all laptops have a method to disable or turn off the touchpad most are an F key at the top and most have an icon on that key that shows the touchpad using it to toggle it off and on.

You can try restarting the laptop to see if the x key will release.

on my acer netbook the toggle key for touchpad is F7

On Dells, you may have to go into the touchpad control in the control panel and disable it.

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.

1. Open the Control Panel, and then click Mouse. For information about the Control Panel, see Windows Help and Support Center.

2. 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.

3. Click OK to save the settings and close the window.

I hope out of those maybe something will work

Raven - thanks so much for all that other information. I think I'll need that to fix this problem. I went to Control panel and mouse - and there's no tab for touchpad. That's what's been throwing me off. I couldn't find a way to access touchpad.

Seeing the above, I suspect it doesn't have the drivers installed. I bought this used - and I love it. I use it in my office - where I rarely need to do anything beyond email and occasional search on the internet. It's been speedy and responds well for that. The person I bought from wiped the drive clean and reinstalled XP SP3 and all the drivers (or so he thought - he must have missed the touchpad drivers).

I'm not sure the touchpad is synaptics but I'll try the synaptics for the drivers. I may install belarc and run it so I can get info on the touchpad. I may have to do some searching to find the drivers. But I think that will allow me to set the touchpad.

Of course, I can search the function keys too - but I'd like to do something other than just turn it off - since I go back and forth between using the touchpad - and typing emails. On my Toshiba I could set the touchpad to turn off while typing (and remain off for 10 seconds after typing - so it didn't come back on just because I paused for moment) - I'd like it to automatically come back on when I stop typing (but at this point, I'd settle for toggling it on and off manually).

When I get to my office, I'll try to reboot to see if the x gets unstuck.

Thanks.
Lynn.

Lynn and responders,

Thanks for starting this thread. It has helped me with some of my touchpad issues. And driven me into depths of mouse settings I never knew existed.

lynn from all that I read that version of Dell used the synaptics touchpad, you can go to the Dell site and put in your model number in the search box and it will bring up the page for that unit and on the left one of the items in the list to select is drivers.

I found one item that said you could turn it off and on in the bios but man that would be a pain, I mean if you want to use it on occasion you don't want to have to go through that.
I like the F key on mine it is super easy just to tap that key when I need it on or off.

good luck!

It seems as though my laptop was missing the touchpad drivers. I downloaded the drivers (I found several links and started installing one only to realize I hadn't selected the most recent). But once I installed it, it suggested I update to a Windows program?driver? - not sure just what it was - something to do with net frame. Anyway, it did seem related to the drivers I had installed, so I downloaded these updates. Unfortunately, I had to leave work at that time and didn't have a chance to restart and check it out. I just shut it down - and will see where i am when I'm back in the office on Tuesday.

I did find several places online that sited people who didn't have this nice little mouse/touchpad icon in the system tray - bc . they were missing the drivers. So presumeably with the drivers installed, an icon will be near the clock that I can select to turn off the touchpad (and perhaps make finer-tuned selections than that - I'll have to see).

Also was pleasantly surprised to discover that my "X' key was no longer stuck today. I had not restarted it so I'm not sure why it got stuck or unstuck. Just one of those mysteries.

Thanks.
Lynn.

PS - So far, I did not locate a function key to toggle off the touchpad. Only three of the F keys had icons on them - those were the only three I tested today and they weren't for the touchpad. I just ran out of time to test them all.