Solution to the problem with the driver for the Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet.
When I changed my computer and upgraded to Windows 7, I began to have problems with the Wacom Bamboo tablet driver failing to load on startup. Installing an older driver or reinstalling the operating system didn’t help and it seems to be some kind of compatibility issue with my hardware.
This problem has been raised multiple times on the Wacom forum, but there have been no answers or fixes, which is very disappointing.
There are a few solutions: reinstalling the driver (which takes a lot of time each time), restarting the computer (hoping the driver won’t fail again), or restarting the tablet service.
I chose to restart the tablet driver service as it is the quickest solution. Here’s how to do it.
At the end of the article, you can download a file to automatically restart the tablet service.
Once again, when we turned on our computer, we saw the sad message from the tablet driver — «Cannot start the Wacom tablet driver».
Meanwhile, the tablet is recognized as a touch screen and does not allow for proper work with the pen.
When trying to access the Bamboo settings, we get an error message: «ERROR! Problems with the Wacom tablet driver. Restart your system. If the problem persists,» there should be something else there, but it’s not visible.
Solution to the Bamboo driver error:
Restarting your computer can take a long time and there’s no guarantee that it will solve the problem.
We can fix the driver issue with the tablet by restarting the service. Follow these steps:
- Open Task Manager (in any way you prefer, I usually right-click on the taskbar).
- Select the Services tab.
- Click on the Services link at the bottom-right corner of the window.
- In the list that appears, find WTabletServiceCon.
- Right-click on it and select «Restart».
- Watch as the service restarts.
- To check if everything worked, go to the Start menu, find the tablet section, and click on «Wacom Tablet Properties».
- If everything was done correctly, the setup program will launch… which means the tablet is working.
Automating service restart:
So, we solve the problem, but I got tired of performing all the actions to restore the Bamboo driver every time the computer boots up, so I decided to make everything more automated.
After researching information about restarting system services, I created an executable file that restarts the Wacom driver service.
The ‘script’ looks like this:
Net stop WTabletServiceCon
Net start WTabletServiceCon
It’s simple, ‘WTabletServiceCon’ is our service, ‘Net stop’ — stops the service, ‘Net start’ — starts the service.
To create the file, we create a text document in Notepad, paste in our lines, save it, rename the file extension to ‘cmd’ (command file).
We name it and get the file ‘Restart wacom.cmd’.
We test our script — right-click on the file — ‘run as administrator’ — confirm changes and enjoy the restart
And that’s how the problem with the Wacom Bamboo driver failure is solved, everything is done quickly and without unnecessary actions, and the tablet does not need to be disconnected.
Update:
In Windows 8 and above, my method partially works because something has changed in the management of services. I tried to reproduce the driver error through a virtual machine with Win 8 installed, but I did not encounter any driver errors.
It was also determined that the error often occurs on weak computers or cluttered systems. Purchasing an SSD often solves the problem.
If nothing helped you, you can check the information about a similar problem in Wacom Intuos.