Gaaaaaaaaaaaa! I accidentally disabled the touch pad on my dell laptop (the lap top was falling off my lap and I grabbed it and must have hit the exact keys required to turn it off) and I can’t get it back on and don’t have a mouse. Being as you guys are the smartest in the world someone must know how to enable it.
Help me Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!
ETA I’m running Windows 7
What kind of Dell laptop is it? The only way I know of is through Control Panel.
Likely the function (Fn) key plus one of the F-keys. Look on your keyboard: is there any key with an icon that seems evocative of a touchpad (likely resembling a rectangle with a hand on it)?
It’s an Inspiron N5030. I managed to get to the control panel and it says the touch pad is on but the pointer won’t move and the icon on the bottom right has an X on it.
I there’s a key that maybe looks like a touch pad but when I do the function key with it, nothing happens.
Arg!
ETA Just found out that X has nothing to do with the touch pad.
Maybe a Restart would help?
Restart was the first thing I tried. 
Can you call Dell customer support? My roommate in college had a Dell laptop and she was on the phone with them every couple of weeks and it didn’t cost her anything.
I may have to try that but I thought I’d check here first rather than sitting on hold for an hour.
Sofis, I found the relevant key - it works without hitting function which was why it wasn’t working when hit fuction. Thanks!!
Yes, I am a complete Luddite…
For future reference, if you look at your touchpas kinda sieways (so you have a slight glare on the surface) you’ll see a dot in the upper left-hand corner of the touch pad. If you tap that dot, you can disable/enable the touch pad.
Not that I found that out the hard way…:smack: