A touchpad can be extremely useful for most people, but there are times when it is little more than an irritation, so how do you permanently disable a touchpad if you do not want or need it? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answers to help a frustrated reader.
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.
Photo courtesy of Anonymous Account (Flickr).
The Question
SuperUser reader toriloukas wants to know how to permanently disable the touchpad on a laptop:
What is the best (or easiest) way to permanently disable the touchpad on a laptop?
The Answer
SuperUser contributors Steven and Scott have the answer for us. First up, Steven:
Followed by the answer from Scott:
The touchpad can often be disabled in BIOS. On my Dell Latitude E6430s, the option is POST Behavior > Mouse/Touchpad. There is even an option to disable the touchpad only if an external mouse is attached.
Approach 2 – Device Manager
Open the Control Panel, then go to System > Device Manager. Navigate to the Mouse Option, right click on it, and click Disable.
Approach 3 – Physically Disconnect
According to a disassembly video (link shown below), it appears that you can unplug the touchpad by removing the keyboard (at 3:45) and removing the small ribbon cable near the touchpad.
Disassembling the Dell Inspiron N5050 [YouTube]
Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.
I disabled my touchpad there and it has remained disabled through many reboots.
