Laptop Touch Pad not working

[DeafBrad]

Hi Everyone,

I recently bought a used laptop off of ebay to replace my broken laptop. The new laptop is a Dell Latitude E5550. It came with windows 10. When I got it I had to hunt for the various drivers to make stuff work. Finally everything was working, but then the computer did a windows 10 update, and now my touch pad doesn't work. I am using a wireless mouse in the meantime.

I deleted and re-installed the touch pad driver, and it started working again. A short while later, it stopped working. I do not think there is anything wrong with the touch pad, as it was fine before the update. I can get it to work again by re-installing the driver. The touch pad has the latest driver that is available.

Any ideas of what I can do to get it working? I can just make sure I always have the wireless mouse when I take it with me, but it is a pain.

Thanks for your time,

Brad

 

[StevieC]

There are various pieces of hardware that can stop working in the manner you describe when Windows pushes down an update. I had a wireless driver problem with one of their updates. I would have to turn off the WiFi and turn it back on to get it to connect every time I started windows. I tried removing / reinstalling the driver and it would work and then Windows would come along and force its driver back in place at some other time. I tried some hacks to delete this driver and references of it from system .inf files and the registry but that didn't work either.

I ended up reinstalling windows from scratch to fix the problem because nothing else worked. I'm not suggesting this is what needs to be done to remedy your problem but just to give you some insight to the problems that can occur with these updates.

You might try just putting up with it and see if an updated driver comes out that remedy's the problem. You can also restore back to the time before the update was installed with System Restore and temporarily disable your Windows Update from pushing down the update again in hopes that it will be corrected later on. (Disable the Windows Update Service: Click Start, Run, Type "services.msc" into the run box. Locatee the Windows Update service, Right click on it for properties, stop it, and then change it to disabled.) You will not get security updates with this disabled and your Windows Store will not allow you to install apps during this time either.

I do not allow my computer to automatically update on its own any longer because of issues like these. I have my service disabled and then I check for updates on my own periodically but not before I back-up my system fully so I can restore if something like this happens.

PM Overkill he might have some more insight into this. He's a computer guy by day.

Good luck.

 

[OVERKILL]

Windows 10 has this horrific tendency to automatically install drivers, even if they bork things, which sounds like what is happening to you.

To block this behaviour:

Windows Key + R -> regedit
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> DriverSearching
Change the value of "SearchOrderConfig" to 0.

 

[Kawiguy454]

Go to http://Support.dell.com Put in your SCV Tag# And look for drivers there. Resist the urge to update drivers for things that are working and find the latest touchpad driver there and install it.

Also it is much more important these days than before to update the BIOS than it used to be so do that too. The BIOS is more unified now and can contain multiple updates to system hardware.

If it still acts up check the device manager I have seen touchpad controllers go wonky.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Windows 10 has this horrific tendency to automatically install drivers, even if they bork things, which sounds like what is happening to you.

To block this behaviour:

Windows Key + R -> regedit
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> DriverSearching
Change the value of "SearchOrderConfig" to 0.


Thank you... This will come in VERY handy.

 

[JMJNet]

IIRC, somebody did an update and that update kills all USB port.

May be similar to what happen to you.

I think they ended up reinstalling the windows.
Win 10 is a digital license, make sure you sign up with Microsoft account.
The Microsoft account will also store your license for this computer.
Do this before wiping the whole Win10 and start a clean install.

 

[MONKEYMAN]

Originally Posted by StevieC
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Windows 10 has this horrific tendency to automatically install drivers, even if they bork things, which sounds like what is happening to you.

To block this behaviour:

Windows Key + R -> regedit
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> DriverSearching
Change the value of "SearchOrderConfig" to 0.


Thank you... This will come in VERY handy.


Ditto.

Regarding Windows updates. The best defense is a good offense.

 

[DeafBrad]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Windows 10 has this horrific tendency to automatically install drivers, even if they bork things, which sounds like what is happening to you.

To block this behaviour:

Windows Key + R -> regedit
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> DriverSearching
Change the value of "SearchOrderConfig" to 0.


Thanks Overkill. Blocking this behavior helped me get the touch pad working!

 

[OVERKILL]

You are quite welcome