[HOW TO] Get the Trackpad Preference Pane back in 10.5.6 Options

[Memorial]

After updating to 10.5.6 some people have noticed that the Trackpad preference pane is gone from the keyboard&mouse options. In 10.5.6, Apple included a separate Trackpad.prefPane, which does not load for non-Apple trackpads by default.

There is a very easy way to get that preference pane to show up and work. Simply remove the line that says VendorID (or the entire block that says NSPrefPaneIOServiceAttributesToMatch) in the Info.plist in /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane/Contents. An easy way to do it is the following:

1. In terminal backup the original pane:

sudo cp -R /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane.orig

2. If you have Developer tools run Property List Editor as root:

sudo /Developer/Applications/Utilities/Property\ List\ Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/Property\ List\ Editor

(if you want you can run TextEdit as root similarly)

3. Open (from the Propertly List Editor) /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane/Contents/Info.plist and under the only expandible tab, delete the line that says VendorID (delete the entire line):

CODE

<key>VendorID</key>
    <integer>1452</integer>

or if that doesn't work, delete all of NSPrefPaneIOServiceAttributesToMatch.

Save the file and reboot (you might have to do multiple reboots).

Hope this works and is helpful. Tell me if there are problems, and please post the type or trackpad you have and whether it is PS2 or not.

In System Preferences you should now see a Trackpad Preference Pane with all the old options.

Update:

If you want a faster way to get this to work and have a PS2 trackpad try this (thank you SilveRain):

(Note: Use this only if your PS2 kext's are loaded from /S/L/E)

http://www.megaupload.com/ru/?d=7WAN7BMH

If this does not work then another option is to replace the Keyboard.prefPane in 10.5.6 with the one from 10.5.5 here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?fxmezuyejmf

[~ BlurKing]

Thanks a lot! It worked!

[Ankhsunamun]

don´t work on msi wind

[Fabzo]

Hi!

Thanks but it doesn´t work on LENOVO S10

Regards,

[Memorial]

What trackpads do you guys have? If I recall correctly the MSI-Wind's with Sentelic trackpads get recognized as mice. For the Lenovo S10, you seem to have a multi-touch trackpad, and it is Symantec. Try seeing if you can find a Vendor ID for it and replacing that. I know very little about trackpads, but I would guess that yours is USB.

Also, after you edit and reboot, simply try double clicking Tackpad.prefPane and see what error it gives you when System Preferences tries to open it.

[giliathstod]

Sorry but which line do I have to delete??
<dict>
<key>HIDPointerAccelerationType</key>
<string>HIDTrackpadAcceleration</string>
<key>VendorID</key>
<integer>1452</integer>
</dict>

Thanks

[osmano807]

If I understand, delete this:

CODE

<key>VendorID</key>
<integer>1452</integer>

[lemmy01]

Hi,
i delete this keys but still not working.
I think the Apple-Trackpad is a USB-Device and mine a ps2 so there must be more kext patched.

[Memorial]

Hmmm, this is odd. Please post the type of trackpad you have and what drivers you are using (i.e. who's PS2Nub, etc). I have a PS2 device and I am using the 2-finger ApplePS2Controller (google it, it's pretty great) and Chu-nan's (~Eureka) PS2Nub. Mine is a Synaptic trackpad. Any results with running it by hand after edits?

[giliathstod]

For me it worked after 2 reboots

[lemmy01]

It works for me too , still needed some reboots

[Memorial]

Good to hear that it's working.

[srcshelton]

Hmm... no luck here.

I've tried the edit, reboots, loading the PreferencePane manually - and no joy: I'm still told that I don't have the correct hardware.

I'm using ApplePS2Controller.kext 1.1.0 and AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext 1.0.0d1 on my EFI partition from the archive here.

I have a Samsung NC10, which I believe has a Synaptics trackpad.

Has anyone who found that an edit didn't solve the problem ever find an alternative way to use the 10.5.6 Trackpad PreferencePane... or is there an alternative method to getting it to work that I'm missing?

[Memorial]

Have you tried the other two methods at the end?

[srcshelton]

Well, that's weird...

The PreferencePane included in the former of the two updates was a slightly more extensive edit than I had made, but after making this further change and rebooting there had been no change.

After a little more changing of kexts and a reboot, the TrackPad pane had appeared.

After restoring all of my original kexts and rebooting, the TrackPad pane is still there - despite the edit effectively being the one and only change!

All I can say is that the Info.plist edits do work, but also reiterate that for some reason they take multiple reboots to take effect.

Go figure

[MTZeon]

the second method worked on my Asus 1000H I see now and can use trackpad options.

[gintree44]

[quote name='Memorial' date='Dec 23 2008, 02:50 AM' post='1010648']
1. In terminal backup the original pane:

sudo cp -R /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane.orig

2. If you have Developer tools run Property List Editor as root:

sudo /Developer/Applications/Utilities/Property\ List\ Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/Property\ List\ Editor

(if you want you can run TextEdit as root similarly)

=======
What command do you enter to use TextEdit?

Thanks.

[AppleIIGuy]

I just used nano from terminal

sudo nano /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane/Contents/Info.plist

works fine an imho it is easier than using testedit because textedit cannot see contents inside of certain bundles

[gintree44]

I just used nano from terminal

sudo nano /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Trackpad.prefPane/Contents/Info.plist

works fine an imho it is easier than using testedit because textedit cannot see contents inside of certain bundles

Thank you!!!!

[kmikase]

worked like a charm.thx a lot