I have a nice new Dell laptop but am a bit frustrated by one thing: it’s the first computer I’ve owned where if I accidentally tap or touch the trackpad surface the computer thinks it’s a mouse click. Messes me up left and right. How can I disable this “tap to click” behavior on the Dell trackpad (touchpad? Oh, and it’s running Windows Vista, if that matters. I’m not sure when that started to be popular, but just about all trackpads now seem to have the ability to detect taps in addition to sliding fingers, so it’s quite common now to find computers – Mac and PC – that have the capability you’re talking about.

Heck, on the latest Apple MacBook line, there’s no button at all: the trackpad is both the dragging and tapping surface. Definitely something you have to get used to, but once you do, it’s pretty cool. So my first thought is that this might be a behavior that you just need to train yourself to work with rather than disable, so as you hop from laptop to laptop in future years you’ll be ready for the potential elimination of “mouse” buttons. I can’t say for sure that’ll happen in the PC world, but I certainly don’t expect any future Apple laptops to have discrete buttons to push for button behaviors in the operating system. Don’t want to do that?

As is typical in Vista, there’s a way to tweak what you want, but it involves a couple of steps First off, choose Control Panels off the START (uh, Vista logo) menu on the lower left of your computer screen: You’ll now see the many, many different ways you can customize your Vista experience. You want “Mouse” settings (why there’s no “Mouse / Touchpad” or similar I don’t fully understand, just as it’s puzzling that there are Tablet options when my laptop isn’t a tablet and doesn’t support that functionality. That’s another story, though). You’ll be dropped here: Not really what you want, but we’re getting there.

Click on “Dell Touchpad” on the top left and you’ll find that this is all just an elaborate path to get to the special Dell trackpad/touchpad control app: Click on the huge arrow icon and you’ll launch a separate application supplied by Dell that lets you gain complete control over the touchpad: Almost there. Now click on “Touchpad Settings”. See where it shows “Taps” “Tap to Click”? Just uncheck that box and click on “Apply” on the lower right and you’ve disabled the tap to click capability of your Dell trackpad. Close the windows and you’re done. I’ll wrap up by suggesting again, however, that you try to get used to the feature now so you don’t fall further and further behind as PCs evolve with their user input devices. Good luck either way, though!

For the most part I followed everything according to Dave’s instructions but had to do some slight modifications since I’m using Windows 7 OS. I went through the following steps to get my touchpad back to working properly: 1)Click on control panel-hardware and sound you should see devices and printer 2)Click on mouse and device settings, you should see the device Synaptics Touchpad V7.4 highlighted. If you want to disable the touchpad click the disable button and apply. However if you wish to enable the Touchapd click enable and your touchpad should start working immediately. Hi thereI have a 2006 model Dell Latitude 820 Laptop.

For about the last 3 years, if during a session of “doing anything” I happen to touch the touch-pad just so, or in some kind of quick way, the screen sometimes begins scrolling frantically on the horizontal. The only way to stop it is to hold the on/off button down until the computer shuts off. I there-by lose any document or changes that I’m working on. Google Restore may get me back there but I haven’t checked.

What”s the problem here? It there some kind of Dell fix for the touch-pad that I need to download? I had the same problem not seeing the touchpad option on a dell 1520 laptop. This is the soloution for Dell Computers. Go to the Dell main home page and select your particular system in the menus.

Download the latest driver for the touchpad. Easy step by step menu process. Its a straightforward process and as soon as I had downloaded and unzipped/opened the file I had the dell touchpad options in mouse pointers. Then I was simply able to choose my preferred settings and remove the tap click etc.

This works for Dell models.dont know about other manufactures. Hope this helps.

So I tried everything on this page and I still can’t get the settings for my touch pad on my Inspiron 1501 with Vista. I had my computer worked on and when I got it back I only had basic mouse settings. I tried searching for apoint and those do not exist on my computer.

I also tried downloading the drivers from Dell but I get the same thing as a previous poster that after attempting to download them an error message comes up saying that there is nothing to download. Somebody please help me, I can’t stand this automatically double click and no scroll feature. I have been all over the internet trying to get to the touch pad settings for my dell inspiron 1525 with vista. A couple of days ago I inadverntly got to the settings but can no longer get to them. I got to the screens that you show in your article that say dell touch pad but can no longer get to them.

If I go to mouse there is no tab that says touch pad. I am at my wits end. It seems like Dell touch pad was listed in a long lists of files, etc.

But cannot get back to it. I use my keyboard and in the middle of typing any slight brush at all against the touchpad messes it up. My cursor is constantly jumping across lines, highlighting and deleting text etc. I read another article yesterday that had an option to disable the touchpad when the keyboard was in use, but that option seems to have disappeared from newer laptops (mine doesn’t have this option any more). I will do as you suggest above.

But there should be an option to disable the touchpad when using the keyboard. Don’t know why they got rid of it. I inadvertantly sent you an email due to the very problem you discuss above regarding the Dell touchpad but one that resides in the Vista version of Windows but not the one I need which is on the Windows XP touchpad (from my hardware invoice is an Alps Touchpad.) I fououd the Alps driver on my hardrive somewhere in my sound schemes. I know it didn’t belong as a sound scheme (the place where you can label a name for your personalized settings if you have extra speakers, etc.

The folder that I found is labeled “Apoint”. In it are about 21 files that belong somewhere on my computer associated with the mouse driver that only contains one PS2 driver that I don’t have. It won’t allow me to adjust the sensitivity of the touchpad, the “up/down” areas of the touchpad and the corners which can be set for certain special functions as well. I tracked down the Alps Company and found out that they only supply hardware and found out that the software is designed for their products “elsewhere” (where is the question). As long as I did manage to find the Apoint folder (and copied it to another place on my hard drive where I know it won’t get lost, I would really appreciate it if you could help those of us who are still using Windows XP (not everyone can afford a new wireless laptop) to copy the file to the place where it should reside in order for the Touchpad to be accessed for the settings it was designed to utilize. By the way, this is my seond email to you on this topic as the first one was sent before I finished it because of the Touchpad’s sensitivity.

Perviously, I was working with my Attorney since my Mother passed away last October when somehow my eails were being either sent before I had a chance to edit them down to a concise amount of words or at least 2 or sometimes 3 copies of the same email was sent to my Attorney (at $450/hr.) and I am still trying to catch up to pay for all of the emails that were sent and read by his secretary. I had to stop emailing him and now without any record of what I said or what he said, we are not corresponding. Unfortunately, I have chronic pain (24/7) and I am also am homebound most of the time unless I have a doctor’s appointment. I need a recommendation to get my touchpad working or perhaps someonee to donate a wireless laptop that will work with a Networked Windows XP Dell Dimenson 8200 which needs to be updated with my Windows SP2 and after that, SP3. Due to my illness, I stopped being able to get my hardrive backed up (which still needs to be done which (in part) had to do with Norton Internet Security. Since I am almost totally self-taught beginning with DOS at lawfirm that wasn’t networked.

Everything else I learned was either coached over the phone by a great Tech Support guy at Packard Bell by the name of Shaun Hoadley who I think is now selling his first edition published prints on ebay. My first home computer was a 480 MB hard drive PB with Windows 3.0 which morphed into Windows for Workgroups (Windows 3.3).

Alps Dell Touchpad Driver Update

Your laptop touchpad or the touchpad scroll not working properly? It does not response when you touch it? You just need to download a correct driver for your touchpad of HP, Dell, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo, and even Mac (MacBook Pro), as well as other computers. An outdated, missing, broken, corrupted, incorrect or incompatible touchpad driver or trackpad driver will cause conflicts. A proper touchpad driver download will instantly solve your problems. Quickly downloading and installing touchpad driver for your 64 bit or 32 bit Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Windows Updates may do help, but unfortunately, it fails in most of cases. You can try (formerly called DriveTheLife), which saves you a lot of time by automatically and intelligently finding the best-matched touchpad drivers and installing it on your computer. Rocket yard guide: fall gaming options for mac. Editor's Note: DriveTheLife has been updated to the new version called Driver Talent with a fresh new look.