Solved: How do I disable the fingerpad mouse on Sony laptop?

[cdrsjb]

I am not certain if this is a hardware or software issue. I have a Sony Vaio VPCEE37FX laptop computer and cannot figure out how to disable the fingerpad mouse below the keyboard. I prefer using a separate USB mouse. I am using Windows 7. I would appreciate some advice on this issue.

 

[flavallee]

Sony VAIO VPCEE37FX

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[strollin]

From the on-line manual:

You can disable/enable the touch pad while a mouse is connected to your computer. To change the touch pad settings, use the VAIO Control Center..

 

[cdrsjb]

Thanks for your help. I neglected to mention I bought the computer second hand and had to do a clean install of a commercially purchased Windows 7 OS to get it to operate. It works fine but does not have Sony Vaio Care installed. I went to the Sony web site and found the Vaio Care software download for my laptop model. It stated I had to first install all the original Sony Vaio drivers before installing Sony Vaio Care. This gave me pause. My computer is working fine and I have updated the existing drivers. I hesitate to install 4 year old Sony Vaio drivers to install Sony Vaio Care so I can disable the touchpad. I was hoping there would be another way.

 

[flavallee]

Steve:

The nice thing about doing a clean install of Windows 7 instead of doing a factory restore/recovery is that you don't install all that Sony-related "bloatware".

You made a smart move by ignoring what Sony support tried to convince you to do.

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If you access the BIOS, there may be a setting there that allows you to disable the touchpad.

I believe your laptop has a Alps touchpad/pointing device.

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[strollin]

What driver do you have for the touchpad? On my Toshiba laptop, I can disable the touchpad from the Mouse Properties panel:

 

[cdrsjb]

Under device manager / Mice and other pointing devices I see an HID-compliant mouse and a PS/2 Compatible Mouse. I see no touchpad devices listed. I looked under Mouse Properties but found no touchpad info. Only regular PS/2 type mouse info. Under driver details they seem to be operating on windows drivers from Windows\system32\mouclass.sys and mouhid.sys. This all seems to be generic Windows OS driver stuff. The touchpad works, I just do not want it to.

 

[cdrsjb]

I'll try the bios settings. You may be right but I did not see Alps pointing device in the device drivers section of control panel.

 

[flavallee]

An Alps or Synaptics touchpad appears in the Device Manager and in Programs And Features ONLY if its software driver package is installed.

That's probably why you don't see it in either location.

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[dustyjay]

If you go to Control Panel Mouse There should be a check box under Touchpad to disable Touchpad if an External Mouse is connected. This has worked on all my laptops whether running Win 7 or 8.1.

 

[cdrsjb]

Under control panel mouse there is no touchpad check box. Nothing in control panel says touchpad anywhere. I am surprised the touchpad works without a driver. I am trying to figure out how to access the bios. Pressing the F10 key at startup doesn't work.

 

[flavallee]

I am surprised the touchpad works without a driver.

The touchpad will work with the driver provided by the Windows operating system, but it will not have full function nor appear in the Device Manager unless its driver software is installed.

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[cdrsjb]

I finally installed the correct driver and found a way to adjust the mousepad. I could not disable it so I changed the settings so it is not so sensitive. I suppose this is the best I can do. I cannot figure out how to access the CMOS to see if I can disable it that way. I suppose that will be a challenge for another thread.

 

[dustyjay]

have looked under the mouse tab? At least that is where it is on my dell laptops any way.

 

[cdrsjb]

Yes. I checked the mousetab early on. No joy.