Touchpad suddenly dead after windows update (Aspire ES1-512)

AlistairJ

Hello I'm really struggling and need help
TL;DR I updated my windows and now my touchpad isn't working, uninstalling the mouse driver and reinstalling the touchpad driver doesn't help

After putting it off for a few hours I finished up my work on my laptop and updated, everything was fine until I tried to use my touchpad. It didn't respond, and the cursor didn't even show up. I borrowed my parent's mouse from their laptop to be able to use my laptop to figure out whats wrong. I've spoken to several windows advisors and none of their advice helped. The only driver present in my device manager is the one for my parent's mouse. In fact, uninstalling that driver removes the section for mouses and other pointers completely! And then forces me to force quit my laptop altogether.

One advisor suggested I reinstall the acer driver for the touchpad and I did so, but nothing changed. The device manager doesn't even detect that it's there. Nothing is working to fix this. And, as silly as it sounds, I ended up having a panic attack over this. I need a solution and fast as I can only use my parent's mouse until tomorrow. 

aphanic

I feel you, but it may not be easy to troubleshoot from afar in the time-frame we have.

It not being visible in the Device Manager suggests the device is not connected or there's an issue with its connection anywhere, but you state it happened after a Windows Update, so if that was the cause there may be some hope yet. It may have installed something (driver or otherwise) that now prevents the system from recognizing the touchpad.

Have you tried reverting back to an earlier restore point (if System Restore is enabled) or uninstalling the last updates?

The UI changes depending on the Windows version you're running, but for example in my 10 in the section that details the updates that were installed there's a link to uninstall them as well at the top:



And because they still don't understand the meaning of consistency, it takes you back to the Control Panel section where you can uninstall the updates that were recently installed:



I'd give it a shot, after all if it doesn't work you can always reinstall those updates but if it does at least you'd have regained the use of the touchpad, but better think about getting a cheap USB mouse just in case as soon as possible, something there isn't working properly for sure.

Drastic measures aside like Reset or a clean Windows installation I can't think of something else to try. Maybe booting into Safe Mode just to see if the same behavior is exhibited there.