Tutorial: Installing Multi-Touch Vista

"Multi-Touch Vista is a user input management layer that handles input from various devices (touchlib, multiple mice, TUIO etc.) and normalises it against the scale and rotation of the target window. Now with multi-touch driver for Windows 7."  It's the description ofthe Multi-Touch Vista project.

OK, let me put it simply, it's an useful tool of testing touch behaviours on non-touch devices. You may notice thatit has not been updated for 6 years however it's still available for Windows 8.1.

To make this simulator tool work on your box please follow steps below:

1. Download the binary from the project home on CodePlex and unzip it.

2. Install the driver:

• Extract the zip file
• Open the Command line with administrator right (Note: This is very important step.)
• Go to the folder that you have extracted the file
• Go to "Driver" folder
• Go to x64 or 32 based on your system configuration (In my case, I'm using 64 bits computer so I will go to x64 folder. )
• Then, you will see one bat file called "Install driver.cmd"
• Type “Install driver.cmd” and press Enter key.
• You will get the dialog below asking whether you want to install this device software or not. Please click on “Install” button

• If the installation is completed, you will see the message as below in command line. Then, you can close that cmd now.

3. Re-enable devices in the Device Manager:

• Open the Device Manager.
• Goto "Human Interface Devices" and expand it.
• Disable "Universal Software HID device" first and then enable it again.(Don't ask me the reason to do so, I have no idea about it...)

4. Multi-Touch Configuration:

Now you need an extra mouse to simulate another touch point. Connect it to your box first and run following executable files one by one(To run the next after ensuring current file is in ready state) 

• "Multitouch.Service.Console.exe"
• "Multitouch.Driver.Console.exe" 
• "Multitouch.Configuration.WPF.exe"

All three above could be found in the extracted folder. You'll see the UI below after you launch the last one:

Click the "Configure device" button and check the only item in the pop-up window and then click "OK" to save the configure.

Take it easy it's almost done here.

5. Create a batch file for quickly launching:

Create a batch file with following lines in the extracted folder:

start "Service.Console" Multitouch.Service.Console.exe
timeout /t 6
start "Driver.Console" Multitouch.Driver.Console.exe

OK. Everything is ready right now. Run the batch file created in step#5 every time you're going to test touch behaviours on your box. And you'll see two red points in your screen controlled by your two mouses. Try some gestures like pinch in your application to see if it's supported well in your app.