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TrackPointDriver

This is an alternative ThinkPad TrackPoint driver for Windows offering a reliable TrackPoint scrolling experience.

Story

I've been using a couple of Lenovo ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint for over a decade and they are still going strong. The newest ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II, while pleasant to type on, has a rather unimpressive layout by comparison. I ruled out upgrading for the time being. One unique feature I use most on the TrackPoint is scrolling while holding down the middle button. However with Lenovo official driver, TrackPoint scrolling is rather unreliable. On some application it just won't work. On others like Visual Studio it will work for a while until it won't. This driver primary goal is therefore to get the scrolling working everywhere, reliably, exactly like your standard mouse wheel.

Feature

TrackPoint scrolling: hold down middle button to scroll vertically or horizontally using your TrackPoint.

Download

Available from slions.net.

Installation

  • First install the official driver from Lenovo. You will still need it to be able to adjust sensitivy and other parameters from Windows Mouse Properties settings.
  • Nefarius kindly signed this driver's latest version. You can skip the next step when using a signed driver.
  • Make sure you enable the installation of unsigned drivers on you computer. This is best done by running the following command as administrator: bcdedit /set testsigning on. If this is denied because of UEFI Secure Boot and you can’t deactivate it then you won't be able to install that driver until a signed version is available.
  • Go to Windows Device Manager.
  • Locate your TrackPoint device below "Mice and other pointing devices".
  • Right click your TrackPoint device and select "Update driver".
  • Click "Browse my computer for drivers".
  • Click "Let me pick a list off available drivers on my computer".
  • Click "Have Disk…" button.
  • "Browse" to this driver location on your computer and select the INF file.
  • Select the driver and click "Next".
  • Validate various Windows warning messages if needed until installation succeeds.

Usage

You can still adjust TrackPoint stick sensitivity as usual from Windows Mouse Properties. Hold down the middle button and use your TrackPoint for mouse wheel emulation. It works both vertically and horizontally.

Hardware

While designed to work for Lenovo ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint this driver could potentially work for other TrackPoint hardware or even any mouse pointer device.

Development

prerequisite

After installing Visual Studio 2019 make sure you install the Windows Driver Kit. You may also need to add some missing components through Visual Studio Installer, notably those Spectre-mitigated libs.

Debugging

Use DebugView and Enable Verbose Kernel Output from the Capture menu to obtain debug output from a driver debug build. I have not used actual step-by-step debugging as it requires a more complex setup with an host and a target machine, physical or virtual.

Nefarius enabled WPP tracing. You can use TraceView to visualize them. To enable WPP tracing create the following DWORD registry key and set it to 1: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SlionTrackPoint\Parameters\VerboseOn. Reboot your computer and open the PDB with TraceView.

Omissions

Our target hardware can be configured by sending it HID reports. Settings such as TrackPoint sensitivity can thus be changed and possibly read I guess. However we spared ourselves the task of reverse engineering that configuration protocol. In fact it turns out using the official driver mouse properties page works just fine together with our custom driver. Nevertheless it's clearly possible to analyze communications between the official driver and the hardware using WireShark together with USBPcap. Note that USBPcap is bundled with WireShark. Such a reverse engineering was done for that Linux driver. See sensitivity report.

Further development

  • We could add some configuration options through an UWP application or a property sheet.
  • Communications with the driver could be done through WMI I guess, see Microsoft Firefly Driver Sample for details of such an implementation.
  • Driver could be packaged in an installer, I believe there is such a thing as a Visual Studio driver package project.
  • Driver and installer could be signed to allow installation on UEFI Secure Boot machine. Though an EV Code Signing Certificate is needed and those ain’t cheap and are only granted to companies apparently.
  • To avoid needing such expensive EV Code Signing Certificate we should check if we could implement that driver using User Mode Driver Framework as suggested there.

Conclusion

That was an interesting dip in Windows kernel driver development. Actually implementing a proper mouse wheel emulation from a mouse driver filter was really straight forward. That brings the question: why could Lenevo engineers not get this done years ago? Go figure!

Resources