Can touchpad settings be locked, or saved?

(Firstly: those whose jerk reaction to anything about touchpads is to
say "I hate them, I turn them off and plug in a real mouse" - _please_
don't bother!)

The touchpad designers (well, of the driver for them) have kindly made
it rather easy to change how they behave. Unfortunately, some aspects
are _too_ easy to trigger. I have at least two:

Occasionally, I find I can only move the pointer horizontally or
vertically (not diagonally). I'm pretty sure this is triggered by some
action on my part. I can usually return it to normal by scribbling with
Ctrl pressed.

Today, the gain has reduced (or precision increased): I have to do a lot
more sliding to achieve the same screen movement than I usually do.
Again, I'm fairly sure this is due to something I've done. (Can't seem
to restore it though [haven't tried a reboot] - even delving in and
changing scroll speed.)

Is there any way of _preventing_ these changes, i. e. turning off
whatever it is that makes them easy to do? Or, a way of saving current
settings that is relatively easy to restore? (Easier, that is, than
Start, Settings, Control Panel, Mouse, Device Settings, Settings,
now-which-setting-do-I-play-with.)

FWIW Synaptics touchpad driver V7.4 under W7-32, though I'm pretty sure
I still got them (can't remember driver version), at least the X-Y one,
when I was on XP.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Who were your favourite TV stars or shows when you were a child? Sadly they've
all been arrested ... Ian Hislop, in Radio Times 28 September-4 October 2013