Question from Ellen P.: I recently bought a new laptop with Windows 10 on it to use when I’m travelling.
I really like it but the touchpad is very sensitive. If I’m typing something and I happen to accidentally brush my hand against the touchpad it messes up what I’m doing.
I always use a mouse instead of the touchpad on this machine so I’d like to disable the touchpad if it’s possible to do so. Is it?
Rick’s answer: This is a very common problem for laptop users, Ellen. It seems like no matter how hard we try to avoid it we keep accidentally touching our touchpads and messing things up.
Luckily, Microsoft has made it very easy to disable a laptop’s touchpad when a mouse is plugged connected to the machine. All it takes is a simple settings change. Just follow the steps below:
1 – Click the Start button.
2 – Click the Settings icon (it looks like a “gear” or “cog”).
3 – Click Devices.
4 – Click Mouse & touchpad.
5 – Toggle the Leave touchpad on when a mouse is connected option to Off.
That’s all there is to it. From now on your laptop’s touchpad will be completely disabled any time you have a mouse connected to the machine!
By the way, you could always go into the Device Manager and disable the touchpad completely, but I recommend having Windows only disable it when a mouse is connected.
That way if your mouse ever stops working right in the middle of an important task you’ll be able to simply unplug it and finish the task using the touchpad.
I hope this helps, Ellen. Good luck!
Bonus tip #1: This post explains 4 handy mouse tricks that you might not be aware of.
Bonus tip #2: This post explains why the Logitech M510 is my favorite wireless mouse.
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