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Dell Latitude 131L - Touch Pad problem. (VISTA)


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#1
IO-error

IO-error

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<EDIT>
This problem is solved, solution is at the bottom post.
</EDIT>

Hi fellow geeks and upper geeks.

The last 2 months I've been running WordEd (Work Education) and I'm annoyed by Vista.
Annoyed to no end.
Not just me, also some teachers at the school I work hate the touchpad, so they take their own mouse.

There are settings that are completly useless etc etc I'll skip the BS about Vista.
The main thing is, the annoying touch pad CAN'T be disabled alltogether.
I use my own Logitech MX518, so you can understand I don't ever want to use that touch pad.

It's location is the killer of the laptop though, too close to the space bar, so my work is going very slowly now that I have 50 typo's every 3 seconds to correct, because my thumbs move the cursor all over the text. Sometimes selecting text while I'm typing... so then the selected text gets replaced by one new character >_< I hope you can understand I needed to vent my problems here.

I asked Dell what to do and they adviced me to either wreck it out of the laptop or install XP again where the touchpad IS disabled when you plug in a USB-mouse.

When I asked them why Vista couldn't disable the touchpad, I got a VERY strange answer...
"That's what we call MARKETING".


Any ideas, I can't go back to XP, because then Dell won't support me with this laptop.
I believe it could be done with register settings, but Dell refused to help me with that. (for no reason, what, so, ever.)

I sure hope I can be helped.
Greetz from a handfull of teachers and one desperate guy.

*EDIT:
Desperate as in: I've asked a lawyer what to do with the advice to wreck it out. He replied: If their advice is to wreck it out, they can't take away the warranty if you can proof the rest of the laptop is undamaged. This is an exception, only because they don't WANT to help me when I put XP on the laptop to originally fix the problem that I had.

Edited by IO-error, 24 April 2008 - 02:24 AM.

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#2
pip22

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Well my touchpad on XP still works when a mouse is plugged in so I'm not sure going back to XP would help anyway.

You might find this helpful: http://labnol.blogsp...ptop-avoid.html

You might also try 'disabling' the touchpad in "Device Manager" (right-click the Touchpad entry, choose 'Disable', click 'OK'.
Don't choose 'uninstall' or Windows will simply re-install it next time you restart.

Edited by pip22, 23 April 2008 - 03:00 AM.

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#3
IO-error

IO-error

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Thank you pip.

I'm sorry for letting out info:
I had XP on this laptop before I installed Vista.
I had to install Vista, otherwise Dell wouldn't support me.


If I would go back to XP, XP would recognize this touchpad as a TouchPad. And it will disable automatically when I plugin a mouse, it's a setting from the right-click menu if I right-click on the icon in the notification tray.

Oh and pip, thnx for the website, it's going to the record for me to help customers faster.
But it doesn't work for me, I just don't get that tickbox to disable the touchpad when a USB pointer device is connected.


Anyway, the device manager shows some possible devices which could be the touchpad.
Here's the list, I hope somebody can help me.

HID-Compliant mouse
PS/2 Compatible mouse

Tried disabling both and there was something strange about it...
I couldn't disable the PS/2-Compatible mouse, but I could disable the HID-compliant mouse....
GUESS WHAT HAPPENED!! There is not a DISABLE button in the right-click menu of PS/2-Compatible mouse.

Is this some marketing scheme of Dell/Microsoft... I wouldn't understand how this would benefit them... I get bad ideas that I shouldn't do to microsoft, but there WILL be a last straw and then it's over.

Edited by IO-error, 23 April 2008 - 03:38 AM.

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#4
IO-error

IO-error

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I know what I'm gonna do against it... I'm gonna de-install the touch-pad, it's the only available choice in the right-click menu... so here goes nothing.

Thnx again pip for at least trying to help me. Too bad this is just a [MAYOR BLEEP BLEEP] scam of microsoft (or dell :))
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#5
IO-error

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Yes pip, you were right, it will just re-install the darned thing...

Oh well, time for the cutting torch to solve this.
Hehe, na, I'll just open the laptop and pull out the wires to the pad.

It would only void warranty if the touchpad can't be connected anymore.

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#6
IO-error

IO-error

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Wait a sec... can't I edit an .inf file to enable the choice to disable the darned thing?

For those who don't know what .inf is:
A .inf file contains settings for a certain device or program, but also the flags of the device or program.
The Device manager checks the flags and knows by those flags what options it has.

I know for sure that XP can be fooled that way. Is Vista stil vulnerable to this kind of work-around?
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#7
IO-error

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Since I'm sure a lot of Googlers will read this:

You need to download the utility for your vista. Only 32-bit is availabe.
So I'm still not able to disable the thing, since I got 64-bit.

A bit weird the Dell employee didn't point me to this website...

But good luck to all who are still looking for their answer:
Click here.

Edited by IO-error, 24 April 2008 - 02:25 AM.

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