Windows 8 How do I turn off my mouse pad?

Go to Control panel, device manager, Mice and other pointing devices, right click on the touchpad device and disable.
 
Go to Control panel, device manager, Mice and other pointing devices, right click on the touchpad device and disable.
The only option I have there is to uninstall it and I prefer not to do that because my wife sometimes uses it.
 
Have you tried updating the driver - that may give you additional options.