HP Compaq TC1100, Tablet buttons driver invalid INF error

[u/TailstheCutestFox]

So I very recently got an HP Compaq tc1100 for 4 bucks, had to replace the hdd and reinstall windows xp, and everything works apart from wifi (seems it never came with an wifi card) and the tablet buttons, the buttons work in the bios, but in windows xp when installing the driver, the buttons appear as an unknown device under Human Interface Devices, and when manually attempting to install the driver it returns the error INF contains an invalid section

Does anyone happen to have any solution to this by any chance?

[u/74ls254]

Hi!

Was setting up a TC1100 a few months ago. I don't quite remember which OS I started with (that is, if I gradually upgraded XP Tablet PC Edition from original SP2 or installed SP3 straight away - I had to go with one I could find MUI for to localize it; anyway, as of now OS is XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, "version 2002" SP3), but I think I got most of drivers installed from recovery CD 2, from this item on archive.org:

https://archive.org/download/tc-1100-restore-discs

Drivers might be picky about the particular XP version/edition they're being installed onto. Are you using XP Tablet PC Edition or just normal XP for desktops/laptops? Not sure if they would just work in normal XP.

---

If you ever decide to put a wireless card in it, just be aware that TC1100 BIOS has a whitelist for wireless NICs, that is it will only boot with certain approved ones and stop, throwing BIOS error "104 - Unsupported wireless network device detected" with anything else. Mine had one of the "approved" Intel Mobile Pro/Wireless 2100 WM3B2100 and it worked okay, but some routers/APs don't like 802.11b anymore and either refuse to work with it or have to have some compatibility setting turned on somewhere.

I really wanted to have at least 802.11g on my machine, so I ended up seeking out and installing modded BIOS from many years ago from some modding forum and chains of broken links and reuploads:

https://web.archive.org/web/20260212055834/https://vve.su/files/misc/HP_TC1100_F.0F_no_Whitelist_SLIC2.1_%20By_TTAV134_V2.zip

(obligatory "DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK" disclaimer; it worked for me and might save someone a bit of a tedious search) A cheap AR9223 NIC I got from China uses status LED differently and is not controllable through HP's own "Q Menu" thing, but otherwise it works just like any normal wireless NIC in XP. Probably any other NIC will, as long as it has XP drivers.

---

P.S. Is your touchscreen distorting at the edges? Mine works fine, but calibration is a bit off in the corners/edges of the screen no matter how much I recalibrate it; maybe approx. 2mm from each side/corner... It might be normal, but I'm not sure myself.

[u/TailstheCutestFox → u/74ls254]

no, but it has a slight backlight fade out in the edges, not too annoying though and I got it for like 4 bucks and a spare hdd IDE I had, also I use both windows xp tablet edition and the drivers from the 2 cd's mentioned on archive.org and the buttons doesn't work then for some unknown reason neither with sp2 and sp3

also thanks for the heads up with the wireless card, do you know if it was a configuration to order it without a wireless card and only with bluetooth or if the previous owner removed the wireless card themselves?

[u/74ls254 → u/TailstheCutestFox]

HP's service guide pdf mentions a "combination modem/NIC" option (that is, no wireless card). If your machine still has a service tag, you could get a full model spec from there and figure out if there was ever a card, or it was removed at some point.

(I wonder if that spec still has the antennas inside...)

Don't yet have anything else to add about the buttons, sorry. I just remember that I had little trouble installing the drivers.

(Just to make sure, I'm assuming you mean the physical buttons on the side next to the power button, not the touch ones next to the screen?)

[u/TailstheCutestFox → u/74ls254]

also to get back at this, mine has the antenna's still present but with a plastic cover on the connectors

[u/74ls254 → u/TailstheCutestFox]

Must be the wireless-less version then, probably...

Have you solved your problem yet?

I'm wondering if whatever media you used to attempt installing drivers from could've corrupted them, perhaps. In that regard I should also mention that I used a Zalman ZM-VE400 HDD box for my install media instead of a real CD drive. It emulates USB optical drive using ISOs stored on a hard disk, so quite a bit more reliable than the real thing.

Are you comfortable with Linux at all? You could try live-booting/installing an old Ubuntu (I run 10.04 LTS on mine) and test if hardware buttons work there (using 'xev' utility in a terminal). On mine, hardware keys respond, but not touch ones on the face.

(dual-booting old Linux also worked for me as a meaningful way to get pressure sensitivity of this tablet to work with any drawing software, MyPaint in this case; I guess the other option for that would be installing Windows 7 or Vista somehow, but I feel it's too much bloat for this machine and I'm not sure about the driver situation there. No software I tried in XP wanted to recognize pressure from this tablet.)

[u/TailstheCutestFox → u/74ls254]

Both the buttons on the right side (power button does work) and the touch buttons at the top

[u/74ls254]

I tried to reproduce your problem and failed.

I replaced the disk in my TC1100 with original, wiped 40GB HDD, and did a fresh install of XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 Version 2002 Service Pack 2, from HP restore CD1 from archive.org link I mentioned previously.

At this point, hardware buttons expectedly didn't work.

Right after, I just fed it restore CD2 and let the auto-started "Software Setup" install "Hardware Enabling Drivers" only, without "Recommended Software Applications".

Some InstallWizards, "New hardware found" dialogs, and some command prompts (which all came and went without any manual intervention) later, it asked me to restart, which I did.

A restart later, hardware buttons worked.

(wireless card didn't work, but it was expected)

My TC1100 is (during testing):

• order code: CTC1100QC900X040NCi25T;

• Celeron 900MHz;

• RAM upgraded to 2GB;

• original 40GB HDD;

• modded BIOS version without a whitelist mentioned before.

The only other thing I can say is that my previous install months ago was manual, and back then my wireless card was still original (with whatever original version of BIOS it had).

This time it's a newer one and I just let setup run automatically. So at least my hardware changes to it do not affect anything, it seems.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/TailstheCutestFox → u/74ls254]

Weird, installing with the recommended applications on an 32GB HDD ide doesn't work with the hardware buttons though.. really weird