How-to: Auto Disable Touchpad on Synaptics
If you are using a USB mouse on your laptop and don’t want to keep on pressing “function key + touchpad key” to enable or disable the touchpad every time you use an external pointing devices, then read on.
Check that you have the latest Synaptics software driver installed.
If you have version 10.x and above then proceed to step 3, if not then read on below.
1. Go to Synaptics Driver download page and get the latest driver.
2. Uninstall the old Synaptics driver and restart your computer.
3. Once the driver is installed and loaded, double click on Synaptics system tray icon to bring the Synaptics pointing device properties.
4. Click on “Device Settings” tab and look for the checkbox that says “Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached” and click it to check. Click OK.
5. Now try to insert a USB mouse and try to use the touchpad, it should be automatically disabled every time you insert the USB mouse and enable it every time you remove the USB mouse.
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11 Comments on How-to: Auto Disable Touchpad on Synaptics »
Jim @ 1:54 pm:
I don’t even have the check box for auto disabling my touch pad, and I just installed the latest driver software.
jmw1 @ 5:41 pm:
Same as Jim.
I downloaded the latest driver for my ACer Aspire from Acer and got V8.3.0 of 2006.
This does not have the check box.
On the Acer Extensa (both with XP) the installed version is 10.0.15 V6.3 sept 2007 and that does have the box.
SO my problem has been that Acer hasn’t been updating the driver files for older laptops.
I now will try and find a driver somewhere else.
What is needed for all these forums is for someone who really knows what they are talking about to advise which versions have the feature and which don’t and which are compatible with XP etc.
Ought to get from Synaptics but fat chance.
jmw1 @ 5:43 pm:
Same as Jim.
I downloaded the latest driver for my ACer Aspire from Acer and got V8.3.0 of 2006.
This does not have the check box.
On the Acer Extensa (both with XP) the installed version is 10.0.15 V6.3 sept 2007 and that does have the box.
SO my problem has been that Acer hasn’t been updating the driver files for older laptops.
I now will try and find a driver somewhere else.
What is needed for all these forums is for someone who really knows what they are talking about to advise which versions have the feature and which don’t and which are compatible with XP etc.
The important point in the original advice is to use the latest suitable driver.
Glad I came here.
jmw1 @ 5:45 pm:
Same as Jim.
I downloaded the latest driver for my ACer Aspire from Acer and got V8.3.0 of 2006.
This does not have the check box.
On the Acer Extensa (both with XP) the installed version is 10.0.15 V6.3 sept 2007 and that does have the box.
So my problem has been that Acer hasn’t been updating the driver files for older laptops.
I now will try and find a driver somewhere else.
The important point here is to use the latest suitable driver from Synaptics, not necessarily from the computer supplier.
jmw1 @ 5:46 pm:
Sorry, double post. Please ignore my first post.
JMW1 @ 6:28 pm:
Great.
I see my previous posts have disappeared.
I have XP on both Acer laptops.
On the Aspire the original driver is 8.3.0.28 2006
This does not have the tock box so auto-disable is not available.
On the Extensa the original driver is 10.0.15 sept 2007. This has the tick box and can auto-disable.
Acer does not update the drivers for these laptops. They’ve given up supporting them I guess, such support as Acer give anyway.
The latest driver from Synaptics is 15.2.20 March 2011. You don’t get a choice.
This also does not have the auto-disable tick box.
Why did they add this valuable feature and then do away with it? I guess because 15.2.20 is feature rich. i.e. bloody complicated. I suppose they think this will be so good no one will want an external mouse. Quite the reverse if you ask me. I hate touchpads and this does nothing to change that.
So now I have to try and find vesrion 10.0.15 and install that.
I’m really getting fed up with un-installing and rebooting then installing and rebooting.
JMW1 @ 6:38 pm:
The trouble is, the 10.0.15 appears to be a version for specific Acer laptops and is not listed for the Aspire 5583.
Still, I think I may download it and try it out.
JMW1 @ 6:43 pm:
I decided instead to try 10.0.11 from softpedia.
JMW @ 7:11 pm:
Backed off installing the 10.0.11 because of all the warning messages and instead downloaded the 10.0.15 for an Acer Extensa 5520.
This was the easiest install of all and it works and it has the auto-disable feature.
No idea why it is listed for an Extensa 5520 and not an aspire 5583 and what “customisation” has been done.
It works, that’s all I care about.
If things go wrong down the road, we’ll see.
Andrew @ 3:28 pm:
Yes, I don’t have the the check box for auto disabling my touch pad, and I just installed the driver too. That was a waste of time.
JMW1 @ 1:52 pm:
Times like this you realise you can be an idiot.
I’ve just noticed that ACER laptops allow you to disable the touchpad using Fn F7….. this could explain why the synaptics driver doesn’t have a tick box to disable the touch pad when an external mouse is detected.