Windows 7 Emulate two-finger scrolling on Windows?

Ghodmode

New Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2011
Does anyone know if there is a way on Windows 7 to emulate two-finger scrolling for devices that are not multi-touch capable?

The Linux Synaptics driver has an option that enables this. It usually just works right out of the box.

ref: Link Removed due to 404 Error (pages cpsc ucalgary ca/~jnjackin/docs/two_finger_scrolling-linux.html)

Thank you.

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Ghodmode
www ghodmode com/blog
 
Hello and Welcome to Windows7Forums.com :)

Are you talking about touchpads or touchscreens?
For touchpads, you can install almost any driver from your manufacturer that supports multi-touch gestures and be able to utilize them regardless of if it's "supported" by the touchpad.
As for touchscreens, you'd have to check within your video/graphic driver options to see if the feature is available.

Hope this little bit helps.
 
Hello and Welcome to Windows7Forums.com :)
Are you talking about touchpads or touchscreens?
For touchpads, you can install almost any driver from your manufacturer that supports multi-touch gestures and be able to utilize them regardless of if it's "supported" by the touchpad.
As for touchscreens, you'd have to check within your video/graphic driver options to see if the feature is available.
Hope this little bit helps.

Thanks Mitchell. Actually, I've been poking around in these forums for a long time. It's a great source of information. This is just the first time that my question hasn't already been answered by an existing thread.

In my case, I'm talking about a regular touchpad. I'm using an Alienware laptop. I'm not sure of the manufacturer or the chipset, if that's the right term in this context, but the name of the driver on both Linux and Windows is "Synaptics".

As far as I know, there's only one driver for the device on each platform, but drivers on Linux are implemented in a way that's completely different.

Since I posted, I've read a little more about how the emulation works. Apparently a non-multi-touch touchpad can't detect two fingers, but it can detect finger pressure. Due to the way this works, two fingers looks like a lot more pressure to the touchpad. So, the driver sets a pressure threshold and triggers an event on that higher pressure. The side-effect (benefit?) of this method is that the user can even scroll with one finger if they press harder.

It sounds a lot like a hack, but it works perfectly. I can't tell the difference between two-finger scrolling on a real multi-touch touchpad (Eee PC) and emulated two-finger scrolling in Linux on my Alienware. I just wish I could do it in Windows.

Thank you.

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Ghodmode
Link Removed - Invalid URL
 
Thanks Mitchell. That definitely looks like a winner. I'm going to try "Scrybe". When I posted the first message, I was hoping someone knew about a hidden setting that would allow the two-finger scrolling, but "Scrybe" looks like it goes a lot farther than that and provides features that I haven't even thought of.
 
I take it back... Scrybe just adds gestures. I'm not interested in gestures.
 
Alright, No problem.

There is drivers that will provide two finger functionality and I'll be sure to find them later today and post.
 
Eureka! ... I found what I was looking for. It's a simple little Free and Open Source program called two-finger-scroll. I found it via an article at MakeUseOf.com after doing a search for 'two finger scrolling windows'. I could've sworn I already did that search and didn't find anything, but I must be mistaken.

two-finger-scroll : two-finger-scroll - Two finger gestures for Synaptics TouchPads on Windows - Google Project Hosting
related article : How To Easily Activate Two Finger Scroll In Windows Laptops
 
Glad you found something that worked for you.
Either way, here's the actual Synaptics driver.. Sorry for the delayed reply :)

Thanks for using Windows7Forums.com, See you around :)
 
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