Magic Trackpad from Apple seems an ergonomic way for interacting and controlling a computer without the help of a traditional mouse. Powered with two AA batteries it uses Bluetooth to connect with your laptop or computer.
This Magic Trackpad has multi-touch enabled and doesn’t provide any buttons but the large surface provided allows you to tap anywhere to click and double click. Two fingures can be used for scrolling pages and using four fingers you can switch between applications that are open.
Windows PC and using Magic Trackpad with it
It appears tempting but it is clearly stated in the marketing brochure of Apple that a computer running on Mac OS X Snow Leopard with enabled Bluetooth is required if you want to access the Magic Trackpad. Nowhere is Windows mentioned in the specs.
That means, Magic Trackpad from Apple can actually be used in your desktop which is running on Windows. First you require the CNET confirmation.
Though the box clearly states that a Mac is a necessity for using Magic Trackpad, we were successful in pairing it with a PC running Windows. But, Windows has functions which are limited only to click functions and single-touch only – multitouch setting for example tap-to-click and pinch-to-zoom were not available on Magic Trackpad.
The trackpad worked fine with windows but without the Boot Camp for Will Smith. He says:
Without boot camping Magic Trackpad shows no Magic of its own on Windows.
Mat Gemmell who has developed iPhone and iPad says:
Magic TRackpad driver was installed by me last night in Windows 7, and it works fine. But pinch, rotate, and 4 finger gestures are not available.
None of these users sounded much excited regarding the use of Magic Trackpad with Windows, following are the steps if you want to get the Magic Trackpad work on your machine running Windows (without Boot Camp). These steps have been shared by Engadget reader.
Magic Trackpad working without Boot Camp on Windows
Step 1: The following patch is to be downloaded from the Apple website which is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit for windows but make sure you don’t run it yet. Although being an executable file it will not run on Windows as it is made far only those users who are using Boot Camp to run windows inside a Mac desktop.
Step 2. A copy of 7-zip is to be downloaded and the exe file content is to be extracted which was downloaded by you in the previous step.
Step 3. Now a new file with the name of “BootCampUpdate32.msp” is to be created – the content of this file also has to be extracted using 7-zip.
Step 4. Now several sub-folders named BootCamp3135* will be available with you . Among one of the folders a file called “Binary.AppleWirelessTrackpad_Bin” will be present – you just need to add an extension a.exe to this file after that run it using double-click.
The Wireless Trackpad driver from Apple will now be installed on your machine running Windows and it will not even require Boot Camp and now pairing the Magic Trackpad with your PC can be done.
Computers running Windows 7, Windows XP and Vista can run this Trackpad device driver. It was pointed out by some readers that for getting the Magic Mouse working with Windows the same approach has to be used.
