As I mentioned previously, the one hardware issue I’ve had with Vista was the inability to get Vista to properly deal with my serial Wacom Intuos tablet.
After a couple e-mails and a phone call to Wacom’s support group, the solution and steps are this:
- Download Wacom’s latest driver from their web site.
- Create the following registry key if it doesn’t exist:
- Â
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tablet]
"PnPTablets"=",COM1" - Plug in the tablet. If Windows prompts for a driver, hit cancel.
- Install the Wacom driver. The tablet should work after the driver is installed.
- Reboot. If Windows prompts to install a driver for the hardware, choose the option not to present the message again.
The tablet should work from that point forward.
[tags]wacom, intuos, vista[/tags]
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stupid wacom support, there is a new driver for win7 but serial is off the line..
I’m not sure I’d call Wacom’s support “stupid” – they can’t support everything forever. Given that they haven’t produced serial tablets in several years, it’s not unreasonable to drop official support for a brand-new operating system. With a finite amount of development resources, a bunch of effort to support old tablets probably isn’t the best investment.
Stupid….No….money grabbing bastards….maybe! I purchased my A3 tablet several years ago….for $1600 Aust…..yes that’s right…big $$$$. ANd it’s great. It still works flawlessly, has become an extension of my hand, and part of my toolset. Now I have to bin it and buy another, as they don’t “Support” it anymore. Now I’m sorry if WACOM…poor fellows…have to ensure their software caters fo all their clients. If you made a website for some-one, and then it didn’t work in the new explorer, how do you think they would feel if you said…sorry, we don’t support your website anymore….but I can make you a new one for $$$$! It is legislated that car parts must be available for a minimum period of time…..driver support should be the same. And let’s not even get itno the environmental impact of these practices. I’m with you vince….STUPID!
No, it’s stupid. Because if I have to buy another tablet because of this trivial issue, it won’t be from Wacom. And I’ve got a lot of years of photo editing and equipment buying ahead of me.
Thanks to everyone for all the input. Managed to get my UD-0608-R serial tablet to work under Windows 7 32bit. Tablet is plugged straight into the rear com port. Added the registry entry with “PnPTablets” = “,COM1″ , installed the 4.78-6 XP driver from the European site and voila!…one small caveat….control panel not working. I’m also getting the reinstall driver error. Is there any other way to configure the settings? Looking to see if any files or the registry can be edited manually.
I am trying the same thing… but since my computer does not have a serial port (gah!) I am using a serial-USB adapter. Do you know how to get that to work? I tried choosing both ‘serial’ and ‘usb’ from the install menu and both say there is no tablet, and the serial option only searches ‘com3′.
Hm that sounds good
Can someone tell me if it work with Windows 7 64bit ?
cu
GoZ
Can anyone explain how to do this for windows 7?
When you open regedit, which folder do you make the key?
Do you keep the quotes”" in this text?
Thanks
I have a question. How do I access the registry to create the key you have listed above? I didn’t have a problem with older versions,
but; I can’t find it on my computer or in my Vista reference books.
Any help you could provide would be appreciated.
Thank You in advance for your help.
Disregard my previous question. I found the answer directly above.
It work for me too. UD-0608-R with windows 7 32bits. Yeah!
Just need to know now, how configure the pen buttons functions…
I have to agree with Frank (Oct. 26). It is inexcusable for a company to discontinue support for expensive, perfectly functional equipment that is only a few years old. It is pure greed, and I’m sure my mother would say “Just because Billy Gates does it doesn’t make it right!”
Haas anyone come up with a workaround to get a UD tablet to work under Win-7 64 bit?
I worked for Wacom in 2001… at which point the UD series tablets had already been discontinued. They’re not “a few years old”… they’re at least 10 years old.
That is not important, wacom tablets are not fruit or meat, are expensive work objects without expitre date than can work properly years and years. In fact I have a serial intuos GD at home and a new intuos 4 at work and I prefeer how my serial GD feels. I can´t believe a company like wacom can´t afford drivers for “old” tablets.
And we’re not talking about any technological paradigm shift from the serial tablets to newer ones, as if we were going from vacuum tubes to transistors, which would render the older product obsolete. The ONLY issue is maintaining drivers for an input device to work with the new standard operating system. And the Best Buy sold this exact tablet–at retail price–as recently as last summer. Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. And while I’m not speaking as a former employee of Wacom, my credentials are even better: I’m one of the suckers who, once hosed by them, won’t be giving them any more of my money.
Help… I’ve tried all the above and it does not work with my Win 7 64 bit. I have a Wacom GD0608R. I tried several drivers, with the last one being pro611-3 because it’s supports serial and works with 64 bit…NG Anyone have any luck?
hi everybody,
just installed Vtablet v.7.11beta for Win7 64bit from vtablet.com.
I tried a Wacom UD 1212-R and a GD 608-R.
Both are connected through a Logilink (Prolific-Chip) USB-to-Serial Adapter which is installed correctly.
Now the Vtablet driver seems to have installed somehow.
Its Tablet manager can be started.
When i move the pen over the tablet’s surface i see some numbers changing under “Port Interrupts” and “Packet Errors” in the “Driver area” of the “Status Tab”.
So apparently some signals are arriving.
But the problem is that the cursor does not move at all.
Does somebody else experience the same thing?
What is going wrong?
Many thanks in advance
I was able to get everything installed on Windows 7… but I am also not getting the cursor to move around.
just to avoid misunderstandings: the two tablets are not connected to the computer at the same time
Sorry to use your blog for this, but I don’t know where else to start my search. I just acquired a UD-1212 in mint condition, but it came with the mac serial cable, not the PC serial cable. These are special serial cables as they connect to the power supply. If anyone can sell me one, I’m interested. Thanks!
I’ve got this working on several systems: thanks for the info!!!
I’m using the 605-7 international drivers for win2k-vista. After adding the registry key and a reboot they work flawlessly. Windows 7 32-bit is aware of the pen functions, the tablet is hot-pluggable and control pannels work.
Some things that can help those with problems:
“COM1″ in the reg key should math with the com port number on which the tablet is connected.
64-bit is never going to work! Only USB tablets are implemented in the 64-bit driver.
ADB (apple’s PS/2 port) tablets are not compatible with PC (only a single serial data line), so you would need an active convertor. Not supported by Wacom at all, so don’t go that way.
USB 2 Serial converters do work, but some have suggested to keep the COM port number low. You can change this in the device manager.
there is a beta driver in http://www.vtablet.com
The Vtablet beta driver works for the wacom GD-1218-R in windows 7 X64, the only thing is that the pressure sensitivity doesnt work neither photoshop nor zbrush.
its a step ahead i think only have to wait until a propper driver arrives.
Wacom just sucks at their driver support, it really shouldn’t be much of a problem to keep supporting the older expensive ones. They make good stuff but now they think their clients should buy new stuff.. RIP OFF.. I have an expensive tablet and tools (mouse brush etc)
let’s wait and see until your stuff is out of support!!!
How the hell do you create a registry key?? Sounds like something only advanced users know. Can we get a good and easy walk through on how to successfully create and add such a registry key because I’ve been googling the subject and not one site speaks in english.
I really want to get my GD serial to work. I refuse to have to buy a new one when I only had this for less than 5 years. It works flawlessly. Damn you Wacom!
@omardex:
do you have a special trick to get it running?
I tried on two different computers with two different tablets (Intuos2 and UD 1212-R)
One computer was a PC where i connected the tablets directly through the Com-port and also tried through a USB2Serial-adapter.
The other computer is a Mac (with WIN7 x64) without a built in Com-port so here the tablets were connected only through the adapter.
Odd thing is that on the PC vtablet refused to install from the beginning whereas on the Mac it installed ‘successfully’.
But as mentionend earlier the mouse pointer refuses to move.
Win7 64bit here!
I got Wacom Intuos 2 com-port version (XD-0608-r) working with Virtual Tablet Beta drivers. I’m using serial-USB adapter UC-232A and it seems to be solid hardware. Just cleaned all wacom related stuff prior installing the adapter drivers and VTablet.
There aren’t XD-profiles in Tablet Manager device types
, but the GD-profiles give the tablet some basic functions – most importantly pressure detection!
No special trick, but maybe it installs easy with the windows 7 UAC disabled.
Ok, I have read several “How do I create a registry entry” messages, so here it is: — for the registry [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tablet]
“PnPTablets”=”,COM1″
Click “Start”, “Run”, type in “regedit”, click “OK”
Reg Edit comes up.
On the left hand pane, click the “+” sign to the left of “My Computer”
Then click the “+” sign to the left of “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE”
Then click the “+” sign to the left of “Software”
Scroll down, look for “Tablet”
Then click the “+” sign to the left of “Tablet” …
… and the rest you should know what to do.
@JKL, is everything working? Does pressure and tilt really work with vtablet?
I have a huge GD1218, that cost me as much as a car when I bought it. I have a motherboard with a serial port. Until now I’ve been using Win7 32bit just for my tablet to work and I am furious as I have 16GB of Ram installed, but the OS only uses 3.6GB – so 3DSMax crashes often as it runs out of memory. I HAVE to switch to 64bit, I bought a new intuos4 A4 that I HATE, and I really NEED my GD1218, so if vtablet works for 64bit, I am buying it right now!
Please, if anyone else has any experience with it, let us all know.
man, is there ANY website out there that doesn’t link to wacom eu ftp but has the 4.78 actually mirrored?! can’t find them anywhere -_-
nevermind me… link seemed dead but just now it worked.
I have one of the ancient artz2 UD-1212-R wacom tablets which I just love and just upgraded to Windows 7. I got it to work using the vtablet beta drivers but I haven’t tested it with the latest painter/cs5/corel products. The wacom driver did not work for me. I had to turn UAC off or it wouldn’t install properly. I did have to unplug the tablet and cycle the power on the machine and the tablet to get it to work, but it did! I am using a keyspan serial to usb adapter.
As a software developer, I totally understand not supporting code from 10+ years ago, but wacom tablets are interface devices that are sturdy beasts that can last longer than my roof. I don’t see why they don’t have a paid legacy service to pay for the driver support. Honestly, if vtablet can support it and hundreds of other devices for a fee, there’s no reason wacom should leave that business on the table and look bad at the same time.
Good luck everyone!
Have been given a serial wacom penpartner tablet and having difficulty in installation. The device driver does not see my comm ports even though they are free and available. A number of searches on the internet seem to indicate a problem using window xp sp3.
A lot more searching and still no solution in sight todate.
ON my mac g4 doesnt have serial ports sigh
One thing using serial to usb convertors is that they are not 100% compatible in timing and voltages and needs a special component to be 100% , although in some case if the usb item only needs some of the signals and timing is not a problem then they can work.
All in all everything normal !!~
I am also disappointed that RS232 (COM-port) is no longer supported by WACOM. Should not be that difficult.
I have a brandnew motherboard with 1 com port and would love to see it working with my GD-1212-R using win 7, 64 bit.
Is there someone out there having a solution?
WACOM people: please help!
could someone please explain
“PnPTablets”=”,COM1″
Is this a key. I know how to edit the registry but this is not obvious. I’m really looking for a registry adjustment for 64 bit. Win7
i can’t afford a new tablet, so i just use the mouse now and my work is suffering
The vtablet x64 beta for Windows 7 (vtablet.com) works with the Wacom GD1212R. So far so good. They also have a long list of other tablets that this driver supports.
Windows-works great
Illustrator CS5-works great (pressure!)
Photoshop CS5 x64-so far a no go
If anyone has run into this problem please post some info. Photoshop is the main tool for tablets. I’ll keep trying with different settings and post outcomes.
I use a Lenovo X200 tablet and the tech in that is SERIAL. I just upgraded from Windows XP 32bit to Windows 7 64bit.
NO DRIVERS. Period.
Someone should sue them. Really. I’ve only had this Tablet PC for a year and now they’re forcing me to upgrade to the x201t to keep my tablet functionality and get Windows 7. I just wasted money on getting Windows 7 64bit and now they’re forcing me to fork over the dough for my tablet functionality back.
That sounds frustrating, but this blog post is about Wacom graphical input tablets, not Tablet PCs…
And that’s another kicker, the serial connection is inside the computer as a ribbon cable. No way to jam a Serial to USB converter in that.
I tried 32bit, it does work with the Windows Update driver, but the operating system itself not as secure as 64bit. (Backdoors, trojans, etc. have flooded 32bit)
Toughest situation ever. I hope the X201 has a USB digitizer.
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