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

J.P. ,

Touchpads ? I hate them, I turn them off and plug in a real mouse !...

Jokes aside, there is a very good chance that they are stored in the
registry, and that you can find them by searching for the company name and
stuff like that.

Or, a way of saving current settings that is relatively easy to restore?

And you can ex- and import registry branches *very* easily. Though,
depending on the driver, a reboot might be needed after importing one to get
it noticed/read by the driver again.

As for locking ? As far as I know thats possible (upto a point). Though
the best I can suggest in that regard is that you search for "registry" and
"locking entries" (or something like it), as it has been too long for me to
remember exactly how I did it myself.

Hope that helps.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

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.

Tried rebooting into Windows' safe mode and retest touchpad operation to
eliminate any interferrence possible from startup programs? I've seen
where a background program interferred with mouse positioning.

In the touchpad setup, there are probably hot zones defined, like along
the rightside for vertical scrolling and along the bottom for horizontal
scrolling. Been too long since I last used my laptop but recall it had
other hotspots, and special meanings for multiple taps (e.g., 3 taps for
dragging) or 2-finger modes. Try disabling those special use zones and
special tap modes so the touchpad ONLY does positioning of the mouse
cursor. If the problem goes away, could be you are accidentally
multi-tapping or using a hotspot.

How many mice or pointing devices are defined in Device Manager
(devmgmt.msc)? Did you leave plugged in a USB transceiver for a mouse
or keyboard?

In message , R.Wieser
writes:
J.P. ,

Touchpads ? I hate them, I turn them off and plug in a real mouse !...

Jokes aside, there is a very good chance that they are stored in the
registry, and that you can find them by searching for the company name and
stuff like that.

Or, a way of saving current settings that is relatively easy to restore?

And you can ex- and import registry branches *very* easily. Though,
depending on the driver, a reboot might be needed after importing one to get
it noticed/read by the driver again.

Finding the relevant registry branch(es), and certainly rebooting to
reload them, was/is a _lot_ more tedious than I was hoping for. A reboot
normally does restore the 'pad to how I want it to work anyway - or even
just waiting.

As for locking ? As far as I know thats possible (upto a point). Though
the best I can suggest in that regard is that you search for "registry" and
"locking entries" (or something like it), as it has been too long for me to
remember exactly how I did it myself.

Again, more delving than I'd hoped to do. I was hoping that someone
might know a generic way of preventing the changes.

Hope that helps.

Thanks very much for trying.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


John
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

We no longer make things, but sell each other consultancy on how to run
consulatancies better. (Michael Cross, Computing 1999-3-4 [p. 28].)

In message , VanguardLH
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

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.

Tried rebooting into Windows' safe mode and retest touchpad operation to
eliminate any interferrence possible from startup programs? I've seen
where a background program interferred with mouse positioning.

It's not a startup prog.; the pad is always working how I want it after
a boot. I "know" that the changes to how it works are triggered by some
action on my part - and they're designed to be; for example, the
switching to only moving horizontally or vertically is intended to be
triggerable by a user action, for use in (say) drawing prog.s where you
might _want_ to limit the pointer movement to horizontal or vertical.
I've forgotten what triggers it - possibly something like sliding in the
scrollwheel area while holding shift key down, or something like that; I
could find it again by looking in the touchpad control area, which tells
me. The thing is, whatever it is, it's something that's - for _me_ - too
easy to trigger accidentally. So I was hoping someone knew a way to
prevent it happening. (I don't _think_ I've ever wanted the X-Y only
limitation on movement; if I did, I wouldn't mind having to remove a
lock.)

In the touchpad setup, there are probably hot zones defined, like along
the rightside for vertical scrolling and along the bottom for horizontal
scrolling. Been too long since I last used my laptop but recall it had
other hotspots, and special meanings for multiple taps (e.g., 3 taps for
dragging) or 2-finger modes. Try disabling those special use zones and
special tap modes so the touchpad ONLY does positioning of the mouse
cursor. If the problem goes away, could be you are accidentally
multi-tapping or using a hotspot.

I've tried - I've certainly turned off the scroll areas (by reducing the
scroll hot areas to zero width), because I found those tended to cause
unexpected scrolling. I don't _think_ I've got any hotspots left.

How many mice or pointing devices are defined in Device Manager
(devmgmt.msc)? Did you leave plugged in a USB transceiver for a mouse
or keyboard?

No, but good thought.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

We no longer make things, but sell each other consultancy on how to run
consulatancies better. (Michael Cross, Computing 1999-3-4 [p. 28].)

On Mon, 21 May 2018 19:47:20 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

J.P. ,

Touchpads ? I hate them, I turn them off and plug in a real mouse !...

Jokes aside...


It's not a joke--I also hate them and plug in a real mouse.

Why? For the same reason I hate trackballs. What's best for any of us
is what we are used to. If a touchpad or trackball is unfamiliar, it
is awkward and difficult to use.

And vice-versa.

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Mon, 21 May 2018 19:47:20 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

J.P. ,

Touchpads ? I hate them, I turn them off and plug in a real mouse !...

Jokes aside...


It's not a joke--I also hate them and plug in a real mouse.

The joke was, I'd started my original post with something like "for
those who react to anything mentioning touchpads by saying you hate
them, unplug them, and plug in a real mouse - please don't bother." So
R. Wieser started his reply by facetiously saying just that (but then
did go on to try to address the problem I had).

Why? For the same reason I hate trackballs. What's best for any of us
is what we are used to. If a touchpad or trackball is unfamiliar, it
is awkward and difficult to use.

And vice-versa.

Actually, I find I can use all three (though haven't used a trackball
for a while [I did once have a tiny one that sat round my index finger
and was operated with a thumb]); there are a few things that each does
well, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say there are a few things
that each is less than optimum for.

Given that most laptops/netbooks these days come with a
trackpad/touchpad, and where _I_ use them doesn't have an adjacent space
for using a mouse (I often have it literally on my lap), I find the pad
serves my purposes most of the time. The problem is that there are ways
of changing its behaviour, which are made easy to do, and I sometimes
trigger them accidentally: I was wondering if there was a way of making
them more difficult to invoke (or, failing that, some way of restoring
the previous settings that was easier than reversing the change). Some
suggestions have been made.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the
law." - Winston Churchill.

On Tue, 22 May 2018 18:11:07 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Mon, 21 May 2018 19:47:20 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

J.P. ,

Touchpads ? I hate them, I turn them off and plug in a real mouse !...

Jokes aside...


It's not a joke--I also hate them and plug in a real mouse.

The joke was, I'd started my original post with something like "for
those who react to anything mentioning touchpads by saying you hate
them, unplug them, and plug in a real mouse - please don't bother." So
R. Wieser started his reply by facetiously saying just that (but then
did go on to try to address the problem I had).

Why? For the same reason I hate trackballs. What's best for any of us
is what we are used to. If a touchpad or trackball is unfamiliar, it
is awkward and difficult to use.

And vice-versa.

Actually, I find I can use all three



I can too. But that doesn't mean I like it.


(though haven't used a trackball
for a while [I did once have a tiny one that sat round my index finger
and was operated with a thumb]); there are a few things that each does
well, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say there are a few things
that each is less than optimum for.



To me a trackball is the worst of the three. I keep trying to move it,
as I do a mouse.