Inspiron 3541 - Touchpad Driver issues

I had the same problem. The Dell Windows 10 touchpad driver for the Inspiron 3541 would install "successfully" but not actually get used by Windows and the touchpad had only minimal functionality.

I called Dell support who wanted to charge me for software support for their obviously incomplete Windows 10 support. Very sad.

So I found a workaround:

Download the generic Synaptics Windows 10 driver from Synaptics' own drivers download page:
http://synaptics.com/en/drivers.php

I specifically am successfully using the driver:
Windows 10 PS/2 and SMBus Devices v19.0.19.1

Extract the contents (it's a normal ZIP file); make note of where you extracted the files.

Go to the Windows Device Manager, expand the "Mice and other pointing devices" section (if you've completely uninstalled all mouse drivers, right-click at the very top of the list and "Scan for hardware changes" so that it re-detects the generic PS/2 mouse or whatever, or simply shows an uninstalled device under Mice and other pointing devices.

Right-click on the PS/2 mouse (or the unknown hardware, if that's how it appears under "Micro and other pointing devices"), and select Update Driver.

Choose Let Me Pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.

Click Have Disk.

Browse to the folder where you extracted the Synaptics touchpad driver v19.0.9.1 (I do not know if earlier or later versions will work; I suppose that they should, but no guarantees), then under that folder keep browsing down in to WinWDF\x64\ (assuming you're on a 64-bit platform as I am).

In there, select the SynPD folder and click Open, and then OK the previous dialog box.

This should get you a list of three possible drivers to install:
Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad
Synaptics SMBus ForcePad
Synaptics SMBus TouchPad

Select "Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad" and click next.

Accept (click "Yes" to) the warning that Windows cannot verify that this driver is right for this hardware.

You should get a message saying that "Windows has finished installing the driver software for the device:
Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad"
and saying that you must reboot.

Reboot.

As soon as the computer comes back up, log in, and as soon as you log in, watch out for two Windows UAC elevation prompts asking rather generically about File Open operations. They'll likely appear as flashing Windows Shields in the task bar. Quickly select and approve each one.

I'm not sure but I think that speed is important. And this only happened once, the first time I rebooted after installing this driver. I think there's something about the driver install package manifest which fails to properly set permission for these files to run with necessary privileges, so that user gets the UAC prompt the first time they run.

After that, the Synaptics touchpad driver is there and works fine.

(It would not surprise me if you could manage this with the Dell branded Synaptics driver also; it's just that this exact combination was the first that I got to work, and I know people are looking for this, so here it is).

Feedback, yes-it-worked/no-it-didn't all welcome. I hope this helps!

-Jay Libove, CISSP, CIPP/US, CIPT, CISM
Barcelona, Spain

Thank you, Jay.

This worked on my Dell XPS M1640 laptop. Installation went just as you described, except I only saw one Windows UAC prompt.

So far, so good, and yes, this helped!

Hi Jay,

Thanks for your response and I'm glad it's helping people.  I ended up fixing my own problem with a simple remedy.  I gave up on the Windows 10 touchpad drivers and installed the Windows 8.1 drivers and that did the trick.  

It worked for Inspiron 7537. Thanks.

Minna

  I'm trying to get my Inspiron 1501 Dual boot 7 and 10 this is a very old L/T from 2007, and one by one I'm getting everything going, also you can use the driver backup tool in 10 to get all drv. after your done, DSIM backup driver's do a search and you'll find the CMD line for doing this and don't forget to get the reinstall CMD line too..

  I will come back and let everyone know if it worked I copied you how to so that I can get t first Time hopefully. Thanks for your info.

   No It Didn't work BUT I might not have followed the info correctly I didn't get the Synaptic Help window to run after I rebooted , I think that if I rolled back the drv and then ran your drv again it probably would have worked, I found another post here and it had a drv 16.21.C that did have the run for the Synaptic Help and it popped up and had a video for how to use and in the scroll on the left side it had Settings and you pick it and enable the vertical and Horizontal and had a test pad, and it worked there HAPPY!

   So now I can use EDGE AND APP'S AND START MENU that I can now SCROLL in so now everything in my Dual boot win 7 and 10 work's on this old dinosaur, and they said IT COUNLDN'T BE DONE..

  I did want to say THANK YOU it gave me a direction to go in and I got it working +10  

Thank you Jay. This worked on my Precision 3541 too, really appreciate. Wish you good luck and health🍀