Automatically doing things (Vista)

[Switchy]

On my brother's laptop running Vista, if you move the cursor over an icon or anything in fact, sometimes that thing is selected.
So for example if you move the cursor over an image sometimes this will cause an inage program to open displaying the image.
This is most annoying if one wants to do something else.

Does anybody know how to turn off 'automatic selection' or whatever it's called.

Thanks in advance

Switchy

[Tormod]

Sounds like a touchy touchpad perhaps?

[Switchy]

The touchpad in itself should only move the cursor - the buttons should select. If there was something wrong with the touchpad it wouldn't select would it - it's not wired that way. If anything was wrong I would have thought it would be with the buttons!!

I thought Vista might work that way - automatically selecting things that one hovers over?

Switchy

[Buffy]

No all laptop touch pads allow selection via tapping anywhere on the pad. Its much easier that hitting the button and I would refuse to buy any laptop with a touch pad that did *not* work this way.

I'll admit that it can take some getting used to, but it really is a "feature!"

A bug is in the eye of the beholder,
Buffy

[CraigD]

Per Tormod and Buffy's suspicions, I'd try the laptop with an external mouse - Every Windows laptop I've encountered will immediately begin using any fairly new mouse you plug into a USB port, so if you have one around or can borrow it from a desktop machine, you should be able to use it.

If the unwanted selecting occurs only with the built in skidpad, your problem's likely to be that its set to to great a sensitivity, and is treating your attempts to move as keyclick taps. Either via a tray or control panel, there's usually a setup dialog that allows you to calibrate its tap sensitivity to cure this ill.

[C1ay]

Open your "Touchpad" properties dialog and adjust it....

[alexander]

Um, how about just disabling tapping?

A, there is no laptop known to me yet (and i have worked with literaly hundreds of different laptops makers and models) that have a touch pad that can not register clicks. Even earlier on, when touch pads first came out, that was one of the ways to sell that "feature"(touchpad). I personally hate tap, because it's a pain to type with it, so i always disable tapping (generally in the touchpad options, or on mac in the keyboard/mouse propperties) i use the 2 point scroll thing on the laptop, but absolutely can not stand tapping... some people like it apparently, and yes, if you are a light touch person, you can very easily double click using the touch pad when you don't mean to.