Disable The Touchpad When A Mouse Is Plugged In

If you use a laptop a lot, you might have a USB mouse which you use instead of the built in touchpad. Personally, when I use a laptop I find the touchpad quite annoying because I tend to tap it when typing which causes the mouse to move around an text being inadvertently typed where I didn’t want it. If this is the case for you, an option you might want to consider is disabling the touchpad when your USB mouse is plugged in.

From some quick research, there doesn’t appear to be a universal way to toggle this functionality, as it depends on your hardware and the respective configuration utilities. Our laptop at home uses a Synaptics mouse touchpad driver and the configuration utility has an option to disable the touchpad when the mouse is plugged in.

A quick Google search on your hardware should give you all the details you need on how to enable this if it supported.

If anyone takes advantage of this feature, please post your hardware specs to help others out.

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http://patscompservices.blogspot.com PatrickDickey
Personally, the first thing I do whenever I get a laptop is disable the “Tap” feature of the touchpad. I’ll use it to move the cursor around, but I force myself to use the buttons below it to actually click. The thing is way too sensitive, so it’s annoying.
I also think that the disabling of the touchpad when a mouse is plugged in should be an automatic thing. If you’re plugging a mouse in, why would you still want to use the touchpad?
Have a great day:)
Patrick.
Rich Hilton
Personally, touchpads aren’t my friends. ha ha My HP has a button right at the top of the touchpad to disable it. Very convenient!
http://bpcablog.blogspot.com/ sefcug
I can’t stand touchpads myself, much like Rich.
My HP Pavilion TX1410us Entertainment Notebook PC also has a button right at the top of the touchpad, to disable/enable.
There is a Synaptics driver that controls both the touchpad and the mouse, but no way to configure to disable the pad when the mouse is plugged in, at least that I can see.

Diane Davis
I have a Dell Inspiron and used to have a LOT of trouble with the sensitivity of the touch. I couldn’t use a mouse because of the chair I sit in to work on my laptop and there was no place for a mouse. I was going crazy until I called Dell. I was told about the Synaptics Touch Pad. I don’t know about other people, but my Touch Pad allows me to either disable the touchpad OR adjust the setting of the touchpad where it is not so sensitive. In fact, there are different levels for every touch. So I adjusted the touchpad setting and now I can type freely and never worry when my hand hits the touchpad and causing wrong letters to strike everywhere. It’s fine now and I just don’t have a problem anymore.

Hathor
I don’t like the touch pad at all and use a mouse. A friend of mine and my b-i-l both had the same problem. Here’s what I told them to do:
Right click on the touch pad icon at the bottom of your screen. Click on mouse properties. Click the tapping properties tab. Near the bottom of the box, check the box that says “tap off when typing”.
I use an Acer, Intel Pentium with Vista.
Hope this is helpful.
Jim
This is the most useless post I’ve ever seen.
Why would you take the time to write an article and use that title when you don’t even provide a solution.
What a waste.
Menno
I have an MSI GT 628 and I have a button under FN F3. This turns off the touchpad but leaves the mouse active when you use an external mouse (using USB hud for example). Very usefull, I would suggest people to check all those buttons first. The image on your keyboard might not be too obvious so just try them out one by one.