Connect with us

Hardware

Dell Latitude XT Touch Drivers Held Hostage: Day 4

Published

on

latitudextnowin7Rob Bushway keeps plugging away at Dell and the lack of drivers for the Dell Latitude XT now that Windows 7 is released. He’s been twittering about it each day since the big release day on Thursday. So, I’d thought I’d help our founder out here, and we’ll run a “Held Hostage” post each day until Dell releases the drivers or says it won’t. What’s the big deal here? Well, remember this was the first multi-touch Tablet PC released and Dell made a lot of noise. They also charged a lot for these machines. The base model still lists for $2315. The new Latitude XT2 lists for $2350 and of course comes with Windows 7 installed and new drivers. Intriguingly, there is no option listed for Windows 7 on the original XT.

Merely speculation here, but I think Dell has moved this to the back burner.

11 Comments

11 Comments

  1. Rob

    10/25/2009 at 1:25 pm

    thanks my friend – it won’t be long before folks in the forums begin losing their patience, too.

  2. Tim

    10/25/2009 at 4:44 pm

    Are they not just snaggable directly from N-Trig? I rarely get Fujitsu’s drivers for my T5010 anymore, preferring to go to the hardware company directly.

  3. Tim

    10/25/2009 at 5:06 pm

    https://www.n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=Multi_Touch

    Are these the drivers or something else? There’s a specific Dell XT section.

  4. Steve S

    10/25/2009 at 5:39 pm

    …Read the text. These drivers are only for the Win7 Release Candidate and NOT for Win7 RTM or later.

    I agree that Dell needs to support the XT; it’s only 2 years old!!!

  5. Tim

    10/25/2009 at 6:13 pm

    Right the page mentions that the drivers were released for Win7 RC. However, unless something snuck by major news outlets, the driver model hasn’t changed so the drivers should still work.

    The page doesn’t make any mention of them NOT working for RTM or public release. Generally drivers work for more than exactly what they’re specified for, hence why in the early days of Win7, a lot of us were using Vista drivers for some functionality.

    The reason why a version of the driver prior to Win 7 (ie Vista) wouldn’t work is because the touch model changed in Win 7, and the driver needed an update to match that.

    If the drivers don’t work, that’s fine, as I was just trying to be helpful. Don’t sit there and bash a link as not working without actually trying them though.

  6. Ryan

    10/25/2009 at 6:44 pm

    The problem with the RC drivers is that a lot of the functionality is broke. Plus little glitches here and there.

    I was part of the Win 7 TAP and one of the reasons I bought the XT was because it was the only tablet that supported multi-touch at the time (Dec 08). It’s a little bothersome that there isn’t anything out yet.

  7. Tim

    10/25/2009 at 6:56 pm

    Since it seems like N-Trig is the one making machine specific drivers, rather than Dell taking a generic and modifying them, has anyone tried contacting N-Trig support directly for an answer?

    It could be that Dell is just waiting on N-Trig to get their act together and is otherwise out of their hands.

  8. Rob

    10/25/2009 at 11:07 pm

    tim – there are no win 7 drivers on Dell’s site for the XT – not just the N-Trig drivers that are missing. There are none there.

    We’ve been working with the N-Trig RC drivers for quite some time, and they are quite buggy. Also, they were only designed to work with the RC version of Win 7. In the forums, most people have been avoiding them because of the problems withe RC drivers.

    The purpose in my twittering this is not just to drive the N-Trig specific RTM drivers, but all Win 7 drivers for the XT.

  9. Elmstrom

    10/26/2009 at 4:06 am

    Its weird to have 3 years Pro Support, but less then 1 year of driver support. Bought my laptop last december and have more then 2 years pro support left..

  10. Steve S

    10/26/2009 at 7:06 am

    Warner: I hope you have plenty of space on the home page for this… it’s probably going to be a LONG fight!:

    Latitude XT Drivers Held Hostage: Day 76,396…

  11. Billy Blanks

    10/26/2009 at 12:25 pm

    I totally agree with you guys! I want to upgrade to Windows 7 and want the drivers for my XT. I paid premium for multitouch and now that Windows 7 is out, there are no drivers???? OMG, DELL you are going to lose another customer trying to save some money and being lazy!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.