Finally!!! Solution to a certain issue for a Touchpad on Inspiron 9300

for non-computer literates peeps: *if you don't have an Alps Touch Pad... just forget about all this unless you want to learn something

 

1) learn the steps of how to troubleshoot your devices (keypoint to learn is where the device manager is located at and what it allows you to see - anything with exclamation marks mean that there is a problem with that device/peripheral etc...)

 

Begin: (I'll just give quick and easy solutions)

 

1) Figure out what kind of touch pad you have and going to device manager and click Mice and other pointing devices(there is another way to find out but I have to keep it short and simple w/o all the details)

 

2)If you do have an Alps Touch Pad you could download the file I took 2 hrs to search for. 

         (what a pain in the b*tt to accidentally delete what I just typed)

but before you download that file... I recommend you just DISABLE the device (not physically but through the device manager) then Enable it and restart your computer... (I need to test this theory to see if it works because I installed the Alps Touch Pad Apoint program before I tried dis/enabling and if it works... it'll save you a lot of time and me... or sort of.)

 

you could also get the file from dell (I didn't)

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

follow the instructions

 

I got it from http://www.input-drivers.com/drivers/62/62752.htm (you'll have to sign up / it's fairly quick and easy and FREE... there's a word you never get tired of hearing) (for WINXP and 2000 I believe)

 

After I installed it... the device still had an exclamation mark... so I dis - then -enabled it with a RESTART at the end and once it booted up... the sun shines and my touchpad works again (notice the touchpad icon appears again on the bottom right corner of our screen)