How to Disable Touchpad when Mouse is Connected in Windows
The touchpad can cause your mouse to malfunction
- Almost all laptops have a touchpad as their input device.
- However, many users tend to use a mouse on their laptop because using a mouse is much simpler than using a touchpad.
- You can set the touchpad to turn off from Settings but if this doesn't work, then you can modify the registry as a last resort.
Almost all laptops have a touchpad as their input device, but many users tend to use a mouse on their laptops because using a mouse is much simpler than using a touchpad.
Since many users prefer using their mouse over the touchpad, today we’re going to show you how to disable the touchpad when the mouse is connected on Windows 10.
How do I turn off the touchpad when a mouse is connected in Windows 10?
As we previously mentioned, many users tend to use a mouse on their laptop because it’s more comfortable for them, but sometimes certain problems can occur when you connect a mouse to your laptop.
In many cases your touchpad will remain enabled, so you might accidentally touch it and move your pointer while you’re typing. This is a minor inconvenience, but there are several ways to fix this problem.
1. Via Settings
You can easily use the built-in Settings menu on your PC to disable the touchpad every time you have a mouse connected.
The touchpad is enabled by default, but you can change this setting from the Mouse & touchpad tab.
1. Press Windows Key + I on your keyboard to open the Settings app.
2. Go to Devices.
3. Navigate to Mouse & touchpad. Here you will find the Leave touchpad on when a mouse is connected option. It should be checked by default.
4. Uncheck the box to turn this option off.
5. Now the touchpad will be disabled every time you have a mouse connected.
2. Check Mouse settings
- Press Windows Key + X to open the Win + X menu and select Control Panel from the list.
- When Control Panel opens, go to Hardware and Sound section and select Mouse.
- When the Mouse settings window opens, you should see the ELAN or Device Settings tab. Switch to it.
- Locate Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached option and enable it.
- Click Apply and OK to save changes.
One way to fix the problem with a touchpad on Windows 10 is to change your mouse settings. Sometimes touchpad drivers add their own settings to mouse settings, therefore you should be able to disable the touchpad right from there.
3. Edit your registry
This solution works with Synaptics touchpads, so if your laptop has a Synaptics touchpad, you might want to try this solution.
By performing this solution you should be able to see the option to disable the touchpad when you connect a mouse in your Mouse settings.
Keep in mind that modifying your registry can lead to system instability, therefore we suggest that you create a backup of your registry in case anything goes wrong. To make changes to your registry, do the following:
- Press Windows Key + R and enter regedit. Press Enter or click OK.
- When Registry Editor opens, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARESynapticsSynTPEnh key in the left pane.
- In the right pane, right-click the empty space and choose New > DWORD (32-bit Value).
- Enter DisableIntPDFeature as the name of the new DWORD and double click it to open its properties.
- Select the Hexadecimal option and change the Value data to 33. Click OK.
- Close Registry Editor and restart your PC.
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After making these changes in the registry, you should see the option to disable your touchpad in Mouse settings.
4. Install the latest drivers
Sometimes the option to disable the touchpad when the mouse is connected isn’t available unless you have the latest drivers.
To fix this problem, simply visit your laptop manufacturer’s website and download the latest drivers’ touchpad drivers for your laptop.
After downloading the latest drivers, uninstall your current driver by following these steps:
- Press Windows Key + X and select Device Manager from the list.
- When Device Manager opens, locate your Touchpad driver, right-click it and choose Uninstall.
- If available, select Delete the driver software for this device and click OK.
- After the driver is removed, restart your PC.
- When your PC restarts, install the latest touchpad driver and check if that fixes the problem.
4.1 Update drivers automatically
If you don’t want to install the touchpad drivers on your own, there’s a great tool that’ll do that for you.
Using specialized software will help you update drivers automatically and prevent PC damage caused by installing the wrong driver versions. After several tests, our team concluded that this is the best-automatized solution.
It works with all versions of Windows and makes upgrading drivers a breeze, because Outbyte Driver Updater may be set to detect outdated drivers automatically.
5. Disable the touchpad with the Smart Gesture app
If you use the ASUS laptop, you should be able to disable your touchpad through the Smart Gesture app. To do that, follow these simple steps:
- Locate the Smart Gesture app and run it. Smart Gesture application should be available from your Taskbar, so you can easily access it from there.
- Go to the Mouse Detection tab and check Disable Touchpad when mouse is plugged in option.
- Save changes and check if the problem is resolved.
6. Use the keyboard shortcut
If you can’t find the option to automatically disable the touchpad, you could try using a keyboard shortcut to disable your touchpad manually. For ASUS laptops the keyboard shortcut should be FN + F9, but it might be different on your laptop, therefore you might want to check your laptop’s instruction manual.
7. Tweak the Registry
Some users reported that there’s no option available to disable their touchpad in the mouse settings, but you can circumvent this problem by editing your registry. To do that, follow these steps:
- Open Registry Editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Elantech > Othersetting > DisableWhenDetectUSBMouse key in the left pane.
- Change the value from 0 to 1 and close Registry Editor.
After making those changes your touchpad will now be disabled every time you connect a mouse to your laptop. As you can see, even though this option isn’t available, you can still enable it by following these steps. We have to mention that this solution applies only if you’re using the ELAN touchpad.
8. Reinstall ASUS Smart Gesture
According to users, you can fix this problem simply by reinstalling ASUS Smart Gesture software. To do that, first, you need to remove the software from your PC. After that, navigate to the ASUS website, download the latest version of ASUS Smart Gesture and install it.
After that, you should be able to turn off the touchpad when a mouse is detected without any problems. In addition, some users are also suggesting downloading and installing the ATK package, so you might want to try that as well.
Having both touchpad and mouse enabled at the same time can be problematic, but you can easily disable the touchpad when you connect your mouse simply by using one of our solutions.
