Viliv S5 UMPC Turned Into a Tablet PC on Video
Hector Gomez is a longtime reader who Kevin and I had the pleasure of meeting early this year. He may be the only person who buys more gadgets than I do, and a recent purchase he made was the Viliv S5 UMPC. I have made it clear how much I like the S5, and Hector says he is enjoying it, too. The only area he thought it lacking was in not being a real Tablet PC, so he’s rectified that.
Hector has installed Windows XP Tablet Edition on his Viliv S5 to give it the full Tablet PC functionality. It’s not something everyone can do, as the Tablet Edition version of XP cannot be purchased. Hector got his hands on it and finds the S5 makes a fine 5-inch Tablet PC. He’s documented it on a video, and he’s kindly given us permission to share. Have a look at Hector’s little Tablet PC.
Hmmm, I’ve also got an S5 and installed Win7 on it and was very disappointed to not have the tablet capabilities enabled. I was thinking of selling it again but now that I’ve seen this, I may reconsider. I’ve got access to XP Tablet from my Microsoft MAPS subscription. Just wondering what the difference is between XP and 7, why it was recognized in the old but not the new.
um yeah you can get a hold of it pretty easily
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16837102094
Windows XP Tablet Edition is available from several vendors. Use Google Shopping to find them. While the software is identified as a product for OEMs, anyone can buy it.
The Tablet Edition 2005 costs about $150, and the original Tablet Edition (released in 2002) costs about $110. The Service Pack 2 update to the 2002 edition includes the full 2005 release, so you can save a little cash by buying the cheaper version and upgrading yourself from the Microsoft website.
Hmmm, it is very strange that you would not get tablet pc capabilities by installing Windows 7 (or Vista for that matter); would anyone venture to guess why?
The same can be achieved with a a normal installation of Win XP and Win 7 by just installing 2 files. I have Win 7 (Build 7100) on my S5 and have achieved the same. Win 7 does not get tablet pc capabilities because S5 does not identify itself as one (maybe due to viliv’s drivers).
amf – any hint on the two file that need to be installed on Win7?
Tablet PC Recognizer Pack/Tablet Recognizer Pack plus Windows Journal Viewer.
This is not the same recognition as that in Tablet Edition as I mentioned here:
http://jkontherun.com/2009/04/22/windows-xp-handwriting-recognition-vs-tablet-edition/
The reason the tablet functions are not enabled by Win7 is not due to drivers but due to the fact that the S5 does not have an active digitizer.
You had me excited when I read the headline. Now I’m bitterly dissappointed! I thought he’d put an active digitiser on it. If it doesn’t have an active digitiser it’s not a true Tablet PC!
Why wouldn’t they ship the S5 with Tablet Ed anyway? Is there a reason?
No active digitizer on board which is required for Tablet Edition.
Didn’t Samsung and others ship a bunch of UMPCs with XP Tablet that didn’t have active digitizers? I know my old Q1U had XP Tablet.
Also, I’d love to know how he got the Tablet features to work. My company has volume licensing, so I’ve installed XP Tablet on my S5. It shows up on the System Properties window as having XP Tablet, but I don’t have any of the tablet features (no TIP, no right click circle, etc.)
Er, Fujitsu P16xx has a passive digitizer & Tablet PC edition …
You guys are correct and I am wrong. I need to stop and think a bit this morning before responding.
My experience on installing Tablet Edition on multiple passive digitizers is that as long as the digitizer is recognized as an HID device in XP then Tablet will work out of the box. Not all digitizers do that, some are USB devices as far as XP is concerned and as I recall those don’t work at all. Or is reversed? Must be Monday.
I have successfully installed XP Tablet Edition on the Raon Digital Everun umpc. All the tablet bits work and I am using the TIP to write this post. The Everun has a passive digitizer.
I may be wrong but I thought it was listed in the BIOS if a machine was a tablet or not…
Anyway I’ve always just installed the Wacom penenabled driver (no hardware required) to fool windows into thinking that I had a tablet OS on non tablet machines.
Gordon
Well I just installed windows 7 on an original Q1 with 2 GB of ram. Most everything works great. But Windows 7 did not recognize the touch screen. I can log in using the on screen keyboard in the accessibility menu. But the screen calibration is off at the edges of the screen and there is no way to calibrate the screenn. I have to manuallybring up the TIP.
The Q1 us usable with Win 7. I hope Samsung will update the drivers.
UPDATE,
I found a driver on the web and got Windows 7 to recognize the touchscreen and enable the tablet features. Wow, new life is given to this old umpc. Speedwise, things are the same as with XP. No faster and no slower. The biggest difference is the HWR. Windows 7 is much better than XP or vista. I’ve got a great media player and web device now and I’m gonna try to use it for note taking.
I think Microsoft might have got it right this time.
JK, could you possibly persuade Hector to post instructions on how he accomplished putting XP tablet on the Viliv S5? I have both and would like to give it a try. Thanks
TateJ, can you provide a link to the drivers? Thanks!
I downloaded the driver and now I can’t find the link.
I found it over at UMPC Mobile PC Tips. It was a link from one of the blog entries. I found it with a google search
I think the driver is from a company called EETI.
Sorry I can’t be of more help.