The touch panel is a peripheral that is included in all laptops on the market. It is an element that allows us to use the equipment without having to connect a mouse, something that is great when we are traveling or away from home. The great importance of the touch panel of a laptop, makes its operating problems become a real problem for the user. That is why we have created this guide with 5 solutions if the touch panel has stopped working as it should .
Reactivate the touchpad with the Fn key
This happened to me when I turned on the WiFi of a laptop, and inadvertently disconnected the touchpad. For a long time I was looking for the cause, without realizing what had happened. On notebook computers, there is a button for additional functions called Fn, which is located at the bottom left of the keyboard.
For example, to enable the touch panel, you have to press Fn + F7, on the F7 button itself there will be an image of a type of touch panel. If you can't find it, you can press all the buttons in order Fn + F1… F12, but remember that there is a function to turn off the screen.
Removing other mouse drivers
There are times when you've plugged in a bunch of drivers for different mouse devices, and you've never erased them. Some mouse manufacturer drivers automatically disable the touchpad.
To remove them go to Device Manager , pressing the Win + R button combination, and enter "devmgmt.msc" in the search box.
Find the section that corresponds to the mouse and other pointing devices, click the tab to expand the category, and remove all mouse drivers in order until the touchpad starts working again. If it doesn't work, please reboot after removing all drivers.
Update the touch panel driver
Go to the same device manager that you used in the previous point. Locate the touchpad device, usually its name includes laptop brand (Dell TouchPad, Lenovo TouchPad, Synaptics, HP TouchPad, Acer TouchPad, Asus TouchPad ...)
Right-click on the touchpad, and then choose " Update Driver " to make sure you have the latest version of the device driver installed.
Enable touch pad in mouse properties
In some cases, the device manager does not work to enable the touchpad on a laptop. If the touchpad still doesn't work, go to the mouse properties.
To do this, type "mouse" in the Windows 10 search bar, and enter the " Mouse Settings " option .
Find the touch panel, and click the corresponding button to activate the device.
Disable the touchscreen input service for hybrid laptops
If your laptop is a hybrid device (laptop and tablet with a touch screen.) There is a possibility that the touch screen input service, which controls the functionality of the stylus, will interfere with the touch panel.
To disable the service, press Win + R, and then type services.msc in the search box.
A window will open with a list of all running services. Find “ TabletInputService ” or “Tablet PC Input Service”, click the right mouse button, and then turn it off.
We hope this guide will help you troubleshoot the touchpad on your Windows 10 laptop.