Just recently acquired a very nice used Wacom Intuos tablet (GD-1212-R) to replace my older Wacom tablet (for which 64-bit drivers were never made). The whole intention was to hook it up to my Heavy Lifter (Tyan Thunder s2885, dual AMD Opteron 285 processors) to do graphics work with. Since I am a big fan of XP 64-bit, I had that installed on my heavy lifter instead of Windows 7 64-bit.
Of course, the scuttlebutt is that Vista 64-bit and Windows 7 64-bit have the same problems as XP 64-bit with this tablet, so the advice below may work for those versions of Windows as well…
This Intuos tablet still makes use of a serial port, and my heavy lifter still had a single serial port left over. When I initially installed the software, nothing worked, despite the drivers being obstensibly XP 64-bit capable. A bit of mucking around, and I discovered the following method of making it work:
- Download both the 4.93-3 and the 6.05-7 driver installers from Wacom’s driver downloads page.
- Hook up your hardware. Make sure everything is turned on (especially the toggle switch on the side of the tablet!!).
- Create the following registry key if it doesn’t exist: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tablet]. Inside of that key, create a new String called PnPTablets. Change the Value of this String to ,COM1 (yes, that is “comma-nospace-COM1”).
- Right-click on the 6.05-7 installer that you downloaded, select Properties and select run in compatibility mode for Windows 2000 (not sure if this actually helps, but it is what I did so I’m including it here).
- Install the 6.05-7 driver. Your tablet will probably not work yet, but don’t worry.
- Go into Device Manager (right-click on My Computer, select Manage) and look for hardware with incomplete/uninstalled drivers (the yellow question marks). If you see more than one entry there, especially entries which say something like “Wacom HID Pen”, you will need to force the individual drivers. For every entry with a yellow question mark, right-click on it and Update Driver. Do not choose to connect to Windows Update, and install automatically. This will work for every entry EXCEPT the “Wacom GD-1212-R” entry itself. Ignore that one.
- Now you need to go to System32, and create a file called tablet.dat. This file will NOT work if you have file extensions hidden (Notepad will probably append a .TXT to the end of it, which will cause it to not work). Google how to change this setting if tablets.dat is about the only file whose extension you can actually see — because in that circumstance there is probably a .txt extension that is hidden, and which will completely screw up your ability to use the tablet. Inside this file, you need to add the following text, and then save it:
PrefsFileVersion 4
DriverOn1Off0 1
DriverLanguage 0
LeftHandedMouse 0
FunkyButtonMode 0
NoStartWarnings 0
HowManyTablets 1
TabletType 0
TabletModel 203
CommPort COM1
TabletOn1Off0 1
TabletPhysicallyOn 1
TabletFlags 0
HowManyTransducers 0 - Once you have saved that dat file, go back to the older 4.93-3 installer, and install it overtop the newer files. Make sure you overwrite any newer files that are found by the installer. There will probably also be a driver compliance warning — approve it so the driver will be installed.
- Reboot.
- Once you boot back up, you might get a Hardware Found alert that involves the Wacom GD-1212-R hardware that I told you to ignore previously. Once again, it is completely safe for you to ignore this entry — let it look for a driver so that once it is unsuccessful it will not look for a driver again.
At this point, your Wacom tablet should be fully functional. I hope this helps.
By Andres Lentijo 2013-07-10 - 23:44
Hi, don´t work, for me.
Wacom Digitizer II UD-1212-R
Win XP x64 New Install
When i install the original drivers windows freezes, i´m keep trying, there have two options 1. Teensy 2.0 DIY serial to USB or 2. Serial to USB and Regedit. Anyway thank you so much.
P.D. I´ve found that win freezes when load the tablet Service on start the OS.
By Michæl 2013-08-12 - 03:46
Thank you for sharing this “bit of mucking about”. I’m about to use my old serial port Intuos 1212R in my new 64bit i7-377, and your advice has saved me a lot of hair-tearing.
By RC 2013-09-23 - 19:34
Thanks! I was scratching my head. I still like XP64 without all the junk on 7.
By Sally Lynn MacDonald 2013-12-30 - 20:47
Everything about this article seemed SO HELPFUL. I’ve got the Device Manager pretty much exactly as you describe at this point. I’ve got a Win7 64-bit OS and a GD-1212-R on a serial to USB cable. All of that seems to be attaching just fine on Com2. But my computer may be communicating, or it may not. The tablet lights up green when the pen or mouse are on it, but the computer does not respond to the input, even though the device manager lists HID input devices and the Wacom Mouse as functioning properly. The one telling thing is that when I try to load the Wacom utilities it says that a supported tablet is not found. So Ugh… it’s not working. Any more ideas?
By happy wacom user on win 7 64 2014-03-07 - 13:35
I’ve been trying to get my Wacom ET-0405-R tablet (graphire 1) to work in windows 7 home premium 64-bit for a couple of days (lots of driver installs and reboots).
The tablet has a serial and a ps/2 connector. The serial is connected through a FTDI USB Serial Converter, and the PS/2 is connected through a PS/2 to USB cable (the ps/2 connector is probably just providing power).
I got it working with the Microsoft Application Compatbility Toolkit. I started the Compatibility Administrator (32-bit) from the start menu, pressed the [Fix] button (tooltip: Create a fix for a program), the “Create new Application Fix” window opens, in the “Name of the program to be fixed” I added the name: wacom driver (any name works, it just can’t be empty) then pressed the [Browse…] button and located the driver pro605-7_int.exe and clicked [Next].
(The driver is available here: http://www.wacom.eu/index4.asp?pid=29&list=all)
I then clicked the [Next] button for the next 2 sections “Compability modes” and “Compability fixes”, and pressed the [Finish] button in the final section “Matching information”. I then clicked the [Run] button and installed the driver and when it was complete I restarted the computer.
I did all this in the administrator account, and after the computer restarted the tablet worked in that administrative account, but when I restarted again and I got to the welcome screen where I can choose between my administrator and standard account the tablet worked there as well, but when I entered the standard account the tablet didn’t work.
I reinstalled the driver through the compatibility administrator in the standard account, but I got an error that not all features in the compatibility administrator would be available because i’m not the administrator. To launch it with administrator rights I right-clicked on the compatibility administrator (32-bit) start menu entry, and chose properties, switched to the Compatibility tab, clicked on the [Change settings for all users] button, clicked on the “Run this program as an administrator” checkbox and then restarted the computer.
But the tablet still didn’t work in the standard account, so I compared the file:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\WTablet\Wacom_Tablet.dat(replace %USERNAME% with the account name your logged in as) between the administrator and standard account and saw that the bottom 7 lines was missing in the standard account:
TabletType 10TabletModel 80
CommPort COM3
TabletOn1Off0 1
TabletPhysicallyOn 1
TabletFlags 0
HowManyTransducers 0
so I copied them to the standard accounts wacom_tablet.dat file, saved the file and restarted the TabletServiceWacom service and now the tablet also works in the standard account.
By rekabis 2014-03-08 - 12:58
Thank you for that additional information! I hope that it will be enough to help others with that Wacom model.
By Simon Trangmar 2015-02-02 - 11:25
Thanks to all – this helped me get an ET-0405-R (Graphire 1) run on 64bit Windows 7 on an HP DC 8200 elite.
Had to modify procedure slightly – here are my case notes in the help it may help someone else:
This worked but not quite as described
Download both the 4.93-3 and the 6.05-7 driver installers from Wacom’s driver downloads page.
Hook up your hardware to a downed PC
. Make sure everything is turned on (especially the toggle switch on the side of the tablet!!).
Create the following registry key if it doesn’t exist: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tablet]. Inside of that key, create a new String called PnPTablets. Change the Value of this String to ,COM1 (yes, that is “comma-nospace-COM1”).
Right-click on the 6.05-7 installer that you downloaded, select
Properties and select run in compatibility mode for Windows 2000 (not sure if this actually helps, but it is what I did so I’m including it here).
Install the 6.05-7 driver. Your tablet will probably not work yet, but don’t worry.
Go into Device Manager (right-click on My Computer, select Manage) and look for hardware with incomplete/uninstalled drivers (the yellow question marks). If you see more than one entry there, especially entries which say something like “Wacom HID Pen”, you will need to force the individual drivers. For every entry with a yellow question mark, right-click on it and Update Driver. Do not choose to connect to Windows Update, and install automatically. Nothing seemed to happen but, undeterred, i continued
Now you need to go to System32, and create a file called tablet.dat. This file will NOT work if you have file extensions hidden (Notepad will probably append a .TXT to the end of it, which will cause it to not work). Google how to change this setting if tablets.dat is about the only file whose extension you can actually see — because in that circumstance there is probably a .txt extension that is hidden, and which will completely screw up your ability to use the tablet. Inside this file, you need to add the following text, and then save it:
PrefsFileVersion 4
DriverOn1Off0 1
DriverLanguage 0
LeftHandedMouse 0
FunkyButtonMode 0
NoStartWarnings 0
HowManyTablets 1
TabletType 0
TabletModel 203
CommPort COM1
TabletOn1Off0 1
TabletPhysicallyOn 1
TabletFlags 0
HowManyTransducers 0
Once you have saved that dat file, go back to the older 4.93-3 installer, and install it overtop the newer files. Make sure you overwrite any newer files that are found by the installer. There will probably also be a driver compliance warning — approve it so the driver will be installed.
i was unable to approve it – indeed the err msg looked like iot said windows 7 was gunna not let the driver work as t’was unsigned!
Reboot.
tablet works – despite the yellow warning in device mgr
By Ben Lagasca 2016-09-24 - 08:00
Resurrecting old GD1212-r with STJ-A148 9pin connector. Wishing to hook into Windows 10. I’m not totally puter savy. Need assistance from anyone who has time to guide me.
Thanks in advance!
By rekabis 2016-10-21 - 23:45
Unfortunately, a Google search of “STJ-A148” does not bring back anything of use. Could you provide us with a link to a page with details about this device?
By Joel Carson 2019-03-04 - 20:04
Thanks for the information and Driver downloads, I have a large old SD 311E that I may try to get working on Win-7. If I can get it operational again on my old XP machine that is.