Can "wheel" (at least on touchpad) be turned off?

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word
documents at work, and occasionally catch the edge of the touchpad (yes,
it's a laptop), and this causes the document to scroll; I'm quite happy
doing that with the arrow and Pg keys, or the scrollbar, and don't like
it when it moves when I wasn't expecting it to.

Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I
can see there is the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable)
number of lines. (I've tried setting it to 0, but it won't have it).

[Dave Doe]

In article <***@soft255.demon.co.uk>, G6JPG-***@255soft.uk,
J. P. Gilliver (John) says...

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word
documents at work, and occasionally catch the edge of the touchpad (yes,
it's a laptop), and this causes the document to scroll; I'm quite happy
doing that with the arrow and Pg keys, or the scrollbar, and don't like
it when it moves when I wasn't expecting it to.
Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I
can see there is the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable)
number of lines. (I've tried setting it to 0, but it won't have it).

Well I think you have exhausted all the options then.

You could try going to your notebook manufacturer website, digging into
your model under support or drivers and try and find the latest touchpad
driver.

If you find one to download, create a new/custom restore point before
installing it (yes, installing the driver should do that for you anyway
- but creating your own can be easier to find given you get to name it).

The driver once installed, might give you the options you want now, in
Control Panel, Mouse.

If it stuffs things up, or doesn't do what you want - you have a restore
point to roll back to.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by Dave Doe
J. P. Gilliver (John) says...

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word

[]

Post by Dave Doe

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I
can see there is the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable)
number of lines. (I've tried setting it to 0, but it won't have it).

Well I think you have exhausted all the options then.
You could try going to your notebook manufacturer website, digging into
your model under support or drivers and try and find the latest touchpad
driver.
If you find one to download, create a new/custom restore point before
installing it (yes, installing the driver should do that for you anyway
- but creating your own can be easier to find given you get to name it).
The driver once installed, might give you the options you want now, in
Control Panel, Mouse.
If it stuffs things up, or doesn't do what you want - you have a restore
point to roll back to.

Sounds good, but this is a works laptop, and I suspect I wouldn't be
allowed to do that sort of thing (as in would be blocked, rather than
just told I can't) - and the driver looks to be the normal, quite
elaborate, Synaptics driver anyway. (I've never encountered a system
where the touchpad isn't Synaptics, or at least the driver for it always
seems to be when there is one installed at all.)

It seems very odd that there is no way of turning off the wheel. (Even
when using real mice with a wheel, I don't remember ever actually using
the wheel's function.)

[Dave Doe]

In article <***@soft255.demon.co.uk>, G6JPG-***@255soft.uk,
J. P. Gilliver (John) says...

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)

Post by Dave Doe
J. P. Gilliver (John) says...

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word

[]

Post by Dave Doe

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I
can see there is the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable)
number of lines. (I've tried setting it to 0, but it won't have it).

Well I think you have exhausted all the options then.
You could try going to your notebook manufacturer website, digging into
your model under support or drivers and try and find the latest touchpad
driver.
If you find one to download, create a new/custom restore point before
installing it (yes, installing the driver should do that for you anyway
- but creating your own can be easier to find given you get to name it).
The driver once installed, might give you the options you want now, in
Control Panel, Mouse.
If it stuffs things up, or doesn't do what you want - you have a restore
point to roll back to.

Sounds good, but this is a works laptop, and I suspect I wouldn't be
allowed to do that sort of thing (as in would be blocked, rather than
just told I can't) - and the driver looks to be the normal, quite

<snip>

A work computer? Contact work IT support! :)

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by Dave Doe
J. P. Gilliver (John) says...

Post by Dave Doe
J. P. Gilliver (John) says...

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word

[]

Post by Dave Doe
A work computer? Contact work IT support! :)

1. There's only one of him!
2. Even if there wasn't, my experience is that "personal preference"
matters - such as "can I turn off the wheel" - get pretty low on IT's
priority list. (Especially as the answer, to this question, doesn't
appear to be simple.)

[Stan Brown]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off?

There is no "the" touchpad -- every laptop maker has its own drivers.
This one is in your laptop documentation, if it's anywhere.

[Tim Slattery]

Post by Stan Brown
There is no "the" touchpad -- every laptop maker has its own drivers.
This one is in your laptop documentation, if it's anywhere.

You can probably do this in the settings for your touchpad's driver.
Look for it in the Control Panel, or there might be an icon for it in
your system tray.

[KenW]

Post by Tim Slattery

Post by Stan Brown
There is no "the" touchpad -- every laptop maker has its own drivers.
This one is in your laptop documentation, if it's anywhere.

You can probably do this in the settings for your touchpad's driver.
Look for it in the Control Panel, or there might be an icon for it in
your system tray.

No you can't. Just search for an answer will answer the question.


KenW

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by KenW

Post by Tim Slattery

Post by Stan Brown
There is no "the" touchpad -- every laptop maker has its own drivers.
This one is in your laptop documentation, if it's anywhere.

(Which I don't have, it being a laptop that was provided for me by the -
one-man, it's a small company! - IT department.)

I know what you mean about each machine in theory having its own
touchpad driver. However, in recent years, I've only come across two
situations:

1. no driver installed for the touchpad. Still works, just thinks it's a
mouse. Mouse part of control panel, as if it _was_ a mouse.
2. the Synaptics driver. Makes an extra tab appear at the right of the
mouse part of control panel; within that is an Advanced button, which
leads to lots of wonderful things - touch sensitivity adjustment,
momentum, and so on. But no specific wheel control. (Though see my next
post.)

Post by KenW

Post by Tim Slattery
You can probably do this in the settings for your touchpad's driver.
Look for it in the Control Panel, or there might be an icon for it in
your system tray.

No you can't. Just search for an answer will answer the question.
KenW

[Paul]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)

Post by KenW

Post by Tim Slattery

Post by Stan Brown
There is no "the" touchpad -- every laptop maker has its own drivers.
This one is in your laptop documentation, if it's anywhere.

(Which I don't have, it being a laptop that was provided for me by the -
one-man, it's a small company! - IT department.)
I know what you mean about each machine in theory having its own
touchpad driver. However, in recent years, I've only come across two
1. no driver installed for the touchpad. Still works, just thinks it's a
mouse. Mouse part of control panel, as if it _was_ a mouse.
2. the Synaptics driver. Makes an extra tab appear at the right of the
mouse part of control panel; within that is an Advanced button, which
leads to lots of wonderful things - touch sensitivity adjustment,
momentum, and so on. But no specific wheel control. (Though see my next
post.)

Post by KenW

Post by Tim Slattery
You can probably do this in the settings for your touchpad's driver.
Look for it in the Control Panel, or there might be an icon for it in
your system tray.

No you can't. Just search for an answer will answer the question.
KenW

The Touchpad identifies itself as a HID device by default.

The mouse driver initially binds to it.

When you install the Synaptics driver, that is a "filter" driver.
It uses the X-Y coordinate stream, to add fancy "virtual" features
to the interface. It interprets the coordinate stream as part of
its operation (knows your finger is over top of a "hot" area).

Some touchpads will have discrete mechanical switches for clicking,
and these would work the same way as a mouse button. But on the
surface of the touchpad, they can also implement "virtual" buttons,
at least as long as the filter driver is installed and working.

If the Synaptics driver had a control panel, it should show a
visual picture of the "virtual" feature set. As otherwise, you
might not know where the hot spots are.

Paul

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <ogq7rf$of7$***@dont-email.me>, Paul <***@needed.invalid>
writes:
[]

Post by Paul
The Touchpad identifies itself as a HID device by default.
The mouse driver initially binds to it.
When you install the Synaptics driver, that is a "filter" driver.
It uses the X-Y coordinate stream, to add fancy "virtual" features
to the interface. It interprets the coordinate stream as part of
its operation (knows your finger is over top of a "hot" area).
Some touchpads will have discrete mechanical switches for clicking,
and these would work the same way as a mouse button. But on the
surface of the touchpad, they can also implement "virtual" buttons,
at least as long as the filter driver is installed and working.

This one has areas marked as buttons, though they seem to need a fair
amount of tap, and I don't hear anything (though it's a fairly noisy
environment); I usually double-tap for left click anyway, though
obviously use the right one.

Post by Paul
If the Synaptics driver had a control panel, it should show a
visual picture of the "virtual" feature set. As otherwise, you
might not know where the hot spots are.
Paul

I had another look today, and - don't know why I didn't see it/them
before - there are indeed settings for enable/disable horizontal and
vertical scrolling, and how much of the area counts as the scroll area.
It was set to enable vertical only, and about a quarter of the width; I
left it enabled, but reduced it to a sliver. Though I still caught it
when I didn't mean to: I will see how often that happens, and if too
often will turn it off.

[VanguardLH]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word
documents at work, and occasionally catch the edge of the touchpad (yes,
it's a laptop), and this causes the document to scroll; I'm quite happy
doing that with the arrow and Pg keys, or the scrollbar, and don't like
it when it moves when I wasn't expecting it to.
Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I
can see there is the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable)
number of lines. (I've tried setting it to 0, but it won't have it).

Where you describe, the minimum value is 1; however, wouldn't that help
to prevent you from wandering too far from your current position in a
document when you accidentally trigger the scroll spot on the touchpad?

Been awhile since I tweaked my laptop but recall that it had its own
touchpad app (separately or showed up as another tab on the Mouse applet
in Control Panel) which had its own settings, like what areas of the
touchpad trigger which action.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

[]

Post by VanguardLH

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I
can see there is the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable)
number of lines. (I've tried setting it to 0, but it won't have it).

Where you describe, the minimum value is 1; however, wouldn't that help
to prevent you from wandering too far from your current position in a
document when you accidentally trigger the scroll spot on the touchpad?

It would a bit, I suppose.

Post by VanguardLH
Been awhile since I tweaked my laptop but recall that it had its own
touchpad app (separately or showed up as another tab on the Mouse applet
in Control Panel) which had its own settings, like what areas of the
touchpad trigger which action.

If I remember I'll have a look again: though there might not be a way of
disabling the wheel function as such, there might be a way of reducing
the width of the area that works as the wheel to zero.

[Paul in Houston TX]

Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word documents at work,
and occasionally catch the edge of the touchpad (yes, it's a laptop), and this causes the
document to scroll; I'm quite happy doing that with the arrow and Pg keys, or the
scrollbar, and don't like it when it moves when I wasn't expecting it to.
Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I can see there is
the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable) number of lines. (I've tried
setting it to 0, but it won't have it).

My Lenovos' control panels (not win control panel) can selectively turn off
touch pad parts including scroll.

[SC Tom]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word
documents at work, and occasionally catch the edge of the touchpad (yes,
it's a laptop), and this causes the document to scroll; I'm quite happy
doing that with the arrow and Pg keys, or the scrollbar, and don't like it
when it moves when I wasn't expecting it to.
Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I can
see there is the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable) number
of lines. (I've tried setting it to 0, but it won't have it).

As others have posted, check the laptop manufacturer's site for the touchpad
driver.
On my Acer V3-731, when I open Control Panel>Mouse, there's a tab at the top
for Touchpad, then a link under that tab to "Change the Touch Pad settings."
From there, I can enable or disable scrolling.

[Linea Recta]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word
documents at work, and occasionally catch the edge of the touchpad (yes,
it's a laptop), and this causes the document to scroll; I'm quite happy
doing that with the arrow and Pg keys, or the scrollbar, and don't like it
when it moves when I wasn't expecting it to.
Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I can
see there is the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable) number
of lines. (I've tried setting it to 0, but it won't have it).
--
"I'm a paranoid agnostic. I doubt the existence of God, but I'm sure there is
some force, somewhere, working against me." - Marc Maron

I remember the touch pad has a driver which has an option to disable it.
I never use the touch pad but operate the laptop by a usb mouse.

[G Ross]

Post by Linea Recta

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Can the "wheel" part of the touchpad be turned off? I'm editing Word
documents at work, and occasionally catch the edge of the touchpad (yes,
it's a laptop), and this causes the document to scroll; I'm quite happy
doing that with the arrow and Pg keys, or the scrollbar, and don't like it
when it moves when I wasn't expecting it to.
Under Mouse in Control Panel I can find a tab for the wheel, but all I can
see there is the choice between it moving by a page or a (settable) number
of lines. (I've tried setting it to 0, but it won't have it).
--
"I'm a paranoid agnostic. I doubt the existence of God, but I'm sure there is
some force, somewhere, working against me." - Marc Maron

I remember the touch pad has a driver which has an option to disable it.
I never use the touch pad but operate the laptop by a usb mouse.

Mine (Samsung) has an option that the touchpad is turned off whenever
a USB mouse is plugged in. I have a wireless USB mouse and that turns
off the touchpad also.