Why is Aspire E3-575 Drag-and-Drop "Backwards?"

I am a professional PC support person with decades of experience.

This is a problem I haven't seen before.  I successfully installed Windows 7 x64 Enterprise on this machine months ago, and it's working great with one outstanding exception.  Drag-and-Drop on the touchpad works "backwards" compared to any other laptop I've used before.  What I mean is that instead of being able to left-click and hold on an object and then move another finger on the touchpad to drag, I have to place the cursor on the object, then carefully keeping my finger motionless on the touchpad, I have to press and hold the left touchpad button and only then move my other finger to drag.

If I try to do it the "normal" way (click-hold, then drag with another finger) the cursor doesn't move at all.  I am using a Synaptics driver which matches the hardware.  There are no error messages or Event Log messages which seem to relate to this.

I hate Windows 10 with a passion, and will only be using it after Microsoft forces me to do so, please refrain from lecturing me on that as an option.

Thanks for your help.