Laptop Mouse Disabled

[Punices9]

My sister somehow keeps managing to disable her built in laptop mouse and buttons. I have already fixed the problem twice by going into the mouse properties and re-enabling both the mouse and the buttons. She keeps saying that she is not doing anything that would cause the mouse to disable(just surfing the web and such).

What can I do to stop this from happening? Could it possibly be some sort of malware or virus? She downloads random programs even though I tell her not to. I have never heard of something like this before so any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Dell Laptop with Windows 7 on it.

[Tenbroya]

If I recall correctly (most of the laptops at work are Dell) there is a button in the row of buttons just under the screen, there was one (which looked like a touchpad with an 'X' over it) which would toggle the touchpad on/off.

Is it possible she's hitting this without noticing?

[Punices9]

If I recall correctly (most of the laptops at work are Dell) there is a button in the row of buttons just under the screen, there was one (which looked like a touchpad with an 'X' over it) which would toggle the touchpad on/off.

Is it possible she's hitting this without noticing?

There is a button that looks like you described in your post. You said that it toggles it on/off or does it just work to disable it. A large X makes me think that it only works as an off switch but I am probably wrong. Just want to make sure before I tell her anything considering I am fixing some problem on her computer every other day. ha

Thanks for the help Tenbroya

[Tenbroya]

On the ones we have at work, it's an on/off switch. Depending on how you place your hands when you type, touchpads can be very annoying if you keep brushing them with your thumb joint so Dell (and a few other manufacturers) made that button so when people are typing long pieces of text they can just disable the touchpad until they've finished.

[Seanr]

Some laptops have an actual button, some they have a spot on the touchpad if you double tap(or maybe tap once on some, who knows...)

[Dmitry]

Some laptops have an actual button, some they have a spot on the touchpad if you double tap(or maybe tap once on some, who knows...)

Is that on the new E series laptops from Dell? Playing around with one at work, I touched the touchpad and it put a big swirl on it. I don't think the mouse was active at the time but I wasn't really testing it, just bumped it on by mistake.

[Seanr]

swirl where exactly? in the mouse activity box in the system tray? some touchpads have a weird scrolling mechanic where you can touch a corner and make a circular motion in either direction to scroll up and down a page, it would show up as a swirl there