My sad story with Driver Booster

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by ams963, Aug 19, 2015.

  1. ams963

    ams963 Registered Member

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    Hello,

    I just wanted to share my frustration, anger and sadness. This is what happened. I used Iobit's Driver Booster to update drivers. It updated some drivers and asked to restart. After the system restarted, my Acer ES1-411 model laptop's touchpad stopped working. I installed the touchpad driver for the model from the Acer website in vain. I formatted the disk and installed the system fresh from the DVD, hoping it would solve the problem (I've been kicking myself ever since for not making disk image backups). It still didn't make the touchpad work, even after updating all the windows updates and again installing the driver. Instead it added more headaches. Now the brightness control isn't working and there is no Wifi setting). The brightness is set at the highest. Decreasing it doesn't work. My eyes hurt and I'm literally having a headache from this. I'm taking my seven month old laptop to the shop tomorrow to get it fixed.

    So all in all, I have three major problems with my laptop because of my stupidity of not keeping disk image backups and using Iobit's highly dangerous driver updating software. I just hope with my luck that the shop can fix my laptop so that I can get back to work.
     
  2. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Last edited: Aug 19, 2015
  3. J_L

    J_L Registered Member

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    I don't know why some still recommend 3rd party driver updaters, it's like saying CCleaner's registry cleaning is completely safe and free of errors.

    Imaging is an essential part of backup for anyone who's more than just a consumer of electronics. Windows even has that built-in!
     
  4. ams963

    ams963 Registered Member

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    I have already installed the driver from there but to no avail.
    I have learned my lesson the hard way. I've promised myself to never touch anything related to drivers and registries and to make solid backups once I get my laptop fixed.
     
  5. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    There's no reason the Acer drivers should not work. There's various ways to install drivers. Lots of times an ".exe" driver will not install the driver but decompress it to a specific location. Where a further .exe has to executed or a readme read or even a .inf executed. Check Device Manager, decompress the drivers & look for readme's or setup.exe's.
     
  6. Lucius

    Lucius Registered Member

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    So you have formatted your drive , reinstalled windows and wifi and brightness controlls are not working, right? I'm running acer laptop too and to make these controls work (ex. fn+wifi) you need to install acer launch manager software. Mm you didn't tell which windows you are using but in windows 10 (i'm running windows 10 ATM) there is an option to turn touchpad on / off. Have you seen this option? Is it on or off? Do you use usb mouse, does touchpad work if you unplug the usb mouse?
     
  7. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Great info Lucius a lot of brands have their own software for the FN keys.
     
  8. pegas

    pegas Registered Member

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    Perhaps you could have tried to revert to the previous state of drivers using the backup option in Driver Booster or there are other options (stated already here) worth to try before you go to format a disk. It is the last option.

    And as already mentioned, backup of system is a must and if everything works fine no need to update drivers, moreover by a third party application.
     
  9. ams963

    ams963 Registered Member

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    I used the setup file and it opened windows saying the driver is installed and ready to use. Capture.PNG
    Right.
    Okay I'll try this.
    I'm on Win 8.1
    Yes I have seen this but using this Fn+F7 has no effect.
    Yes I'm currently using a usb mouse. Unplugging the mouse makes no difference to the situation.
    I had tried reverting to the previous state using the inbuilt option in Driver Booster. That didn't solve the problem. I had to use the last resort as I didn't have any backups.
     
  10. ams963

    ams963 Registered Member

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    okay I've installed this but the problems persist.
     
  11. MerleOne

    MerleOne Registered Member

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    Did you try a Windows restore point ?
     
  12. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Launch manager with everything else configured properly should work. Are you rebooting in between & checking Device Manager. A lot of fixing Windows vexing problems involves checking what you just checked after a reboot, a new driver etc.
     
  13. Lucius

    Lucius Registered Member

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    Yep, did you reboot after installing Launch Manager? I don't think your laptop is broken, 'cause even if you install wrong driver it does not physically break your laptop (touchpad etc). You just need to find and install all the correct drivers and softwares that your laptop needs to make it work normally again.
     
  14. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Exactly! And we know it can be frustrating. There's a lot of variables. Sometimes drivers don't work if they're installed in the wrong order. So there's a LOT going on & as you're finding out it's not always straight forward.
     
  15. ams963

    ams963 Registered Member

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    There was only one. I restored that. But touchpad didn't work. I had to resort to formatting and Win installation.
    Yes I rebooted after installing Launch Manager. It did say when shutting down, Getting your system ready....Do not turn off your computer..... But nothing happened after system restarted. Thanks for the assurance. I'm glad the hardware is okay and it's only the system.
    I feel so helpless. I hope the computer store can fix it.
     
  16. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Sometimes to fix a problem like this it's mind numbing. Usually after trying logically. I gather all I need: drivers, shortcuts, pdf's, video links etc. & put them all on the desktop. I clear everything else off the desktop. Then as fast as I can I enact all the possible order of things. From Device Manager uninstalling & or disabling current driver etc. etc. And 99/100 times I fix it. But I cannot tell you in what order I did things.

    So I say don't give up. Just keep on.
     
  17. Lucius

    Lucius Registered Member

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    How to configure touchpad in windows 8.1: Open PC Settings, click PC and devices on the left side and then click Mouse and touchpad. There you should find option: Touchpad on / off. Maybe something has turned it off? And you can double click elan touchpad tray icon and maybe you can find there some settings to check out. :)
     
  18. Azure Phoenix

    Azure Phoenix Registered Member

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    And this one of the reasons why Driver Booster suggest the user to create a restore point in case things like this happen.
    From my experience with the product, there are some driver updates that work and others that don't. For those that don't work, it's most likely better to do what the majority of people say and go the manufacturer website.
     
  19. ams963

    ams963 Registered Member

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    There is no Touchpad on/ off option. And there is no elan touchpad try icon. Capture 1.PNG
    Driver Booster had created a restore point. And I had restored it. But it didn't work. Driver Booster had updated several drivers. Maybe something had went seriously wrong. I just don't understand.
    I have gone to the Acer's website and have download the elan touchpad driver that was designated to my laptop model. But it didn't work.
     
  20. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Did you uninstall current driver through Device Manager then install the Acer or did you install over it?
     
  21. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    After reading this thread I checked on my Win10 machine and I can't adjust the brightness either. The touchpad and WIFI settings are working.
     
  22. Lucius

    Lucius Registered Member

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    Do you have a Acer laptop too? I bought a Acer Aspire VN7-791G 768T laptop like a month ago from Deutschland, laptop came with Linux so I installed Windows 10. This is my first Acer laptop ever and first thing what I noticed is that Acer barely updates their driver packages to their website.. like.. they are just so old if you check the drivers dates for Windows 8.1 and they haven't even updated the launch manager that works with Win 10 to their driver website. So I ended up to install zero drivers from there. Latest Acer launch manager version is 8.00.8115 and it also works with win 10, you may download this newest launch manager here.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2015
  23. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    @ams963 As other have said, nothing has been damaged on your laptop, only the incorrect driver software for your touchpad is loaded.

    If you're still hacing no lucj, try using Drive The Life, as where possible, it will find driver updates released by Acer, instead of the latest drivers released by the device manufacturers.

    My personal exerience with Driver Booster is that I've used it on many computers and it has never installed an incompatible driver.

    @Lucius The majority of the computer manufacturers rarely provide driver and software updates for more than a about six months after a computer is released.
     
  24. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    Yes, that machine is an Acer laptop.

    I have no interest in installing Acer Launch Manager, or any other crap they offer.

    Since I bought that machine in 2010 I have not received ONE update from them. I contacted them a couple of years ago when I replaced the hard drive and asked if they would sell me Recovery Disks, which they refused. I told them I will never, ever touch another Acer product or program as long as I live. Quite frankly, I am so glad to install a fresh Windows installation that does not come with included Acer bloat.

    Win10 works straight out of the box on that machine with a fresh installation so a small matter of not being able to adjust the brightness doesn't really concern me, especially when the laptop is always connected to external power.

    Thanks anyway.
     
  25. pajenn

    pajenn Registered Member

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    maybe the timing of the driver update was just coincidental with the touchpad problem, and that would explain why trying to fix the driver is not working. did you open the computer to add ram or anything like that, which could have resulted in a loose connection to the keyboard/touchpad cables?

    at this point, it might be worth unscrewing/prying off the keyboard just to make sure the cables underneath are well connected. obviously be careful if you do it.
     
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