How to Disable Touchpad

How to disable touchpad Windows 10: Touchpad is an in-built (input) device for your mouse on your laptop. Touchpad is certainly a good option but many people prefer using connecting and using an external mouse to their laptop. Now, when you attach an external mouse to the laptop you won’t be able to use touchpad as your input device.  So, users who prefer an external mouse over touchpad would often look for turning OFF the touch pad.

Yes, you can disable the touchpad on your laptop to be able to use the external mouse on Windows 10. When you decide to disable the touchpad on your laptop make sure you have another input device connected to the laptop.  Prior to heading to disabling touchpad on Windows 10 system, it is necessary to attach an external device for the mouse pointer attached.

If you wish to turn OF the touchpad and use mouse attached to your computer then using disable touchpad is the better option. In case you prefer deleting the touchpad once for all then this article has different methods that help you do the job.

There are different methods that can help you disable touchpad on your Windows 10 and these methods are easy to follow and help you accomplish your job.

3. Ways to Disable Touchpad in Windows 10

1. Using Settings App

With Windows 10 you can easily disable the touchpad of your laptop straight away from the settings of operating system. In case you wish to turn OFF the touchpad from settings here is how you can go about it

• Open – Start Menu
• Click – Settings
• Click – Devices
• Towards the window’s left pane click- Touchpad
• Towards window’s right pane search for the toggle below – Touchpad and just turn OFF the toggle switch.
• Close the window- Settings

Related post: Fix Touchpad not working in windows

2. Disabling – ETD Control Center Via Run at Startup

Many laptops have the feature to manage Touchpad known as – ETD control center and it is a program that begins each time the PC boots and this happens when the program is executing at the background where the touchpad is working.

Now for the users possess ETD control center on their system can easily disable touchpad by not allowing the program to run at startup. For users who do not have this program (ETD control center) on their system they can try other methods. Those who wish to learn this method can follow the below steps.

• Press- Ctrl+Shift+Esc to start Task Manager
• Go to the tab – Startup in task manager
• Search for ETD Control Center in the program list which are configured to execute when your PC boots and just click it to select it
• Click – Disable
• After that ETD controller center will not execute when your PC boots which directly means that touchpad will also not work

3. Using Device Manager

Each device that is attached to your computer will be listed in the Device Manager section. So, you can easily disable any device connected to your computer from Device Manager to halt their execution. Similarly, you can also disable the touchpad of your laptop from device manager. You can turn OFF the touchpad from Device manager by following the given instructions

• Right click the button – Start Menu or simply press Windows key+X to expand WinX menu
• Click – Device Manager present in Win+X Menu
• Double click on the following to open it – Mouse and other pointing devices
• Search in the listing for touchpad and once found right click it and then click – Disable and say – Yes to confirm
• In case you find many entries having the same name then just disable all the entries one by one till you find your touchpad
• Close – Device manager

Apart from the methods given above you can also try using third party software that helps you do the task. In case you are not interested to install a third party software on your system then the methods mentioned above are easy to use and will not take much time if you follow the instructions properly.

You can use an external mouse freely without worrying about the touchpad and can make it optional.

Ajit Yadav

Author Bio: Ajit yadav is a professional blogger and co-founder of WindowsClassroom. He is a software engineer by education and blogger & writer by profession.