Dell Touchpad Settings WITHOUT Microsoft Store

What is your laptop model?

Since a few month, the dell 7490 touchpad is compatible with the "Microsoft Precision Touchpad Driver" that enhance the capabilities of the dell touchpad.

With this new driver, you do not need anymore the dell configuration software as everything is configurable directly from the windows touchpad management tool.

You should try to see if there is a new version of the touchpad driver for your laptop, and verify if it is a "Microsoft Precision driver".

Regards.

The 7490's trackpad works great with the built in Microsoft trackpad driver. It has all the options for multi-finger swiping and doesn't use the Dell app that I've seen for years.

However the 5580 (and possibly other models) does NOT seem to be compatible with that trackpad driver. The MS touchpad control panel item is generic looking and allows for only basic modifications and you can't configure the multi-swipe stuff. The only way to do that on the 5580s is apparently getting Dell's app from the Microsoft Store.

Wow, this is the first I've heard of this, and it actually gets even worse than @decker12's scenario where the Microsoft Store app is blocked by policy.  The Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC version doesn't even have the Microsoft Store app at all, nor can it be added.

Decker12 if you have a Dell sales rep, I'd pass this feedback directly to them.  For a moment I thought that maybe this was a gaffe that would at least become a non-issue going forward if newer models use the built-in precision touchpad driver, but if they're even doing this with Dell Power Manager, then it seems like they might not even realize this could be a problem for a material portion of their customers.  Crazy....

Looks like the Dell Power Manager 3.0 software is ANOTHER one that's only available on the Microsoft store. We universally block access to the MS Store in our organization. So I guess I'm out of luck with yet another Dell software product because they are stupidly only releasing it on the horrible MS Store.

Why, Dell, Why?

Actually @decker12 I found this page for Dell Power Manager.  It has two download links -- one does indeed go to the Microsoft Store, but the other goes to a support.dell.com page (this one, as of this writing) that does seem to contain the application.  It's called "Dell Power Manager Service", but the indicated version on the page as of this writing is 3.0.  Is that what you need?

No, the Dell Power Manager SERVICE does not contain the App itself. I'm not sure what it does - and the description is ridiculously vague - but it is NOT the same Dell Power Manager application that version 2.1.0.

In the older version that you can download without using the MS store, it has the little battery icon and the tabs on the left for power usage and can select Optimized / Cool /Quiet.

My guess is that Dell wants you to first install the Service "driver" from Dell, and then go to the MS Store to install the actual application. Which, just like this trackpad application that you have to download from the MS Store, is a garbage waste of time for sys admins.

Ugh, sorry about that.  I'm guessing the service is a separate package because it's necessary for Dell Power Manager, and Microsoft Store apps aren't allowed to install services.  I don't even think they're allowed to need admin privileges of any kind.  Of course that doesn't explain why Dell decided to make the application portion available exclusively through the Microsoft Store.  I'm also surprised even the trackpad driver isn't what you need though, wow.  Hopefully Dell realizes what a problem this deployment strategy is sooner rather than later!

I've run into the same issue, we don't allow and have removed the MS store from our images and ran into the same issue.  I believe it's actually ALPS who makes the touchpad hardware and is the one who has forced Dell into using the MS store for it's settings.  Not 100% on this but still, I think it's a bad move for Dell ot force enterprises into either using the MS store to get hardware settings options or just go without.  This is a good way to make us look at other hardware providers.

Bad move Dell

I'm also on a Latitude 5580 and I used the Touchpad Driver that is meant for Windows 7 from https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=94HPR&oscode=W764&productcode=latitude-15-5580-laptop

It installed just fine on Windows 10 and the settings work perfectly!! 

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@livesubscribe wrote:

I'm also on a Latitude 5580 and I used the Touchpad Driver that is meant for Windows 7 from https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=94HPR&oscode=W764&productcode=latitude-15-5580-laptop

It installed just fine on Windows 10 and the settings work perfectly!! 

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@decker12  and @akeohan  just a heads-up on this post in case you're not watching this thread anymore.  Might work for you too.

Brilliant! Thanks for the find. I'll give it a try next time I re-image an older laptop. I don't have the issue on the newer laptops - it seems that the built in Windows 10 trackpad control panel offers pretty much everything I need without needing the Dell app, but it's good to have the app as well.

Still a shame that Dell decided to lock down what can be considered fairly critical parts of their laptop functionality to the Microsoft store. As stated earlier not only do we disable the MS Store in our corporate environment (and not like our users bother with MS accounts anyway), but there are versions of Windows 10 that don't even include it. Very short sighted of Dell and I hope they don't continue to do it for other drivers and Dell specific applications.

@decker12 did using the Windows 7 driver solve this for you?

I have the same issue on a Latitude 7280, after my company's IT forced an update to Windows 10 on my laptop.  Before the update, I was able to access touchpad settings to change the scroll direction.  After the update to Windows 10, the touchpad setting was changed back to the default and I can no longer access the touchpad settings.  I get a pop up telling me "you'll need a new app to open this alpsdelltouchpadsettings".  That app is only available on the MS store site.  My company does not allow installs from that site.

I will also have to request IT to install the Windows 7 driver, if that solves this issue.  So, I wanted check with you first before I go down that path.

> The default scrolling on the touchpad is: with 2 fingers moving down on the touchpad makes the screen move up.  My brain struggles with that.

Windows 7 driver worked for me on a latitude 5480. I would never think on that.

Thank you.

My problem was that because of the gesture function my notebook freezed. Now i disabled and problem is solved.

Thanks again

We see this issue on the newer 7400 and 7400 2in1 models, first with audio and now with trackpad.

If you reach out to your account exec they will supply you with an offline version of the store app you can then sideload on the system using DISM.