I just got my Alienware 13 today and was very disappointed to find the same thing- no way to disable tap-to-click. Dell actually posted a Synaptic driver a few days after you resolved your problem, however neither that driver nor the one from Synaptic's site have given me the ability to disable tap-to-click on my computer.

I am curious- when you look in Device Manager, what do you see under "Mice and other pointing devices?" I only see generic HID and PS/2 mouse devices with Microsoft drivers. As far as I can tell, the Synaptic driver is installed, but not actually activated/associated with the touchpad.

I actually found that this here had all the settings I wanted & more. It's for any Synaptics touchpad in Dell systems from 2014, so far as I can tell (I've installed it on 3 systems that it didn't ship with this driver w/o issue).

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=6J86K&fileId=3431776202&osCode=WB64A&productCode=inspiron-15-3542-laptop&languageCode=EN&categoryId=IN

That is really interesting. The link you just provided me points to a newer version of Synaptic drivers than the Alienware-specific version that's currently available from the Alienware 13 driver downloads page.

I just downloaded it and the drivers said they installed successfully, but even after a system restart I do not have any of the synaptics stuff in my system tray or the mouse control panel. So the driver files were copied onto my system, but the drivers don't recognize any of my hardware as a synaptics device.

This is a brand-new Alienware 13 (left the factory on March 12), and at this point I believe what's in my computer is not a synaptics touchpad at all.

Luckily I found that the Mouse and touchpad settings in the Windows 8 modern UI (not in any of the desktop mode control panels) actually has a "Turn off taps" feature at the very bottom of the page, which worked for me. *whew*

Thanks for getting back to me.

No problem. I tried the newer version of the software you linked but I didn't get the "Turn off taps" option but I do have a "Disable tap and drag" option. lol Not exactly what I want but it's fine.

Just to make sure we're talking about the same setting, I found the "turn off taps" option at the bottom of this page.

But if you don't see the same option that just furthers my theory that my laptop simply has a different part in it from what earlier Alienware 13s must have.

Anyway, rock on.

I have to admit I'm a bit blind at times.  I'm used to looking at 20 HP, Lenovo and other Dell systems every day.  I've grown accustomed to seeing "Trackpad Taps" and a On/Off flipper.  You're right though, it is there.  Can't believe I've missed it this whole time...