Windows 7 Disable tap on touch pad as a click

[docweathers]

I I am much too clumsy to deal with the fancy feature of tapping on the touchpad to cause a click. I talked to Dell support and they assured me that if I removed their Dell touchpad utility that would also disable the tapping on the touch pad feature. Well I removed their touchpad software and now just using straight Windows control of the touchpad and I am still getting random touch clicks when I don't intend them. How can I disable this annoying feature. I just want to secure the cursor with the touchpad and do with the left and right buttons. I don't want any of the fancy stuff.

Thanks Larry

 

[kemical]

Hi Larry,
check the start menu to see if the hardware in question has any software associated that could contain settings.. If not, try the control panel and look under the mouse section.(see screenshot)

 

[docweathers]

I have done both of these.

I have already done both of these strategies to no avail. There are no settings that mention this feature.

Some how I need to get the internals of windows to stop this irritating feature.

Thanks Larry

 

[kemical]

Hi Larry,
I did a little googling and found this page: Link Removed due to 404 Error

Possible solutions are further down the page and gives instructions on how to adjust the touchpad.
Apologies if you've tried this...

 

[john3347]

I sympathise with you, Larry

Larry, My arthritic fingers totally understand your touchpad difficulties. There are a couple of different problems that I have observed with uncoordinated fingers and touchpads. One is accidental touching of the touchpad and performing a mouse click. The other is accidentally dragging your thumb across the mousepad while typing and moving the cursor to some random location in your document. The first either is easy to fix or unfixable depending on what touchpad driver your computer has, or has available. Check to see if your computer has Synaptics driver either installed or available to be downloaded. You can disable the touch-click feature with Synaptics software.

The other problem is a bit more complicated to fix and requires some third party software. There are a couple of software fixes that totally disable the touchpad while typing. This disabling and re-enabling is smooth and you do not notice it is happening. It has been several months since I installed this "thumb drag" software and I forget the name of it. (out of sight-out of mind?) It is listed by How-to-Geek www.howtogeek.com at the bottom of every web page. A Download.com, Softpedia.com, Tucows.com, etc. search will reveal some additional software.

As a last resort if everything else fails; I used to tape a piece of cardboard over the touchpad (piece of cereal box cut to size), leaving the buttons exposed, and use an external mouse. I had to use this method for my first couple of laptops. Place one strip of tape across the top of the cardboard so you can easily lift it to use the mousepad temporarily if needed.

I realize I have kinda jumbled the information I am trying to pass on to you here. If you need more information, post back and maybe my mind will be a bit sharper next time and I can remember procedures a bit better.

 

[docweathers]

Fixed

I got Dell support to spend a couple of hours remotely fixing it. The problem turned out t be damaged driver for the touch pad. The synaptic software now works correctly and I can turn off the tap to touch feature.

Before the cursor was bizzare. The cursor would bounce around both screens. Sometimes in response to a touch on the pad and sometimes in response to my "breathing pattern ".

Thanks for your help.

 

[kemical]

Great to hear your problem is now solved.. Thanks too for updating your thread.