The mouse pad on my Dell Studio 15 is confusing me.

[Skyzoomer]

I googled "How to use the Dell mouse pad" and also searched that on this forum but no joy.

1. When I'm using the mouse pad on my Dell Studio 15 laptop, sometimes an icon that looks like this appears: <|>
I don't why that icon pops up and I don't know what it should do. In fact it is often a pain and I wish it would not pop up. Could someone explain the ins and outs of it?

2. When a horizontal or vertical scroll bar is kinda long, I can double tap the mouse pad and hold my finger down on the second tap and move the scroll bar. But if the scroll bar is short, there's not enough room on it to do the double tap/move thing. Any tips for this? (I know I can move the scroll bar by holding down the left pad button and move my finger on the pad.)

3. One time a spiral icon appeared and I assume it's for mouse gestures. But I can't even get it to appear anymore and don't know how to use it if it did pop up. Any help with it?

Thanks,
Skyzoomer (First time laptop owner)

 

[Hacp]

You mean touchpad right?

 

[Skyzoomer]

Originally posted by: Hacp
You mean touchpad right?

Yes. Now you know how little I know ...

 

[Sauro]

If it's anything like my studio 16 xps you'll have a dell touchpad icon in the lower right-hand corner (icon that lights up when you use the touchpad). Rightclick -> properities to enable/disable all the touchpad nonsense. http://www.interactivegestures...?title=Circular_Scroll is a description of circular scrolling.

 

[Skyzoomer]

Originally posted by: Sauro
If it's anything like my studio 16 xps you'll have a dell touchpad icon in the lower right-hand corner (icon that lights up when you use the touchpad). Rightclick -> properities to enable/disable all the touchpad nonsense. http://www.interactivegestures...?title=Circular_Scroll is a description of circular scrolling.

Looks like that got rid of all the nonsense. Thanks!

In msconfig > Startup, I see an entry titled "Alps Pointing-device Driver". I'm afraid to uncheck it in case that would disable the touch pad completely. Would you or anyone else happen to know if that entry can be unchecked and the touch pad still work?

Thanks,
Skyzoomer

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Skyzoomer

Originally posted by: Sauro
If it's anything like my studio 16 xps you'll have a dell touchpad icon in the lower right-hand corner (icon that lights up when you use the touchpad). Rightclick -> properities to enable/disable all the touchpad nonsense. http://www.interactivegestures...?title=Circular_Scroll is a description of circular scrolling.

Looks like that got rid of all the nonsense. Thanks!

In msconfig > Startup, I see an entry titled "Alps Pointing-device Driver". I'm afraid to uncheck it in case that would disable the touch pad completely. Would you or anyone else happen to know if that entry can be unchecked and the touch pad still work?

Thanks,
Skyzoomer

well, if it does disable it you can activate it via the command line. use the window key, TAB to search for things, cmd to get a command line, then...activate

or use a mouse. touchpads are meh anyway.

 

[Skyzoomer]

In case it helps other Dell laptop owners, I unchecked the "Alps Pointing-device Driver" in msconfig and after a restart, the touchpad still works fine. I don't see the touchpad icon in the system tray anymore so I might re-enable the Apls driver to get all of the other fine tuning controls for the touch pad. Will see how it works without the driver for a while and then decide.

 

[Lanyap]

Originally posted by: Skyzoomer
In case it helps other Dell laptop owners, I unchecked the "Alps Pointing-device Driver" in msconfig and after a restart, the touchpad still works fine. I don't see the touchpad icon in the system tray anymore so I might re-enable the Apls driver to get all of the other fine tuning controls for the touch pad. Will see how it works without the driver for a while and then decide.

The Alps pad is seen as a standard PS2 mouse by windows without the special drivers.

 

[Skyzoomer]

The Alps pad is seen as a standard PS2 mouse by windows without the special drivers.

Thanks for that tidbit. Every tidbit helps...
Skyzoomer