By Curtis Bagnall, Solution Engineer at Umbrella Managed Systems
At Umbrella, we’re always willing and available to help with any IT needs. From the simpler tasks of a mouse not working all the way to planning for and creating an entire network, we’re up to the task. However, we also like to take the time to teach others how to solve problems that we see pop up frequently.
Problem: Cursor Jumping Around the Screen
Recently, we’ve been getting an influx of calls about laptops that have their cursors jump around the screen. When the first call came in, and with us working remotely, it was challenging to figure out what was going on. After checking the machine’s software and hardware status, and everything coming back healthy, we were a little stumped.
Luckily, we have great system administrators here. Justin was able to deduce that the cursor was jumping around only when somebody was typing on the laptop. From there, he figured out that the user’s palms were brushing the touch pad… causing the cursor to move and register clicks. Since then, we’ve received more calls about the same issue, and I wanted to share an easy fix to this problem.
The easiest way to fix unwanted cursor movements when using your laptop is to use a regular, external mouse and disable the touch pad.
Disabling Your Laptop Track Pad When an External Mouse is Connected:
- Open the Control Panel
- Go to Hardware & Sounds > Device and Printers > Mouse
- Select the last tab, which in most cases is the one referring to the track pad: (see screenshot)
- Check the “Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached.” option. The language might be a bit different depending on the brand of your track pad, but it will be similar.
- Click the OK button to apply your changes
Now, whenever you have an external mouse plugged into your laptop, the track pad will be disabled. For example, when you are sitting at your desk. But if you take your laptop on a plane, and don’t connect an external mouse, you can still use your track pad!
We hope this tip was helpful. If you want to know more about how Umbrella can help your company with professional IT support, we would love to talk with you!
