Over this past weekend I was gifted a new Wacom Intuos Art Tablet from my parents for my 40th birthday. Yay! This is where my excitement stopped. Well, at least for the weekend anyway.
I spent over 14 hours trying to get this tablet to work with my computer. At least 1 hour was spent waiting for my computer to restart many, many times. For whatever reason I kept getting an error that the driver is not running and no device was connected when I opened up the Wacom desktop center. At first this doesn't seem like a big deal because Windows did recognize the device but only as a mouse. The problem is that the pen buttons and the tablet buttons have not been set up properly and I can't configure how I wan't them set up. The use of pen pressure is also nonexistent for programs such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter. By Sunday afternoon I finally got it working right and I only lost some sanity, hair, and time. Below you will find what I did to finally get it working.
One last thing. When you finally get it working I highly recommend you unplug your computer mouse and stick it in a drawer. Use the tablet for everything from now on, or at least until you get competent with the pen and tablet. It's not hard to use but it does take some getting used to. I've had 25 years of practice using a computer mouse but only a few hours of graphic art tablet use.
Getting this tablet to work was such a pain in the ass that I don't have any plans to update the driver unless it suddenly stops on me. I now have reservations recommending this brand to anyone with a Window based PC. If all of Wacom's tablet products are this difficult to install on Microsoft Windows then I would suggest a different manufacturer that has better support. There are lots of threads on the internet about this very same problem but none of them worked for me and Wacom has all but washed their hands when it comes to customer support for this particular tablet. It is their cheap model and I would hope their more expensive models would work right out of the box but I suspect they are leaning more towards Apple consumers for their customer base. All I can say is do your research before buying a tablet and that includes reading up on the problems associated with the software drivers.
P.S.
Dont forget to check out the Nerds-Internationl Virtual Convention (NIV-Con) on March 10th and 11th. It's a great way to meet new people and have a fun time gaming online.
I'm using the 64bit Windows 7 Professional Operating System. I've heard that Windows 10 is very similar in function so this might help people with that OS.
First of all don't follow the directions in the box. I'm going to assume that if you're reading this then its too late anyway and you got here by doing a google search. The first thing we need to do is unplug the tablet from the computer.
Now you need to remove files with the label of Pen, Tablet, WacHID, Wacom, or any combination of these.
Disclaimer: If you remove the wrong files from your computer you might just screw something up. I'm not an expert and you should verify your own work before making changes.
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CHANGES YOU MAKE, YOU ARE.
Go to Start>Control Panel>Programs>Programs and Features. Scroll down and uninstall any Wacom programs. Then if it asks you to restart your computer click the Restart Later button.
We still have to remove some files. Go to Start and in the box for searching for files type regedit, press enter. You need to be careful while in the registry editor. You can mess up your computer if you delete the wrong files. There are three folders we're going to need to look in. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. In each of these folders you need to navigate to the Software folder and expand it. Scan through this folder for the 4 key words mentioned earlier and remove only those folders.
We're not quite done removing the corrupted files yet. Now you need to go to Start>Computer>OSDisk(C:)>Windows>System32>DriverStore>FileRepository. Again scan through the files for the 4 key words and remove those files. This task is a little more difficult to accomplish though. For some odd reason you can't just delete these files. You see, eventhough you own the computer and files, you need to give yourself permission to make changes to these files. Select the file, right click and select Properties. Click on the Security tab and then select Edit underneath the usernames. Now you can give yourself permission to change the files by selecting the checkbox Allow Full Control for your username. Click Apply and then close the dialogue boxes. Congratulations you can now delete that file you just gave yourself permission to, but only that file. Yes, you have to give yourself permission to each file you want to remove.
Now we finally have all Wacom software removed from the computer and you can restart it. Make sure you do a restart and not a shut down. They are different and changes may not take effect unless you do a restart. After it boots back up you can go through all of those file locations mentioned earlier and verify they're still not there.
Warning: You are about to disable all of your computers protection and it's imperitave that the computer is not connected to the internet either wired or wirelessly.
Turn off or unplug your internet connection. Go to Start>Control Panel>System and Security>Windows Firewall. On the left side click the Turn Windows Firewall on or off. Now select both boxes labeled Turn off Windows Firewall (not Recommended) and then OK. Now you need to disable any anit-virus/anti-malware programs you have installed on your machine.
Once all this is done you can insert the disk provided with the tablet and install the device. Follow the on screen instructions but do not install any updated drivers. Just use the disk and when it prompts you to connect to the internet and download updated drivers, ignore that. Select the Restart Later option.
Now go to Start>Devices and Printers and you should be able to see the tablet listed there. Right click on the icon and select Properties. Under the Hardware tab select Properties again. Under the General tab select Change Settings. A new window will pop up and under the Driver tab select Update Driver. Select Browse my computer for driver software>Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer. Uncheck the box that says Show compatible hardware. Scroll down to Wacom Technology Corporation and select the Wacom Serial Pen Tablet driver. A warning box will pop up and just select Yes.
We're almost there. Go to Start and in the search box type Services. At the top, under Programs you should see a gear or cog icon next to Services, select that one. On my computer there were two programs that I needed to restart and alter. Scroll down until you find Tablet PC Input Service and right click that program. Select restart and wait for the program to restart. Now right click again and select Properties. Under the General tab Startup type: I left it on Automatic but some people have better luck with changing it to Manual. All this does is make the program try to start up when your computer reboots. Next go to the Recovery tab and change the First, Second, and Third failure options to Restart the Service for all three boxes then select Apply. Close out the dialogue box and scroll down to Wacom Professional Service and do the same procedure.
This is a very important step that you don't want to skip. Turn on your Windows Firewall and any anti-virus/anti-malware programs you have. When you restart your computer one of the things that happens is that it will search for an internet connection and I don't wan't you to get any viruses because you were a dumb-ass.
After the restart your graphic art tablet should be working and you should be able to set up the buttons and pen pressure. If not then try restarting the programs under Serivces. If that still doesn't work then I don't know what to tell ya. You're fucked and I can't help so please don't ask me questions about how to help you.
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