Can I disable my Laptop's finger pad?

[buildingit]

Hello, I don't know what to call it- I am calling it a finger pad. It is the rectangular area just in front of the keyboard that, if you did NOT have a mouse, you would use to act as a mouse.

Anyway, I am using a mouse- I don't use the finger pad.

But when I type, often times my fingers or hands or wrists will accidentally touch this pad and suddenly I am typing in a differnt area of the document!! I finally figured this out....

So I really want to just turn this pad off. I looked at control panel and see no easy way so I thought I would ask before wasting a huge amount of time- who knows, it may not be possiblie?

thanx!

[Panama Red]

First item that came up when I googled "turn off touchpad":

Disable Touch Pad of your Laptop; Avoid Erratic Cursor Movement When Typing - Digital Inspiration

[buildingit]

Thank you

Umm, just btw, those instructions are dated 2007 so not for windows 7. In windows 7 I see no option to disable the touchpad just while using usb pointing device. I have to disable it permanently. Which is what I did but if I loose my mouse I will be in trouble because I understand you cannot get to this command and re-enable it using just the keyboard.

So I googled "turn off touchpad windows 7" and did not see a way to just disable it while using using mouse. I did find free software that will disable it while I am typing but I don't trust the software.

another suggestion in the link you supplied said to just turn down the sensitivity of the touchpad but again, I do not see that option in windows 7.

Thanx

[glc]

Cut a piece of cardboard to cover it.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Is it a Synaptics touch pad? You can disable just the tapping, without disabling the touchpad entirely. This is what I did with mine.

[buildingit]

Ha, hello Nuclear Krusader. Yes it is a sSnaptics. I just went to check out what you said and I found the checkbox for "disable when usb device is attached"- I must be blind, I didn't see the box before. So I enabled it but checked the box and the touchpad is off now. So thank you !

[Nuclear Krusader]

Cool. There's also the option to disable just the tapping as I mentioned. Unfortunately, I'm not at the shop to-day, not till Wednesday, God willing. When I'm there I'll check on a Windows Vista/7 machine and let you know where such setting is, er, set.

[buildingit]

Thnax Nuclear Krusader. To be honest, I am not sure what tapping is..

[Nuclear Krusader]

The touchpad responds to two kinds of contact input from your fingers (actually from your skin, which is what is causing you grief): dragging your skin on its surface, which moves the pointer across the screen; and tapping with your fingertip (lowering your fingertip briefly on the touchpad and raising it again, as if you were knocking on a door, only with your finger rather than your knuckles), which equals clicking with a mouse button (two taps in rapid succession = double click). Underneath your touchpad you have two buttons which serve the functions of a mouse's left and right buttons. You move your finger across the touchpad and use those buttons to click left or right, single or double.

Or, you can just tap with your finger on the touchpad and then such contact input is interpreted by the software as left button (touchpads allowed tapping only for left clicking, but now they have gimmicks that allow you to do right clicking too; yes, they keep trying to make things better and end up making them only more confusing and difficult and frustrating, but anyway).

This last feature is what is causing you problems, because when the palm of your hand touches the touchpad as you type, the stupid thing interprets that as tapping and thus performs a left click, which performs an action based on where the pointer is: if your pointer is in the shape of an I and on the title of your document, for example, then the cursor moves to that spot and sooner than you know you are typing on the title, or whichever part of the document but where you intend to; if the cursor was on the spell check button, then the spell check dialog box pops up.

Now, you have two options here; the software for your device gives you the option to disable the touchpad entirely, or disable just the tapping. The latter is preferrable.

I was looking at my laptop this morn, which has Vista, but my machine's touchpad is ALPS, and thus the options to control it are located in a different place than a Synaptics. I'll keep you posted.

PS: Hope I didn't confuse you more.

[buildingit]

Thank You NK! That makes sense. I also want the 2 buttons below the touchpad turned off because I think I have accidentally rested my wrist (palm) on them because I have lost entire entries even typing here in this forum because the I think one of the buttons tells IE to click the BACK button. (run on sentance- I am sorry!) I am pretty sure that is what has happened so it's really imprtant that the 2 buttons are also turned off (they are turned off now)

[buildingit]

Originally Posted by glc Cut a piece of cardboard to cover it.

haha, I just saw this now. It was actually my first thought, haha

[robrpb]

I would look to see if there is a function key that disables it. On my laptop I press the function key and F3 to disable the mouse pad.