anyone get kensington mouse drivers to work under w2k?

[PlumTree 0]

since installing w2k everything seems to be running ok. however, i haven't been able to get kensington's mouseworks 5.30 drivers to work with my expert 5.0 trackball. i sorely miss having custom button assignments. right now it's detected as a 2 button logitech ps/2 mouse. i've tried installing the drivers several times, but so far no luck. installation seems to go smoothely, but on reboot there's no mouse at all and i get an error message stating kmwsafe.sys couldn't be found and the mouseworks driver was not found either? anyone have any luck getting their kensington hardware and mouseworks to function under w2k? any hints or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[dortman 0]

I had the same problem myself - just to let you know you weren't alone. I e-mailed Kensington last night regarding the problem. I'm still waiting for a response.

[dortman 0]

FYI, I received the following info from Kensington via e-mail:

 

------------------

We are sorry but at this time we do not have a driver or a betaavailable

for Window 2000. We are working on a driver but do not know when thedriver

will be available. We suggest that you keep an eye on our web site for

updated software and resolutions.

[Syncope 0]

I use the Kensington Mouse-In-A-Box Scroll, and have the disk with 9x & NT drivers. The NT drivers work just fine on Win2k. I tried the 5.30 drivers once, and they blew. I can zip-up the floppy tonight and send it out. Leave you email address(es) here, cause I don't know where to post the drivers for public download.

[deckard 0]

Alas I have no solution but also wanted to add that I am also greatly affected by this problem.

The standard PS/2 driver with Win2K simply blows compared to what I'm used to with MouseWorks 5.30 under Win9x. One thing I must give credit for though is the inclusion of a PS/2 poll rate tweaker in the standard driver. That is sweet!

Also, my conspiratorial mind finds it suspicous that Kensington is giving us the run-around on Win2K drivers (I got that same canned response, verbatim, when I inquired about drivers) because:

 

1. They aren't just some no-name input device maker that can live with not having Win2K drivers...their products are quite popular and ALOT of people use them.

2. In all versions of Win9x there is standard support for the specific Kensington brand name...however in Win2K Kensington is completely absent from the manufacturer list.

3. The other big hardware manufacturers like Creative, 3Dfx, Nvida, etc. have all either publicly announced or delivered Win2K drivers for their products.

 

I sure hope Kensington is not going to drop the ball on us.

[dortman 0]

I was also rather disappointed - and even a little confused - at the lack of driver support.

 

First off, Win2K seemed to do a smashing job of detecting all of my hardware. It seemed to have drivers for everything - except the Kensington. Come on....

 

But more of a disappointment is Kensington's apparent lack of effort with regards to developing new drivers. It's not as if this was a surprise to them. Not what I have come to expect from them - I've usually been quite happy with both their products and service for the last several years.

 

Lastly, I definitely must agree with you regarding the standard PS/2 drivers.. it just ain't the same!

 

-Dave

[PlumTree 0]

thanks for all the replies, now i know it's not just me. not that that should be any real consolation. i called kensington tech support [1 800 535 4242] yesterday. boy do they have a confusing automated phone system. had to try it three times before i got through to a real live human person. not to mention that their message also stated that wait times might be as long as one hour?!

 

anyways, the support person took my name and telephone number down and told me to have a nice day. when i asked him why he was taking personal information, he stated that they had been instructed to track how many people called requesting information about win2k drivers. he also said that he wasn't allowed to comment as to whether or not kensington was developing mouseworks drivers for win2k.

 

i guess i could say that i understand kensington not wanting to possibly commit to anything. however, as an end user i'm in total disbelief that kensington did not plan ahead. while i must concur that kensington's win98 and winnt4.0 drivers are really great, it's rather disheartening to neither see nor hear anything about support for win2k. i can kind of see why they don't provide support for linux, but win2k is a micro$oft platform. [personally, i wish they would provide drivers for linux too. hey, i can dream can't i?]

 

i can't believe that a company as prestigious as kensington could leave any portion of their end users out in the cold, so to speak. i guess we'll just have to wait for kensington to get with it and hopefully realize that they need to provide better and more responsive support for their end users.

 

anyone out there up for putting together a hack for win2k?

[maraklov 0]

I recently bought a Kensington TurboBall with hopes of using it w/ my current workstation, which runs win2k pro. This has been my 3rd purchase of Kensington input devices and they've never let me down with their top-notch control software and tactile use. I'm really surprised at Kensington's lack of commitment to the win2k platform and to its base of loyal customers. As has been stated, a large number of key hardware manufacturers have already showed their support for win2k w/ driver updates and patches. I only hope that there is at least some progress being made at Kensington to deliver these drivers... otherwise, I'm going Logitech from now on.