I have had only a limited amount of experience with turning off the touch pads on laptops. I've had to do it on my past 3 machines. Yes it took a bit of research, and in some cases sighted assistance. Below are a few tips that I can recall that you might find helpful, as well as info from 2 Google searches that I conducted this morning.
In addition to the standard capability of the function keys as we know it and the added features gained by using the FN key, Some machines come with yet another set of actions that the function keys can accomplish. In my experience, this has been controls for multi-media and gaming. If a computer includes this, there is a way to toggle back and forth between the traditional function keys plus Function key FN Key capability and this additional multi-media function. You would have to do research on whether this is the case with your machine. There appears to be differences between models within a brand to which function key plus FN key that will turn the touch pad on and off. You will need sighted assistance to look at the symbols on the function keys. Unfortunate, decoding these symbols sometimes requires a degree in computer science. If you have an iPhone, you could to some type of video chat with someone so that they can look at your keyboard. I've resored to this many times as I am unable to activate a remote session with my work's IT support. JAWS just will not gain focus on the allow button (a topic for another message). My newest computer at works forces me to use the function key plus FN key to move through a series of options before I achieve turning off movement of the mouse. The options are Turn off touch pad, Turn off touch pad & buttons, Turn off the little thing in the middle of the keyboard, Turn off touch pad, buttons and the thing in the middle of the keyboard, and finally Turn all back on. While JAWS does not read the results of these actions well, if I listen closely, I can hear a slight difference in what JAWS is announcing and I know what is being turned on or off. Once I set this, it stays set , but I sometimes have to share my computer with sighted people who turn these things back on despite my having a physical mouse connected to the docking station. I did 2 quick google searches and learned that some models of your laptop include a feature that is called Function Key Hot keys. My limited reading indicated that this might be similar to the multi-media/gaming mode I mentioned above. I think I understood that this Hot-key mode is the default and that it can be disabled. I have no idea if this applies to your specific model. My second Google Search was done with the terms "lanova edge 2-1580 Windows 10 turn off touch pad", and provided the following 3 solutions at URL: https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht075599 How to Disable Your Touchpad - ThinkPad - Lenovo Support (US) Instructions on how to disable your touchpad Affected configurations All ThinkPad Systems Solution Note: For Solution (1) and (2), users need to have Synaptics ThinkPad UltraNav driver installed and is available from Support Site. Solution 1: Short cut Key (for selected ThinkPad models) 1.Press Fn+F8 2.A pop up will appear UltraNav device settings 3.Chose the second option which says Enable track point only (disable touch pad)(Fig 1.1) Fn+F8 Fig 1.1 Solution 2: Manual settings 1.Click on Windows Start Button windows start button 2.Go to Control Panel 3.Choose Mouse 4.A pop up screen of Mouse Properties 5.Choose UltraNav (Fig 2.1) tab or ThinkPad (Fig 2.2) Tab Fig 2.1 Fig 2.2 6.Uncheck Enable TouchPad Solution 3: Disable Touchpad via BIOS 1.Shut down your ThinkPad then power it on. 2.When the ThinkPad logo comes up, immediately press F1 to enter the BIOS Setup Utility. If your system has a Supervisor password set then you'll need to type it in when requested. 3.Now use the cursor keys to navigate the menus until you find the one that relates to the TouchPad. 4.Toggle the setting from Enabled to Disabled. 5.Then press ESC until you get back to the Main Menu. 6.Save the updated BIOS settings and then Reboot to Windows. Note: If you are unsure of what Fn key to press when the ThinkPad is booting, try pressing Enter button and select the bios from there. HTH, Annette -----Original Message----- From: JAWS-Users-List [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of David Moore Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2016 2:05 AM To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] disabling function keys Hi, There you go. Those are the instructions that my wife is going to help me with tomorrow. I think that will do it for us. Have a great one. -----Original Message----- From: Kimsan Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2016 1:43 AM To: <mailto:jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com> jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: [JAWS-Users] disabling function keys I've tried all day to find a pair of eye balls to help with the bios to disable the function keys so my jaws could perform as normal. On other lists, folks have stated to use the fn key in conjuction with the key to perform the action, for example, fn, plus f7 for list links, fn plus f7 for spell check in word. However, I have been unsuccessful, as there are no eye balls and the fn combo does not work. For the record, I'm following these steps. 1.Restart or Turn on your ThinkPad Edge 2.Tap the ENTER key repeatedly (NOT RETURN - this doesn't work) 3.tap F1 to go into the BIOS 4.Tap the Right Cursor/Arrow key once to move to [CONFIG] 5.Go down to [KEYBOARD / MOUSE] Hit Enter/Return 6.Go to [Change to "F1-F12 keys"] 7.Tap Enter/Return and choose [Legacy] 8.Hold Down Fn+F10 to save & exit 9.Choose [YES] (tap Enter/Return) 10.That's it! Yay! Y I regretfully state I no longer have the box, so the model of my lanoval is only what my coworker read to me. I'm desperate, so here is my stupid question, never mind lol, it will involve jaws to do this and jaws is not available during this process. I was thinking if someone could remote into my system but never mind haha. 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