We always think that the external touchpad for pc is a portable alternative to the mouse, but with the advancement and development of technology, the touchpadcan gradually complete a series of complex operations.
The emergence of gestures has subverted the use of traditional touchpads. Whether it is turning pages, zooming in and out, switching pages, calling search, etc., the mouse needs to be operated step by step, but it can be triggered simply by gestures on the touchpad.
Microsoft has also proposed many solutions to the problem that its own system touchpad is not easy to use. Among them, “precision touch” is a highlight.
Different from the general touchpad, precise touch can realize multi-touch on the touchpad to complete various gesture commands.
Now you can control your computer with the built-in gestures of the touchpad.
The reason why MAC can achieve the smooth experience of the touchpad is related to the patented technology of Apple on the one hand, and the reason for the high integration of software and hardware on the other hand.
The hardware technology of Windows touchpad cannot reach the general level of MAC yet.
But if you carefully set up your computer, you will also have a best touchpad for pc that can satisfy your study and life.
Common Operation Methods (due to differences in touchpad and driver versions, the interface and functions may be slightly different):
1. Single finger: single finger, multi-finger tap, button, drag and drop, edge scrolling trigger action.
2. Multi-finger: two-finger zoom, scroll, rotate, three-finger swipe to trigger the action.
3. Others: overall setting of sensing area and sensitivity.
Commonly Used Functions:
Select item: Tap the touchpad.
Scroll: Put two fingers on the touchpad, and then slide them horizontally or vertically.
Zoom in or out: Place two fingers on the touchpad, and then shrink or stretch.
Show more commands (similar to a right-click): Tap the touchpad with two fingers, or press the bottom right corner.
See all open Windows: Place three fingers on the touchpad and swipe outwards.
Show the desktop: Place three fingers on the touchpad and swipe inward.
Switch between open Windows: Place three fingers on the touchpad, and swipe right or left.
Open Cortana: Tap the touchpad with three fingers.
Open the action center: Tap the touchpad with four fingers.
Switch virtual desktops: Place four fingers on the touchpad, and swipe right or left.
Some of the above gestures only apply to precision touchpads. To find out if your laptop has an accurate touchpad, select “Start”> “Settings”> “Devices”> “Touchpad.”
Specific Operation Mode:
1. One finger mode:
Single-clicking is equivalent to left-click the mouse or double click twice.
Move the mouse up, down, left, and right.
Click and then slide to complete the drag function.
2. Two finger mode:
Once-clicking is equivalent to right-click the mouse.
Swipe with two fingers together to complete page scrolling, making it easier to browse web pages or documents.
Swipe with two fingers to zoom in or zoom out the page. It’s not too simple to zoom in on a picture webpage.
Two fingers can also rotate the photo anytime, anywhere to help you find the most comfortable angle.
3. Three-finger Mode:
Click the touchpad with three fingers to pop up the search box or call Cortana.
Swipe left/right with three fingers at the same time to quickly switch tasks, and you can perform multiple tasks at the same time.
Swipe up with three fingers at the same time. Then the multitasking interface pops up, and you can see the window you are currently executing.
Swipe down with three fingers at the same time to minimize all Windows and return directly to the clean desktop.
4. Four finger mode
Click the touchpad with four fingers. Then the operation center pops up, and various information is clear at a glance.
You can even modify specific parameters such as their speed and direction of movement.
Find settings-device-touchpad-other settings. Find the touchpad settings option. Then you can adjust the parameters that suit you in the settings behind each gesture.
And the touchpad has a good setting here-to disable the internal pointing device when connecting an external USB pointing device.
For example, when editing a document or typing in a QQ chat, the touchpad is always touched by mistake, which affects the positioning of the mouse. When this function is turned on, the system will automatically disable the touchpad when the USB mouse is plugged in. The board will automatically turn on again, which is very user-friendly.
Install Driver
If you still think the Windows touchpad is too silly, you can try the drivers provided by the two major touchpad manufacturers, Synaptics and Elan (most of the notebook touchpads on the market are produced by them).
You can check it in the item in the “Mouse and other pointing devices” column in the “Device Manager”: For example, the words “ELAN Input (Pointing) Device” appearing are provided by ELAN. You can also check in the “Uninstall and Change Programs” See the relevant driver package.
Then if you want to implement custom multi-touch or more complex functions, you must first install the corresponding manufacturer’s driver and make the relevant settings.
AppSo reminds that the driver is a bridge between software and hardware, and you must correspond to the hardware and software to operate normally. For example, it is impractical for Elan’s touchpad to install Synaptics drivers to realize the functions of Synaptics.
If the external touchpad for pc cannot be used or can only be dragged with one finger, it is probably because the driver is not installed or the driver version is too old, you can install/update the driver first:
1. Check whether the touchpad driver of your laptop is Synaptics or Elan.
Right-click on the start menu and select Device Manager.
Find the mouse and other pointing devices option in the device manager to check your touchpad driver manufacturer.
Mine is produced by Synaptics. The following is an example of Synaptics. The same applies to Elan’s notebooks, except that the downloaded drivers are different.
2. Download the corresponding driver
The driver should be downloaded from Microsoft’s official website:
https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Home.aspx
Be sure to download the latest driver!
The driver will be updated with the update of the Windows system. If it is not the latest driver, various problems may occur.
Synaptics users search Synaptics directly and find the latest driver consistent with the one displayed in the Device Manager. (For example, I need Synaptics SMBus Touchpad for my computer)
Elan users search elan wdf and find the latest driver by looking at the date. (Although some drivers have been updated a year or two ago, they can also run perfectly)
3. Unzip and install the downloaded driver
Unzip the downloaded compressed package into an empty folder (the path to prevent errors is preferably in English), find dpinst.exe and run it directly
Then just keep following the prompt next to complete the installation.
4. After updating the driver, you can customize and set rich touchpad functions. Then restart the computer to get the best touchpad for pc!
Custom Function
The manufacturer’s own driver can customize the gesture function of the touchpad. New setting options can be found in the original touchpad setting interface.
Determine whether your computer supports multi-touch and whether there is a newer win10 system.
In addition, for the elan touchpad, there is a way to modify the registry to change the gesture operation. I won’t talk about it here. If you need it, search for it by yourself. Note that this method is also risky and you must make preparations.
Different notebook manufacturers have different drivers. If you can’t successfully use the original factory installation and you can’t find more gesture setting options in the mouse settings, then you are probably missing the notebook manufacturer’s driver.
Here we need to log in to the official websites of different brands according to our own computer. Enter the model of the machine. Then search and click the driver and tool software under the corresponding model: such as Lenovo’s driver management software; Asus’ touchpad drives AsusSmart Gesture.
The Trackpad Cannot Be Used
Solution 1: Restart Your Computer
This sounds silly, but many Windows problems disappear after restarting. Therefore, restart the Windows 10 computer once, and then check whether the touchpad is working properly.
If you want to know how to restart a laptop with a touchpad, press the Windows icon and the X key at the same time to open the advanced user menu, press the U key on the keyboard, and then press the R key to perform the restart.
After the laptop restarts, you can touch the external touchpad for pc to see if the cursor can be moved and the two buttons can work normally.
Solution 2: Modify the Touchpad Settings
If your laptop does not have a touch screen display function, you will need to use a mouse to restore the unresponsive touchpad on the Creators Update.
1. Follow the path: Start button>Settings>Device>Mouse and touchpad options>Other mouse options.
2. Then the mouse properties window will open. Go to the tab to select the laptop touchpad, usually named brand + touchpad model, such as Dell touchpad.
If you don’t see such a tab, go to the tab labeled “Device Settings” or ELAN, where you can find the touchpad listed under the device.
3. Click the touchpad to select it, and then click the enable button.
Solution 3: Update the Touchpad Driver
In many cases, the problem of equipment not working properly is caused by wrong or outdated device drivers. The solution is very simple, just update the device driver can be achieved.
1) Press the Windows key and the X key at the same time, and then select Device Manager.
2) Expand the category Mouse and other pointing devices. Then double-click the touchpad device driver listed here.
3) Navigate to the Driver tab and click Update Driver Software…
4) Then choose to automatically search for updated driver software
5) If you see this notification: The driver needs to update manually. Fortunately, there is a very simple way to update your drivers without wasting a lot of your time and energy. Try Driver Booster, the automatic driver update can help you detect, download and install the required device drivers in a few seconds.
Download and install Driver Booster to your laptop, install and run it.
Follow this path: scan now>get drivers>download all>install to update touchpad drivers for Lenovo, HP, Dell and other laptops.
To Sum Up
Apple has worked hard on touch technology, and the development experience and hardware advantages it has mastered over the years can be seen in today’s Force Touch (pressure-sensitive touch).
At the software level, the ease of use of the MacBook touchpad also stems from its deep integration with the system software: Take Apple’s own application as an example, if you search for “touchpad gestures” in support.apple.com, you will find many All apps with apps support rich touchpad gestures.
We can see that Apple’s emphasis on touch is from the outside to the inside. And Windows is to MacBook what Android is to iOS. There are endless computer manufacturers on the Windows platform, and Apple is the only one.
Therefore, in the “uniform high level”, Apple has an advantage. If the Windows platform is not given enough attention, its initial positioning will be limited.
Therefore, if you want to make the trackpad of a Windows notebook as good as a MacBook, you not only need manufacturers to make progress in hardware, but also need Microsoft’s Windows to strengthen support, and deep integration of the two.
All in all, the biggest feature of the Windows notebook touchpad compared to the MacBook is its difference. The difference in hardware determines the bottleneck of different specifications of the touchpad.
The content about how to use the external touchpad for pc have be finished. After the analysis of this article, I believe you have a deeper understanding of the trackpad, right? As ordinary users, if we want a better touchpad, all we have to do is set it up, or…buy a better computer.
Best view i have ever seen !
Thank you for another informative blog.