Touchpad Has a Mind of Its Own

TyredOfTen · 12 Apr 2019

I have finally grown beyond weary of having to disable the touchpad on my laptop every boot up.

I am posting here as I am just assuming the issue is Windows 10 and not the laptop.

This is my 3rd laptop... so I'm not totally new to them, and is why I've become frustrated with not being able to disable/enable the touchpad as I please. Dell has been no help what-so-ever.

Because I've never been proficient at using a laptop's touchpad, and preferring to use a mouse, I've always disabled the touchpad and hooked up a mouse. Sometimes when travelling, if a mouse is inconvenient, I will enable the touchpad. I can deal with it for short periods.

But with this laptop, I must disable the touchpad everytime I boot up (touchpad will remain disabled if all I do is re-boot). I even uninstalled the touchpad driver several months ago, only to discover the next day that the system had reinstalled drivers, thus causing the touchpad to be enabled and I had to go into Device Manager and disable it AGAIN.

Does anyone know what can be done, how to force Win10 to retain my settings?

dalchina · 13 Apr 2019

Hi, method 4 might appeal:
How to Turn Off Touchpad Windows 10 - Appuals.com
as you say

I've become frustrated with not being able to disable/enable the touchpad as I please.

Some laptops have a function key to disable the touchpad.

and method 3 shows you how to disable it.

and you could disable the touchpad when the mouse is connected:
How to disable touchpad when mouse is connected on Windows 10 | Windows Central

and tenforums tutorial:
Disable Touchpad when Mouse is Connected in Windows 10 | Tutorials

I should also ask why you find the touchpad an annoyance even when not in use.. if the problem is to do with accidentally touching it, then look at a setting called 'palm check'.

Note that Synaptics touchpad software comes with explanatory videos if you want to find out more- not all do.

Here is a Dell article:
Disabling or Enabling the Touchpad on a Dell Notebook | Dell US

TyredOfTen · 16 Apr 2019

"and you could disable the touchpad when the mouse is connected: How to disable touchpad when mouse is connected on Windows 10 | Windows Central"
It appears this did the trick. I had to re-enable the touchpad, though in order for the various options to appear. Once available I turned the touchpad off. I then turned my computer off. Once booted back up, I did not have to disable the touchpad.

"I should also ask why you find the touchpad an annoyance even when not in use.. if the problem is to do with accidentally touching it, then look at a setting called 'palm check'."
Yes, the major problem is accidentally touching the pad at the most inconvenient of times, and depending on what keys I hit at the time, I've deleted things or jumped to another place in a document and didn't realize immediately what had happened.

As for a setting called "palm check," I saw nothing like that. However, there is an option for setting sensativity - it has apparently always been set to Low. I am not so much concerned about this, though, since totally disabling the touchpad was what I was after

Thanks, dalchina.

dalchina · 17 Apr 2019

Glad it was useful. Different drivers have different features, but palm check is quite well-known.

In older laptops there was sometimes a physical button to disable the touchpad.