found this info on other forums about a Dell latitude I will list all of the various ways that I saw; you can go to Control Panel > Mouse and select the Dell Touchpad tab. There should be a Device Select icon which will give you the option to turn off the touchpad and/or touchpad buttons. Alternatively, for those who want to turn off the pointing stick and/or pointing stick buttons, there are also options to disable or enable those. *Start-->Settings--Control Panel double-click mouse and there's an option there to disable the touchpad *"For all of you having trouble enabling or disabling the touchpad: Turn on or off the Fast Initialization button under hardware properties for the Touchpad. Fast Initialization = On, then reboot, you are now able to turn the touchpad On or Off from Mouse Properties Hope this helps, it was a PITA to figure out." *Just go to control pannel and double click on 'mouse'. There should then be a tab called 'Touch pad' and click on that. There should then be an option 'Tap off when typing' enable that and your problem should be solved. It also said that if you do not find those options there then it is possible your touchpad drivers are not installed which would allow you to make the changes. "If the control panel only shows things about a "mouse", the touchpad drivers are not installed. You could try www.synaptics.com for drivers." found this on the dell site *Customizing the Touch Pad and Track Stick You can use the Mouse Properties window to disable the touch pad and track stick or adjust their settings. Open the Control Panel, and then click Mouse. For information about the Control Panel, see Windows Help and Support Center. In the Mouse Properties window: * Click the Device Select tab to disable the touch pad and track stick. * Click the Touch Pad tab to adjust touch pad and track stick settings. Click OK to save the settings and close the window. I hope out of those maybe something will work

It is possible that you mouse is getting 'flaky', but first, let's check on something. In the control panel, click (or double click) on the mouse icon and check its settings. Under 'pointer options', do you find a selection box, Hide the cursor while typing? Try de-selecting this option to see if it makes a difference. If not, return to the original setting. Mouse options will vary depending on the driver in use. Installing drivers that came with the mouse will add features specific to that mouse and may not be present in the standard drivers supplied by Windows. If you are using a generic mouse driver, try installing the drivers that came with the mouse.

Accidental grazing of the touchpad on a laptop while typing is the most common way that people get problems like this. I had the problem of the cursor jumping around as I typed and causing changes in my text in the wrong places. You have a number of options regarding disabling the touchpad. I tend to prefer a wireless mouse instead of a touchpad on a laptop, and my laptop is set up so that the touchpad is automatically disabled any time the mouse is functioning. If you need instructions on how to disable your touchpad, tell us what your operating system is and if you intend to use a mouse.

I use a rubber/nonslip drawer liner underneath the machine to prevent it from sliding around.