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Depending on your activities and its level of sensitivity, a TrackPoint Mouse Button can be very helpful or very irritating. So how do you disable it if it is constantly causing you problems? Today's SuperUser Q&A post has the answers to a frustrated reader's question.

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

Photo courtesy of blaughw (SuperUser).

The Question

SuperUser reader Lucas Kauffman wants to know if there is a way to disable the TrackPoint Mouse Button from within Windows on his Dell laptop:

I am really annoyed with my Dell laptop. When I type, the cursor sometimes jumps because the TrackPoint Mouse Button on the keyboard (the nubby mouse control between the G, H, and B keys) can apparently be used to click. Is there any way to disable it from within Windows?

Is there an easy way for Lucas to disable the TrackPoint function on his Dell laptop?

The Answer

SuperUser contributors Flyk and blaughw have the answer for us. First up, Flyk:

In the Dell TouchPad driver software, there is an option to disable the TrackPoint and TouchPad. You should be able to get to the TouchPad software as follows:

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Mouse > Dell TouchPad > Device Select > Pointing Stick > Disable

Followed by the answer from blaughw:

As long as the Dell drivers are installed, there is a hotkey for the TrackPoint and TouchPad that will toggle the available settings. On the Latitude E7440 model, the hotkey is accessed by pressing Fn + F5 (shown here):

how-do-you-disable-the-trackpoint-mouse-button-on-a-dell-laptop-01

This will toggle the TrackPoint off, TouchPad off,  both off, or both on with an on-screen graphic indicating the setting.


Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.