Way to Increase Mouse Pointer Speed?

February 21, 2009 9:31 PM

Under Windows XP, is there a way to make the speed of the mouse pointer increase when you plugin a mouse, but decrease when you're just using the touchpad? Thanks!
posted by drleary to computers & internet (6 comments total)

In the control panel there are settings for the mouse...you should be able to have separate settings for the mouse and touchpad.
posted by radioamy at 9:34 PM on February 21

I thought that too, but I'm not having any luck finding it.
posted by drleary at 9:38 PM on February 21

What brand of laptop is it? Often, you can get specific drivers for a particular touchpad on most name brand laptops. This usually will include a separate Control Panel or System Tray applet that allows you to control the speed and response of the touchpad and/or pointing stick.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:45 PM on February 21

This may be what you mean by your last comment, but buried under the properties panel (I have a tab for the touchpad device, and then there's another settings button I can hit once I'm on that screen) on my laptop there's a speed setting for the trackpad. It's really more like a modifier on top of the Windows mouse setting, so I don't know how useful it really is.
posted by niles at 9:45 PM on February 21

If youre using the generic HID driver from Microsoft then you wont have this option. In this scenario windows will just see it as a regular mouse. If you install a third-party touchpad driver you can have much more granular settings. The manufacturer of your laptop usually provides this driver. Most likely the synaptics driver will work.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:09 PM on February 21

Drivers here.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:10 PM on February 21