Disabling touchpad?

Message

seeker4 · #1 Post by **seeker4** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 9:18 pm

Hi,

I'm trying to disable the touchpad on my R40 Thinkpad (model 2682-CV0).

My intention is to keep the external mouse running, and disable the built-in touchpad/mouse device. Basically, the touchpad/mouse constantly gets in the way and causes the cursor to jump all over the place to unexpected locations when inadvertently bumped.

When I go into Control Panel -> Mouse, I see two devices (one is an external plug-in mouse).

The two devices are listed as follows:

1. PS/2 Compliant Mouse
2. HID-compliant mouse

My effort so far:

In my experience, the PS/2 mouse would be the external mouse. I had never heard of a HID-compliant mouse, so I assumed that was the touchpad unit. Within Control Panel, etc., I disabled the "HID-compliant mouse". However, instead of the touchpad becoming inoperative, the EXTERNAL MOUSE stopped working.

Would someone be so kind as to tell me a) what the built-in touchpad/mouse unit is called within Windows XP?, and b) how to properly disable it?

Although I have tech experience, it is dated, and I'm just learning XP and this laptop.

Thanks.

eriqesque · #2 Post by **eriqesque** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 9:26 pm

Go into the control panel select printers and other hardware then select mouse and the last tab should be ultranav and in there you can disable the tackpad and trackpoint individulay or together.

seeker4 · #3 Post by **seeker4** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 9:35 pm

I went into CP (Mouse Properties) as you suggested. There are only 5 tabs:

Buttons, Pointers, Pointer Options, Wheel, and Hardware.

No Ultranav tab exists (or any other tab).

I was wondering if that tab needs to be "enabled" or "installed", but I've never encountered that before. It should show up by default, I'd think.

Any suggestions for what to try next?

G-Man · #4 Post by **G-Man** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 10:07 pm

Download the softwares from here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 6258#Mouse

Regards,
G-Man

eriqesque · #5 Post by **eriqesque** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 10:50 pm

seeker4 wrote:I went into CP (Mouse Properties) as you suggested. There are only 5 tabs:

Buttons, Pointers, Pointer Options, Wheel, and Hardware.

No Ultranav tab exists (or any other tab).

I was wondering if that tab needs to be "enabled" or "installed", but I've never encountered that before. It should show up by default, I'd think.

Any suggestions for what to try next?

You need to download the software like G-man says then you will be able to disable it.

seeker4 · #6 Post by **seeker4** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 11:24 pm

NOTE: These comments apply to all replies above.

I have followed all of these instructions, have learned some things, and still need some assistance. Details are below.

What I've Done/Learned:

- The TrackPoint and TouchPad can also be disabled in the CMOS (or whatever that is called now - IBM Predesktop --> System Setup?). While waiting for forum answers, I stumbled upon this option and disabled these devices there. Worked fine.

- I downloaded and installed the Ultranav driver. The "Ultranav" tab still DID NOT show up in the Control Panel (CP)....Mouse Properties (even after rebooting).

- To troubleshoot, I went back into the Predesktop config, and re-enabled those devices and rebooted. When the system came back up, the Ultranav tab WAS visible in the CP.

- So, I learned that the device must be enabled in CMOS for the software "tab" associated with the driver to be visible at all within the CP, even when the driver is installed.

- I went into the Ultranav tab to disable the devices there, and discovered a weird "feature". While both the TrackPoint and TouchPad are both there and configurable, apparently, only ONE can be disabled at a time. Every time that I disable one, the other one greys out (becomes inaccessible) automatically.

- So, it appears that the Ultranav utility (tab in CP) cannot be used to disable both devices.

I'd love to find out that I'm wrong, because the Predesktop method of doing this is not very convenient (or safe for all users of this laptop).

Thoughts?

Thanks for all of the help so far.

snife · #7 Post by **snife** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:01 am

The thinkpad configuration utility can be used to set both devices to disabled within windows although a reboot is still required - this should be easier than doing it in the BIOS.

If you dont have thinkpad configuration you can get it from the system utilities section for your machine on http://www.tpdrivers.com

G-Man · #8 Post by **G-Man** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 8:46 am

Lol. I didn't know you can get to the ThinkPad Device Driver Matrices so easily (www.tpdrivers.com). Cool. You learn something new everyday.

Regards,
G-Man

eriqesque · #9 Post by **eriqesque** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 9:39 am

And I forgot you can disable them in the BIOS so that's cool too
Very strange you can not make them both inactive though
I guess they igur eyou ned some sort of pointing device.

seeker4 · #10 Post by **seeker4** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 8:13 pm

Ahh - The ThinkPad Configuration Utility did the trick! Thanks to all for your help.

Disabling touchpad?

Disabling touchpad?

Who is online