The drivers included do not install at all (in fact the included minidisk (!) has manuals for two other mice entirely) and the driver pack I got from A4Tech's website (shown above) won't install either, whether by automatically from the shown setup file or manually from the mouse control panel. So the right scroll wheel shown is acting as an inverted version of the left wheel. Also, scrolling is somewhat slower than I'd prefer, and the mouse control panel's scrolling tab doesn't seem to change this.
I did find X Mouse Button Control which, although I can switch the functions of the buttons on the right side (much more ergonomically friendly), isn't really a driver and can't add what it can't interpret properly, and isn't allowing me to change scroll speed or add acceleration (faster cursor movement depending on how fast I twitch the ball).
Is there any other solution I could try to a) get the second scroll wheel to work, or b) add some tweaking changes to cursor behavior such as I describe?
This post was deleted for the following reason: poster's request -- cortex
You can find a version of the driver that works with Vista here.
According to this page, you can get Vista drivers to work with Windows 7.
I'm not really a windows guy, so I can't test to see if it works.
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:28 AM on February 1, 2013
According to this page, you can get Vista drivers to work with Windows 7.
I'm not really a windows guy, so I can't test to see if it works.
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:28 AM on February 1, 2013
Response by poster: Yes, those are the drivers I have, but when I attempt to install them nothing happens. Nada. Trying to add them manually does not work either.
posted by waraw at 11:32 AM on February 1, 2013
posted by waraw at 11:32 AM on February 1, 2013
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What does it show up as under Device Manager? Generic USB trackball? You can try picking a similar trackball driver to use if you list by manufacturer. Good luck finding one with two scroll wheels though. You might be able to get the acceleration and speed to work.
posted by dobi at 11:21 AM on February 1, 2013