Disabling touchpad mouse?

[Boomyal]

The wife's new Dell ate a harddrive. A new one is installed and working well however we have to reconfigure everything to her liking.

One thing I did before was to disable the touchpad mouse when an external mouse was plugged in. Mrs B would keep hitting it when typing. I found where to disable it without any difficulty.

Now I need to do it again and for the life of me I cannot find where to do it. I have looked everywhere I can think of (control panel, devices, etc) and I cannot find where to disable it.

I know it worked before because you could unplug the USB mouse and the touchpad mouse would work. Plug the USB mouse back in and the touchpad mouse would not work.

Any ideas? I even posted this on a Dell forum and have gotten no responses.

 

[JRJ]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

I don't know, I've got my new Toshiba so screwed up I have to go to "Help and Support" first to even get to my homepage. I also use a mouse with the laptop, but the live pad doesn't bother me. However, I digress

I just wanted to wish you and your's a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

 

[Tim Frank]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

I've done this twice, and both times started in "control panel" and once used the "mouse" option, and the other time had to disable in "device manager".

That is a starting point....your laptop may be different.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

....I just wanted to wish you and your's a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

back to you and yours, JRJ!

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

I've done this twice, and both times started in "control panel" and once used the "mouse" option, and the other time had to disable in "device manager".

That is a starting point....your laptop may be different.

I think I did see an option to disable the touchpad in device manager but it was different than what I did originally. Where ever I did it first of, it plainly stated that you were diababling the touchpad only when an external mouse was installed. Such description is not offered in device manager.

 

[Tim Frank]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

This work?
http://www.killertechtips.com/2009/04/30/disable-touchpad-dell/

If so... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.

If not... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.

 

[Tim Frank]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

Double post

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

This work?
http://www.killertechtips.com/2009/04/30/disable-touchpad-dell/

If so... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.

If not... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.

You da man, TF. You cleared up a big mystery, at the very least. I had looked in that said same place but there was no touchpad option. That function must not have been reloaded on the replacement hard drive. I will work on loading it using the link you provided.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

Well I tried to download the Synaptic driver as outlined in your link. It clearly shows a driver and version but when you click on download it wants to download a Dell Driver Manager. When you click on it to run it you get a message that there are no files selected.

 

[Sixmark]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

Many times people overlook the built in help search option already on their computer, did you simply try entering "how to disable touchpad" in the search box?

I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, but sometimes we all overlook the little things?

 

[NYBo]

Re: Disabling touchpad mouse?

The Synaptics driver in my Toshiba has an option for "TouchPad is automatically invalidated" when a USB mouse is connected. It's located in the advanced features settings, "Others" tab. It takes some digging to get to. Start by right clicking on the system tray icon and selecting "Mouse Properties".