New PC = Old PC?

[jefboyardee]

I carry a mid-range Logitech cordless mouse with me, so half the time I don't even use the touchpad.

I'm leaning towards that too... never liked laptops because of the touchpad.

 

[lunatic59]

Try using a two finger swipe to scroll. I've got an Acer that uses the right edge to scroll and an Asus that uses the two finger method.

 

[jefboyardee]

None of those tricks seem to work, even tried a Synaptics package that didn't either. (Rollback makes it easy to install unknown things, then just back them out.) But in the meantime, I've gotten very accustomed to the up and down arrows.

 

[zuben el genub]

Using a reconditioned (by OEM tech) HP pavilion running 7 Pro barebones. This laptop lets you TURN OFF the touchpad. On the Dells I had, I had a plastic credit card like piece of plastic taped over them. I use a Logitech M325 cordless mouse, and/or a USB Wacom tablet.

I have the laptop desk from here. Love it.
http://www.airdesks.com/LAPTOP_DESK_STAND.HTML

 

[jefboyardee]

Another laptop discovery, for me at least... after kvetching elsewhere about wifi, which made me surrender and get this laptop, I can get this online via wifi too, something everyone but me was aware of for years.

 

[spock1104]

Find a support page for the laptop and then look for its touchpad driver. Chances are it'll be either synaptic or alps. If it's synaptic, you obviously tried that once already, but I've found the scroll is often disabled by default. You'll still need to open up the touchpad settings after you install the right driver and enable the scroll region.

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04?c=&l=&s=bsd#technical-support

 

[jefboyardee]

Your handy link did get me to Disabling or Enabling the Touchpad Using the Hot Key... more to follow, I'm sure.

 

[Dngrsone]

If you really want to have fun, try running Linux on it...

LOL... my phone put rubbing instead of running; though maybe that be a better term to use.

 

[jefboyardee]

If you really want to have fun, try running Linux on it...

Ain't no way. Still got Mint on a partition of my ancient desktop. Had fun just getting to to load, but not much fun trying to take seriously once installed. That PC has become a research dog, the laptop is still being handled with kid gloves for now, it's much less ancient.