How to turn off internal touch pad in a laptop when external pointing device is attached.

Post date: Jun 5, 2013 3:27:16 AM

Internal touch pad can sometimes be inconvenient especially if you are doing typing works or even playing games. Without disabling the touch pad, I usually encounter problems and errors and even more disturbing when you are concentrating with your job. It can be very frustrating when you look into your screen and find out that some things go wrong.This usually happens when you have touched the internal pad with the part of your hand. This is the reason why I usually use external pointing device like mouse.

Below is the Mouse Properties window when you click the Mouse Icon in control panel. (Assuming you are using Windows OS) You can have this window by going to 1) Start then select 2) Control Panel and if in your control panel is set to Category view select 3.a) Hardware and Sound then select the 4) Mouse tab and if your control panel is set to other view select 3.b) Mouse directly and the window below comes up.

As you notice this window has only five tabs - Buttons, Pointers, Pointer Options, Wheel and Hardware. If you have have this kind of properties you have not installed the hardware driver of your internal touch pad. Search, Download and Install first the corresponding driver of your unit.

When you are able to successfully install the corresponding driver you will see the corresponding window as shown below.

By clicking the Device Settings tab another similar window will appear

A check box option that has a label of "Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached." can be found. Check the box and internal pointing device is disabled when you attach an external pointing device.

In some cases even installing an updated driver won't guarantee you on having the option above, if that happens try using another third party software like Touchpad Blocker I have test it personally and base on the review it seems to work on any Synaptics Manufactured Touch Pad. And it has one drawback, it tends to run sluggish on Internet Explorer browser but you can just adjust external pointing device motion in the mouse properties under Pointer Options Tab.

Hope it helps.

Richard A. Ansay

IT Specialist