How to Disable Touchpad of your Laptop or Notebook

While typing or operating the laptop TouchPad the cursor movement gets displaced due to accidental contact with your palm. It is very annoying when the position of the cursor in your document gets changed automatically and you need start typing again and again. Most of the laptops come with installed feature “PalmCheck” that allows the TouchPad to recognize when your palm is resting on it or brushing its surface while you are typing and thus prevent unwanted pointer movement or clicks. Users may follow simple tips below to disable Touchpad in Laptops to avoid erratic cursor movement while typing.  

Methods to diable or Turn-Off Touchpad in Laptops

Disable TouchPad via Control Panel
To avoid erratic cursor movement, most of us use external mouse but make sure to disable the touchpad. To do so navigate to the Control Panel and double click the Mouse properties icon. You need to find out the option that controls the enabling or disabling of touchpad. Below is the screenshot for IBM thinkpad (different for different laptops).

 

Disable the TouchPad from the BIOS Setup Utility
To disable the touchpad of your laptop permanently, uncheck ‘Enable TouchPad’ under TouchPad settings of UltraNav tab. If you are a computer expert then you can disable the touchpad from the BIOS setup during computer startup. Select “Configure” then “mouse/pointing devices” in BIOS setup utility. You will notice two options, to enable/disable the touchpad and the pointing stick separately. Just disable both of them, and save the BIOS changes, and restart your laptop.

Adjust the Sensitivity of the TouchPad
The advance settings allow you to adjust the sensitivity of the touchpad. The Touch Sensitivity slider allows you to adjust how much finger pressure must be applied before the TouchPad responds. If your pointer is moving or clicking erratically, or you work in an area with high humidity, decrease sensitivity by moving the slider to the right toward Heavy Touch. If you have to press too hard to operate the TouchPad or if the TouchPad does not always respond to your taps, increase sensitivity by moving the slider to the left toward Light Touch.

Touchpal to disable TouchPad (Freeware)
Touchpad Pal is utility for Windows XP/Vista/7 that disables the touchpad in laptop automatically when you are typing text.

 

Touchfreeze to disable TouchPad (Freeware)
TouchFreeze is simple utility for Windows Windows 7/Vista/XP that disables the touchpad of laptop. Download and install Touchfreeze if you are annoyed with erratic position of the cursor in your document while typing. It automatically disables touchpad while you are typing text, like syndaemon on x-windows.
Ubuntu users should follow this guide to disable Touchpad temporarily while typing or use syndaemon1 tool that monitors keyboard activity and disables or turn off the touchpad when the keyboard is being used. For more details visit here

The method listed above will allow users to disable touchpad in laptops like dell, toshiba, vaio with installed ubuntu, linux, Windows 7/XP/Vista operating system. Also disables touchpad mouse in ibm thinkpad, compaq, acer with synaptics touchpad installed and many more.

Note: All testing done on IBM thinkpad that ship with UltraNav Driver (Touchpad driver) installed.