Aspire V3-572G - How to disable/enable touchpad depending on USB mouse plugged in

capella
capella Member Posts: 9 New User
in 2016 Archives

I have seen a setting before on other computers where you can check a box to disable the touchpad when a USB mouse is plugged in. I can't find it on this Aspire V3-572G. I thought it was somewhere in the mouse settings dialog, but can't find it.

 

I am running Win8.1 Pro.

 

Thanks for anyone's help.

Answers

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    Fn+F7 ?

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • capella
    capella Member Posts: 9 New User

    Thanks, Ace. I'm aware of that already (frankly I'm suprised how many people miss it - all you have to do is look at the function keys and figure out the little image on the keys to see that!) But I digress...

     

    I didn't mention in my question that I did actually see that checkbox somewhere on this computer before - I thought it was on a tab in the mouse settings dialog. I got a Logitech mouse and installed the Setpoint software. After installing the software I checked the box (wherever it is/was) to disable the touchpad when the mouse is detected.

     

    As it is now, with that setting enabled (disable touchpad with mouse plugged in), when the mouse is plugged in the touchpad is diabled, but F7 doesn't enable it.

     

    So I uninstalled the Setpoint software in hopes I'd somejhow find that tab/setting in the mouse diaglog, but that didn't work.

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    Does your touchpad has a proprietary software (synaptics or elantech)?

     

    i would check on control panel if any is available, probably the option is somewhere in this software.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • capella
    capella Member Posts: 9 New User

    I can't tell which touchpad it is. Acer's drivers page for this laptop with Win 8 has driver download for both manufacturers.

     

    Is there a way to find out which one I have? There's nothing listed in Mice and other pointing devices in Device Manager for a touchpad - just the mouse driver.

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    you can check the HardwareIDs on the details tab of the mouse.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • capella
    capella Member Posts: 9 New User

    "SYN" is in that information, so it must be Synaptics. But the type of device is a mouse, or is that some generic device name for pointing devices on the macine?

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    it's Synaptics, by the way i have read around this board that latest touchpads are recognised as mouse.

     

    try to re-install the drivers and check if that option appears but i doubt, to be honest.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • capella
    capella Member Posts: 9 New User

    Okay - before I do that, though: if I uninstall that pointing device driver - the only one listed in Device Manager - won't I lose functionality of the touchpad and/or mouse?

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    Probably you will loose it, until the next reboot.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • Cory-Acer
    Cory-Acer Administrator Posts: 1,449 Community Administrator

    Hi capella,

     

    Just confirming that there is not a setting or feature that will allow for the touchpad to disable/enable based on whether a mouse is plugged in and that the FN+F7 is what we would recommend to toggle this.

     

    I know that disabling the touchpad when a mouse is plugged in was a more prominent feature back in the XP days, but there was not mechanism to reenable the touchpad afterwards and this led to a lot of confusion on some customers part.

     

    One suggestion is to take this idea to our Idea's platform, let others who would like to see this share their desire, and have our design teams take a look at the possibilities.

     

    Thanks,
    Cory

  • saintonge235
    saintonge235 Member Posts: 1 New User

    Thank you very much, it worked, and is much simpler than my old Dell's procedure. Thank you, Acer, for making it easy.

    By the way, I'm using Windows 7, and it worked for me, so apparently it's general on all Acer's with any version of Windows.

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