I'm not sure what you mean by "jumping to the mouse pointer" but I assume you mean the cursor moves around the desktop while you are typing. It may be that your palm is brushing against the touchpad (new laptops especially have begun making the touchpads flush with the "wrist area" (for lack of a better term) so it is difficult to feel the difference when typing. If your touchpad has a palm sensitive touch setting, set it to the highest level (less sensitive).

Alternatively, if your cursor is jumping to a default button location (e.g., when you sign into a site the location where you type your user name) then you can turn that function off by going to mouse properties/pointer options and unchecking the "snap to" button.

You may also want to decrease the touch sensitivity of your touchpad.

I've had a good bit of difficulty with the newer laptops (I've had four in the last six montha, long story) because the touchpads now do significantly more (rotate pictures for example) than they used to and are far more sensitive to any touch. You can disable a number of the touchpad settings that you don't use and that may also help in gaining better control.

agree most of the time this is caused by accidently brushing against the touch pad, if you use a mouse just disable the touch pad you can toggle it off and on.

Thanks. Mouse Properties -> Pointer Options -> Hide Pointer While Typing (uncheck) seems to have fixed the problem.

Weirdly, the pointer was never hidden while typing. This has been a problem for me in both Vista and Windows 7.

I actually stood in line (forever) at a computer store while someone returned a laptop for the same problem. However, now I can type entire passages without my cursor jumping around. I am a happy girl!

it happens a LOT! people just do not notice that they may be slightly touching the touch pad. I just use the toggle key on the laptop to toggle mine off since I use a wireless mouse with it.

jxbrown, glad it worked.