Hi,

I installed Windows 10 (replaced Windows 7) on a 2008
Dell Inspiron 1520 (32 bit) laptop (had Windows XP).

I had installed a TP driver (WinXP) and was able to disable
the Tap Click I HATED.

There is NO TP driver for Win10 (google search) for this
model Dell.

Windows 10 (32 bit) has at best, a setting for TP sensitivity
(4 levels). I selected "Less Sensitive", but still seems pretty
sensitive. I don't want to use an external mouse.

Any ideas?

Thank You in advance, John

On 3/15/2022 8:34 AM, jaugustine@verizon.net wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I installed Windows 10 (replaced Windows 7) on a 2008
> Dell Inspiron 1520 (32 bit) laptop (had Windows XP).
>
> I had installed a TP driver (WinXP) and was able to disable
> the Tap Click I HATED.
>
> There is NO TP driver for Win10 (google search) for this
> model Dell.
>
> Windows 10 (32 bit) has at best, a setting for TP sensitivity
> (4 levels). I selected "Less Sensitive", but still seems pretty
> sensitive. I don't want to use an external mouse.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thank You in advance, John
>

https://web.archive.org/web/20190510034556if_/http://ftp.dell.com/input/DELL_TOUCHPAD----POINTING-ST_A01_R241874.exe

Synaptics Pointing Device Driver Release Notes
Version 14.0.2
August 24, 2009

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 14.0.2 08/24/2009 (WinXP/Vista/Win7)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe you could do Properties on the EXE and select Compatibility
set to Windows 7 ? Or maybe the package needs to be unpacked first,
before you can find an executable where it is appropriate to set
the Compatibility.

A driver like this, might be a filter driver, that sandwiches
into a default HID driver. When the OS is installed, initially
the device functions as a HID without features. Adding the
driver, "filters" the coordinates and adds virtual buttons
or gestures.

Even though the release.txt talks big, it does not treat all
installations the same, and for the average machine, the driver
won't do much of anything.

WinWDF <=== or select something in the 32 bit or 64 bit folder for Compatibility
(There is a setup.exe in the bitness folders here.)
Autorun.inf
Release.txt
Setup.exe <=== perhaps you could set compatibility here
Version.txt

Original reference:
https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/Inspiron-1520-Upgrade-from-Windows-Vista-to-Windows-7/td-p/4417870

I don't know anything about what the odds are of this working.
If it was my machine, I would take a backup first, rather than
rely on just a Restore Point.

Paul

On Tue, 15 Mar 2022 at 07:34:03, jaugustine@verizon.net wrote (my
responses usually FOLLOW):
>Hi,
>
> I installed Windows 10 (replaced Windows 7) on a 2008
> Dell Inspiron 1520 (32 bit) laptop (had Windows XP).
>
> I had installed a TP driver (WinXP) and was able to disable
>the Tap Click I HATED.
>
> There is NO TP driver for Win10 (google search) for this
>model Dell.
>
> Windows 10 (32 bit) has at best, a setting for TP sensitivity
>(4 levels). I selected "Less Sensitive", but still seems pretty
>sensitive. I don't want to use an external mouse.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thank You in advance, John
>
The manufacturer of the touch pads used by many manufacturers - I
_think_ it was Synaptics, but could be wrong - used to have a universal
driver on their website. They had a warning saying use a driver from
your manufacturer if there is one as it'll probably work better, but I
never found any problem with their generic one. Sadly, they removed it
eventually, but you might find it in the archives (wayback machine or
similar). This was before 10 though, so I don't know if it will work on
10 even if yo can find it.

The touchpad often appears as part of the USB tree: those USB utilities
by someone with a Germanic name (Uwe Sieber is it?) might help you to
identify the actual 'pad manufacturer.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"If even one person" arguments allow the perfect to become the enemy of the
good, and thus they tend to cause more harm than good.
- Jimmy Akins quoted by Scott Adams, 2015-5-5

jaugustine@verizon.net wrote:

> Dell Inspiron 1520

You take a bigger risk installing a later version of Windows than what
the laptop was designed. The suite of drivers and config are designed
for a particular version(s) of Windows that the hardware supports.
Going beyond the support Windows version often causes problems. Pretty
much whatever version of Windows the laptop came with, or what the
manufacturer lists as supported, is what you're stuck with on the
laptop. Going to a later version of Windows can result in
incompatibilities, especially if there are no drivers for the later
versions of Windows. Laptop design is snapshotted to a particular
version, or very few versions, of Windows. You're now in experimental
mode using a version of Windows for which the laptop was never designed
to support.

The downloads for Windows XP and Vista at Dell's site for that laptop
are 32-bit. You didn't say what was the bitwidth of Windows 10 that you
chose to experiment. Bitwidth must match on OS and drivers. If you
installed Windows 10 32-bit, have you tried their 32-bit Vista driver?
If you installed Windows 10 64-bit, you're screwed, because Dell only
provides 32-bit drivers for that laptop. You're stuck using the
reference driver for that device that came bundled in Windows 10, and
reference drivers do not support all functionality of the hardware
(unless, of course, the hardware is a reference design having no
customization in design or features).

I'm curious: without a tap-click function, how are you going to select
an object presented in a document or application? Some programs allow
tabbing through the objects in their GUI or menus, and then hitting
Enter to effect the same action as clicking on the object. However,
I've run into many programs where tabbing won't let you bounce between
all the objects in the GUI or document; i.e., no way to use the keyboard
to set focus on an object to then use Enter to commit that action.
Hovering the mouse cursor over an object does not select it unless the
program was coded to to detect the mouse's position over the objects,
like using onmouseover() or onmousehover() events in Javascript. I'm
assuming "tap click" means you hover over an object, and tap the
touchpad to effect a mouse click. Sometimes you can workaround not
having any mouse-like device, and just use the keyboard, but that can
incur a lot more tabbing to bounce focus around to numerous objects in a
document, GUI, or through menues.

Some touchpads have dedicated portions of their surface to effect
specific actions. Does yours have dedicated spots to effect mouse
clicks, and why you want to disable the Tap to Click feature? I looked
at some online images of your laptop; for example:

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/d51e76996b270ec11252eb5fa27a9336.jpg

However, I could not see if there were dedicated spots on the touchpad
for mouse clicks. I could see what looks like scrolling areas (to drag
your finger to effect horizontal or vertical scrolling). There are a
couple large buttons at the bottom of the touchpad. Are those to effect
left and right mouse clicks? The above article works if the driver
you're using is for a Synaptics touchpad. Whether what you see in the
article's pics matches what you see depends on whether or not the
article was using a reference driver, or one customized to the
particular hardware design of your laptop.

If you're not using the touchpad to tap it to effect a mouse click, are
you using the touchpad at all? If no, there might be a spot on the
touchpad, or an Fn key combo, that disables the touchpad.

In your Google search, did you come across the following article?

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/141861-enable-disable-touchpad-tapping-tap-click-windows-10-a.html

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

> On Tue, 15 Mar 2022 at 07:34:03, jaugustine@verizon.net wrote (my
> responses usually FOLLOW):
>>Hi,
>>
>> I installed Windows 10 (replaced Windows 7) on a 2008
>> Dell Inspiron 1520 (32 bit) laptop (had Windows XP).
>>
>> I had installed a TP driver (WinXP) and was able to disable
>>the Tap Click I HATED.
>>
>> There is NO TP driver for Win10 (google search) for this
>>model Dell.
>>
>> Windows 10 (32 bit) has at best, a setting for TP sensitivity
>>(4 levels). I selected "Less Sensitive", but still seems pretty
>>sensitive. I don't want to use an external mouse.
>>
>> Any ideas?
>>
>> Thank You in advance, John
>>
> The manufacturer of the touch pads used by many manufacturers - I
> _think_ it was Synaptics, but could be wrong - used to have a universal
> driver on their website. They had a warning saying use a driver from
> your manufacturer if there is one as it'll probably work better, but I
> never found any problem with their generic one. Sadly, they removed it
> eventually, but you might find it in the archives (wayback machine or
> similar). This was before 10 though, so I don't know if it will work on
> 10 even if yo can find it.
>
> The touchpad often appears as part of the USB tree: those USB utilities
> by someone with a Germanic name (Uwe Sieber is it?) might help you to
> identify the actual 'pad manufacturer.

Reference drivers are very generic in functionality. With touchpads,
the hardware is adapted to function with the rest of the hardware, so it
has been customized, and a reference driver will not provide all the
functions of the custom driver, or the reference driver won't work at
all. I'm not specially talking about customizing the driver, but
customizing the hardware. Ever notice some video cards have solder
pads, but there is no chip there, but another brand of the same PCB (few
video card makers, lots of brands slapping their name on them) might
have that solder pad populated to add more hardware-based features. A
driver should match on the hardware.

The embedded driver included in Windows is an example of a reference
driver. Since it doesn't permit disabling the tap-click function of the
touchpad, neither with a reference driver from elsewhere.

https://www.synaptics.com/products/touchpad-family
"Synaptics' TouchPad device drivers are customized and supported by
notebook manufacturers to meet specific driver requirements for their
individual products. To ensure the appropriate driver for your device,
always use the driver your specific notebook OEM supports."

Unless you extract the touchpad from the laptop/notebook, you don't know
which family and model you have, plus you won't know how much its PCB
was populated to add more hardware-based features. What the OP already
has for the embedded driver included in Windows for the touchpad is the
reference driver that he'd find elsewhere. Reference drivers don't
support all hardware features of a device nor features added by
additional hardware added to a device (or even modified by different
foil paths on the PCB).

In another reply, I noted that the OP should not have migrated to
Windows 10 (don't know if it was a fresh install or upgrade install).
Going beyond the makers OS support pretty much puts you into
experimental mode having you figure out how to enable functionality lost
by using reference drivers, if there are any for the new OS. The last
Windows supported by Dell for that laptop is Vista. The OP mentioned
trying the Windows XP driver (well, he mentions it as though that was
what he used when Windows 7 was on his laptop). Dell has a Vista
driver, so I'd try that. However, if that driver doesn't work, he's
stuck with the reduced feature set in using the reference driver.

VanguardLH wrote:

> I'm curious: without a tap-click function, how are you going to select
> an object presented in a document or application?

I suspect an Inspiron 1520 is old enough to have physical 'mouse buttons' below
the trackpad, and all the O/P wants to disable is the tapping of the touchpad
surface to /also/ act as a click?

On Tue, 15 Mar 2022 at 12:15:54, VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote (my
responses usually FOLLOW):
>J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 15 Mar 2022 at 07:34:03, jaugustine@verizon.net wrote (my
>> responses usually FOLLOW):
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>> I installed Windows 10 (replaced Windows 7) on a 2008
>>> Dell Inspiron 1520 (32 bit) laptop (had Windows XP).
>>>
>>> I had installed a TP driver (WinXP) and was able to disable
>>>the Tap Click I HATED.
>>>
>>> There is NO TP driver for Win10 (google search) for this
>>>model Dell.
>>>
>>> Windows 10 (32 bit) has at best, a setting for TP sensitivity
>>>(4 levels). I selected "Less Sensitive", but still seems pretty
>>>sensitive. I don't want to use an external mouse.
>>>
>>> Any ideas?
>>>
>>> Thank You in advance, John
>>>
>> The manufacturer of the touch pads used by many manufacturers - I
>> _think_ it was Synaptics, but could be wrong - used to have a universal
>> driver on their website. They had a warning saying use a driver from
>> your manufacturer if there is one as it'll probably work better, but I
>> never found any problem with their generic one. Sadly, they removed it
>> eventually, but you might find it in the archives (wayback machine or
>> similar). This was before 10 though, so I don't know if it will work on
>> 10 even if yo can find it.
>>
>> The touchpad often appears as part of the USB tree: those USB utilities
>> by someone with a Germanic name (Uwe Sieber is it?) might help you to
>> identify the actual 'pad manufacturer.
>
>Reference drivers are very generic in functionality. With touchpads,
>the hardware is adapted to function with the rest of the hardware, so it
>has been customized, and a reference driver will not provide all the
>functions of the custom driver, or the reference driver won't work at
>all. I'm not specially talking about customizing the driver, but
>customizing the hardware. Ever notice some video cards have solder
>pads, but there is no chip there, but another brand of the same PCB (few
>video card makers, lots of brands slapping their name on them) might
>have that solder pad populated to add more hardware-based features. A
>driver should match on the hardware.

It's so long since I used the generic driver (which might or might not
have been Synaptics), but I don't think it was a "reference" driver - I
think on most touchpads, that's not needed - the hardware just simulates
a mouse, the PC not needing a driver at all (you just don't get
tap-click etc.). The generic driver I used _did_ have touchpad-specific
things, like setting up the size of zones, sensitivity adjustment, I
think it might even have had pinch-zoom, though I never used that.
>
>The embedded driver included in Windows is an example of a reference
>driver. Since it doesn't permit disabling the tap-click function of the
>touchpad, neither with a reference driver from elsewhere.

As I say, it was a lot more than a "reference" one. I don't know why
Synaptics (or whoever it was) removed it from their website. (Last time
I was there, there were still a few parts of the website that thought it
was still there. That wasn't recently though.)
[]
>Unless you extract the touchpad from the laptop/notebook, you don't know
>which family and model you have, plus you won't know how much its PCB
>was populated to add more hardware-based features. What the OP already

Depends: if it appears in the USB "tree", the USB what-have-I-got
utility _might_ tell you, though as you say if there are common chips
across models with variations, that might not be reliable.

Though I'm not aware of much variation in touchpads anyway: it's not
like mice, where you can have extra buttons - the only variation I can
think of is whether they come with real buttons underneath or not. And
maybe the ability to detect two fingers - "pinch zoom" or similar -
though I'm not sure whether that'd be a hardware or software matter.

>has for the embedded driver included in Windows for the touchpad is the
>reference driver that he'd find elsewhere. Reference drivers don't
>support all hardware features of a device nor features added by
>additional hardware added to a device (or even modified by different
>foil paths on the PCB).
>
>In another reply, I noted that the OP should not have migrated to
>Windows 10 (don't know if it was a fresh install or upgrade install).

Now there I'd agree with you, but everyone has their reasons (-:.

>Going beyond the makers OS support pretty much puts you into
>experimental mode having you figure out how to enable functionality lost
>by using reference drivers, if there are any for the new OS. The last
>Windows supported by Dell for that laptop is Vista. The OP mentioned
>trying the Windows XP driver (well, he mentions it as though that was
>what he used when Windows 7 was on his laptop). Dell has a Vista
>driver, so I'd try that. However, if that driver doesn't work, he's
>stuck with the reduced feature set in using the reference driver.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as
they were. - Marcel Proust

Andy Burns wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> I'm curious: without a tap-click function, how are you going to select
>> an object presented in a document or application?
>
> I suspect an Inspiron 1520 is old enough to have physical 'mouse
> buttons' below the trackpad, and all the O/P wants to disable is the
> tapping of the touchpad surface to /also/ act as a click?

In my reply to the OP (and to which you replied), I found a pic of the
laptop which showed the buttons underneath the touchpad, and assumed
those were to effect the left and right mouse clicks.

If forced to use a touchpad, I prefer the old style of using specialty
buttons under the touchpad to do the mouse clicks rather than hotspots
on the touchpad for those functions. However, I greatly dislike
touchpads (even worse was IBM's touchstick, or whatever it was called),
so I use a wireless (RF, not Bluetooth) mouse with a USB transceiver
dongle. Touchpads just don't have the space to make accurate mouse
movements, and my finger gets a flat spot from all the rubbing on a
hardly slick surface (touchpads have too much friction, for me). With
cell phones have Gorilla glass, why haven't touchpads evolved to use
glass for their surface instead of crappy plastic? I've seen some with
glass coatings, like the MS Surface [Book 2] laptops, but I've not used
them to know if the glass is highly smooth. Because I'm a touch typist,
my hands rest on the keyboard, so I have to lower sensitivity of the
touchpad to avoid it from mistaking the close proximity of my palms as
touch events.

I also noted how to disabled the tap-click function (to rely solely on
the left and right buttons under the touchpad) which I hunted for the
article after seeing the pic of the laptop showing the separate touchpad
buttons to do the mouse clicking (which then made sense of what is
tap-clicking). The cited article describes how to wade through the
settings to get to and enable/disable the tap-click feature. That is
based on using the Synaptics driver to configure the touchpad (which
might be the reference driver bundled in Windows for that device). I
don't know if Synaptics is the maker of the OP's touchpad, but it's the
brand I've seen most used in laptops and notebooks (I don't own nor get
stuck using anything Apple to know what brand of integrated touchpad
devices they use).

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

> VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:
>
>> In another reply, I noted that the OP should not have migrated to
>> Windows 10 ...

Or away from whatever was the latest version of Windows the laptop maker
last supported. With desktops, you can into the hardware to change it.
Rare users modify the hardware in laptops, notebooks, phones, etc.

> Now there I'd agree with you, but everyone has their reasons (-:.

Too often the reason is newness. Same reason consumers often buy cars,
or even used cars, to replace their very much working and usable old
car. The old stuff works fine, but the consumer has been trained to
want newer. The "newer is better" sales mantra has been well engrained
into most consumers.

On Tue, 15 Mar 2022 15:11:19 -0500, VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

>J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>
>> VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:
>>
>>> In another reply, I noted that the OP should not have migrated to
>>> Windows 10 ...
>
>Or away from whatever was the latest version of Windows the laptop maker
>last supported. With desktops, you can into the hardware to change it.
>Rare users modify the hardware in laptops, notebooks, phones, etc.
>
>> Now there I'd agree with you, but everyone has their reasons (-:.
>
>Too often the reason is newness. Same reason consumers often buy cars,
>or even used cars, to replace their very much working and usable old
>car. The old stuff works fine, but the consumer has been trained to
>want newer. The "newer is better" sales mantra has been well engrained
>into most consumers.

I'm not a "newer is better" person for everything, but when it comes
to cars I am. The parts on a newer car are less likely to fail than
those on a older one. and I don't want to have something fail and
leave me stranded somewhere.

Also newer cars often have better safety features than older ones.

--
The real, original Ken Blake, not some other newcomer

jaugustine@verizon.net wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I installed Windows 10 (replaced Windows 7) on a 2008
> Dell Inspiron 1520 (32 bit) laptop (had Windows XP).
>
> I had installed a TP driver (WinXP) and was able to disable
> the Tap Click I HATED.
>
> There is NO TP driver for Win10 (google search) for this
> model Dell.
>
> Windows 10 (32 bit) has at best, a setting for TP sensitivity
> (4 levels). I selected "Less Sensitive", but still seems pretty
> sensitive. I don't want to use an external mouse.

*Which* sensitivity is that? For tap, for double-tap, for movement,
for something else?

> Any ideas?
>
> Thank You in advance, John

As others mentioned, try to find out *which* touchpad you have, at
least the brand name and product name. Device Manager probably shows
this information in the 'Mice and other pointing devices' branch. For
example mine says 'Synaptics SMBus Touchpad'. And *report back* (sofar
you've been silent, while posting elsewhere).

I don't have Windows 10, but 8.1, so I cannot give specific
instructions, but the 'Mouse Properties' (note 'Mouse', not 'TouchPad')
menu probably has an extra tab with 'TouchPad Settings' (which probably
has an icon for the brand of touchpad, for example a Synaptics icon).

So the 'Mouse Properties' are generic properties, which apply to any
pointer device (mouse, touchpad, trackball, etc.), while the 'TouchPad
Settings' (or similar name) are touchpad and brand specific settings.

Also try to find out if there is *another* Dell laptop which has
support for 32-bit Windows 10 (or 32-bit Windows 8[.1]) and try the
driver(s) for that/those laptop(s). (I've looked for my (HP) laptop, but
that laptop only came with 64-bit Windows versions (8.1 and 10).)

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:
[...]

> Depends: if it appears in the USB "tree", the USB what-have-I-got
> utility _might_ tell you, though as you say if there are common chips
> across models with variations, that might not be reliable.
>
> Though I'm not aware of much variation in touchpads anyway: it's not
> like mice, where you can have extra buttons - the only variation I can
> think of is whether they come with real buttons underneath or not. And
> maybe the ability to detect two fingers - "pinch zoom" or similar -
> though I'm not sure whether that'd be a hardware or software matter.

There is indeed probably little variation in touchpads, but there
might be differences in to which internal bus they are connected and
hence their drivers might be different.

For example you talk about USB, but my Synaptics 'TouchPad' (actually
a ClickPad) is connected to the SMBus, not to an (internal) USB.

FWIW, I checked the (HP) site for a Windows 10 Synaptics Touchpad
driver for my HP laptop, so the OP could try that, but they have only a
driver for the 64-bit Windows version and the OP has a 32-bit version.

[...]