Thinkpads Forum

A couple of weeks ago I was given a ThinkPad T490 running Windows 11 Pro.

I'm having trouble getting used to the location of the touchpad buttons. I'm used to having the buttons on the side of the touchpad nearest to me. So my index finger keeps reaching for a button on the near side of the touchpad but instead ends up touching the touchpad itself, which creates creates all manner of confusion on my screen.

I'd like to experiment with disabling the touchpad (but leaving the buttons operational). Is that possible?

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

Welcome to the Forum.
Cold boot and press F1 to go into BIOS.
Go to Config/Keyboard-Mouse and Disable Trackpad.

Thanks, RealBlackStuff. I haven't yet tried your suggestion that I go into the BIOS. I'm in my 80s and my fingers are a bit shaky these days so I worry that a shaky finger might mess up my PC's BIOS and I wouldn't know how to undo the mess.

In the meantime I've been thinking that I would like to retain the touchpad's ability to move the mouse pointer around the screen. But I would like to disable only it's response to tapping to produce a left mouse click.

The main problem I have with the touchpad is when I'm moving my finger across the touchpad and lift my finger and then put it back down again in a different place, it produces an unwanted mouse click. This can have disastrous consequences.

Since you are using Windows 11, You can go into the windows settings -> Bluetooth & devices -> Touchpad -> Taps -> and turn off the tap gestures like "Tap with a single finger to single-click" (what you wanted)