How to enable (or improve) two finger scrolling on your Windows laptop

This is a small guide on to how to get two finger scrolling and other multi touch gestures on your Windows laptop. Even if your laptop is already capable of scrolling using two fingers, this guide can still be worth reading, since according to my experience the “feeling” can likely be significantly improved!

Introduction

With a brand new Win7 laptop in front of me I expected the touchpad to deliver a modern multi touch gesture experience. If you have used an Apple laptop and scrolled webpages by dragging two fingers on the touchpad instead of fiddling with a scrollbar, you know what I mean. Unfortunately my hopes faded rather quickly when I discovered that the trackpad seemed to lack support for multi touch gestures. But I refused to accept this, and after some diligent searching and testing I have finally found a solution that works for me.

Step 1: Update the drivers

The first thing I did was to dig through the driver settings. Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find any settings for two finger scrolling. However, there were a few other options, indicating that the touchpad was actually capable of detecting more than one finger at a time. Having investiged this it turns out that the drivers shipped with the computer simply did not contain support for two finger scrolling even though the hardware itself supported it!

The dominant producer of touchpads for portable computers and other devices is called Synaptics. This corporation delivers touchpads to several major computer manufacturers. But as I understand it, patent issues causes many computer manufacturers to not ship the “full” drivers. Instead you get a crippled version where functionality has been removed. There is an easy solution to this though. You can get the full drivers by simply downloading them directly from Synaptics support page.

So I got the real drivers and a number of new options appeared in the driver settings, including the desired option to use two finger scrolling (enabled by default). Nice, I thought to myself, until I tried to use it. It turned out that the responsiveness was really bad. The touchpad did not seem to properly detect when I used more than one finger. Sometimes I had to swipe my fingers ten times before the drivers detected this and initiated the scroll feature. Most of the time nothing happened, which you probably can tell is extremely annoying. In addition to this, when it actually did scroll, the mouse pointer would change into an ugly picture to indicate this, which I find totally useless and quite distracting.

(I have tested several computers with default drivers since I got my computer. Many of them already had multi touch functionality enable by default. My experience with these drivers are that the responsiveness varies between different computer models. I probably got one of worst available (a fully equipped and quite expensive Asus U36SD). But even on laptops that work much better than mine, my opinion is that the feeling still leaves much to be desired when compared to, for example, the silky smooth scrolling experience on Macs.)

Step 2: Switch to open source

While searching around for a solution to the problem of poor responsiveness I stumbled upon a blog post that had a comment, mentioning a little program named TwoFingerScroll. This program replaces some of the built in functionality of the drivers to give you better multi touch scrolling. The result is excellent responsiveness and feeling! It simply works as you’d expect it to!

Before installing TwoFingerScroll, I recommend turning off most features of the Synaptics drivers (but don’t uninstall the drivers as they are still required). First disable the build in two finger scroll as this will interfere with TwoFingerScroll’s implementation. You may also want to disable other features in the drivers, since most of them are more or less worthless if you ask me. I do like the momentum feature though, so my suggestion is to experiment until you find a solution that suits you!

Update: The original TwoFingerScroll has not been updated in 3 years, but thanks to being free software a brave new soul has taken upon himself to update the program and add new features! You can find these updates at the TabletPCReview forums.

Step 3: Enhance Windows

Multi touch scrolling does not seem to be natively supported by Windows. The implementations apparently work by emulating the scroll wheel function on the mouse. This kind of implementation (basically hacking the system) tends to open up for more or less good solutions. The most obvious problem I found is that the fact that the “control” currently having focus always receives the scroll wheel input. This means that if your mouse hover above a scrollable list or page of some kind, but this list is currently not selected, nothing will happen when you try to scroll, since the selected control in the currently active window is getting the input signals instead of what is underneath the mouse. This is how Windows works by design, but when using the touchpad I found that it become more obvious and forces a non-intuitive way to use the touchpad because you constantly have to precision-click to select the active control before you could scroll it.

The solution I found was to get a utility that automatically redirects the scroll wheel signals to the control located directly underneath the mouse pointer. There are several to choose from. I settled on one named KatMouse. Whether or not this is the best program I don’t know, but it works well enough for me.

Step 4: Configuration

Almost done! But to make the touchpad more intuitive to use it may be worthwhile to configure TwoFingerScroll a bit to handle right and middle mouse button clicks without having to use the physical buttons on the touchpad. I’ve configured it so that if I “tap” with two fingers simultaneously it corresponds to doing a right click. If I keep a finger on the plate and tap with a second finger, this is equivalent to clicking with the middle mouse button (usually button on the scroll wheel). There is a small problem with the mouse pointer jumping away when “middle clicking”, but I can accept this. There is a small problem with the mouse pointer jumping away when doing the middle click, but I can live with it since I feel this is the most natural way to use the touchpad I’ve found so far.

Summary

The bottom line is that using these utilities and settings, I now have a laptop that I can control using the touchpad in a way that I enjoy. It’s not perfect, but compared to the way it was when I first got the computer, it’s a minor revolution. I hope anyone reading this gets the same results. I find it fascinating that a large corporation like Synaptics is unable to make sensible drivers, instead requiring an open source program by a hobby developer to give Windows PCs some feeling!

Two Finger Scroll Not Working [Solved]

Last Updated: 3 years ago

If you suddenly cannot scroll with two fingers on your touchpad, don’t worry. Use the solutions in this post, the problem should resolve. Apply to Windows 10, 7, 8 & 8.1.

There are four solutions to fix the problem. You may not have to try them all. Just work your way down at the top of the list until you find the one that works for you.

Solution 1: Change the Mouse Pointer

Changing the mouse pointer had worked for some users who had the same error. So it is worth a try.

If you are not sure how to change change the mouse pointer, refer steps below.

1) Open Control Panel. (If you are not sure how to open the control panel, visit How to Open the Control Panel ) .

2) View by Category and select click on Hardware and Sound .

3) Under Devices and Printers , click Mouse .

4) Select the new pointer from the drop-down menu of Scheme. You can change the mouse pointer to a solid black one.

5) Click Apply button.

Solution 2: Enable Two Finger Scrolling

The error would occur if the two-finger scrolling feature is disabled. Follow steps below to enable it.

1) Open Control Panel.

2) View by Category and select click on Hardware and Sound.

3) Under Devices and Printers, click Mouse.

4) Under Devices, click Device Settings tab. Highlight Synaptics TouchPad and click the Settings button. (Note the Device Settings tab only appears when the touchpad driver is installed.)

5) Expand MultiFinger Gestures, and check the box next to Two-Finger Scrolling.

6) Click Apply buttons.

Solution 3: Roll back the touchpad driver

This could be a faulty driver issue. So try to roll back the driver and see if it works.

Follow steps below to roll back the touchpad driver.

2) Expand category “Mice and other pointing devices“, and right-click on the touchpad device and select Properties. (In the case here, it is Synaptics Pointing Device.)

3) Click Driver tab and click on Roll Back Driver. (If the button is grayed out, it means the driver cannot be restored. This solution doesn’t work for you.)

4) If prompted for the confirmation to continue, click Yes.

5) Restart the computer.

If rolling back driver doesn’t work for you, try to uninstall then update the driver.

Solution 4: Update the toupad driver

The steps above may resolve the problem, but it they don’t, update the touchpad driver.

There are two ways you can get the right driver for your touchpad: manually or automatically.

Manual driver update – You can update your touchpad driver manually by going to the manufacturer’s website, and searching for the most recent correct driver for each. Be sure to choose only drivers that are compatible with your variant of Windows version.

Automatic driver update – If you don’t have the time, patience or computer skills to update your touchpad driver manually, you can, instead, do it automatically with Driver Easy. Driver Easy will automatically recognize your system and find the correct drivers for your touchpad, and your variant of Windows version, and it will download and install them correctly :

1) Download and install Driver Easy.

2) Run Driver Easy and click the Scan Now button. Driver Easy will then scan your computer and detect any problem drivers.

3) Click the Update button next to the flagged touchpad driver to automatically download and install the correct version of that driver (you can do this with the FREE version).

Or click Update All to automatically download and install the correct version of all the drivers that are missing or out of date on your system. (This requires the Pro version which comes with full support and a 30-day money back guarantee. You’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click Update All.)

4) Restart your computer and check to see if the problem is resolved.

That’s all there is to it. Hopefully one of these methods resolves your problem, and you can now use your two finger scroll.

Please feel free to leave your comment below if you have any questions.

Two Finger Scroll

Review

Free Download

specifications

A reliable and user-friendly software solution that can be used to activate two or three finger gestures for Synaptics touchpads

What’s new in Two Finger Scroll 1.0.6:

There are numerous users who prefer to use a mouse instead of the touchpad on their laptop because they are not satisfied with its functions. And this is where Two Finger Scroll can come in handy.

The application is meant to be run on computers with Synaptics TouchPads and it allows users to enable two-finger navigation. In other words, they will be able to use more than a single finger to scroll up and down or select items on their PC.

First of all, it needs to be mentioned that unless the host computer features a compatible touchpad, the application will not work.

Secondly, it is advisable to set Two Finger Scroll to run at Windows startup to make sure users will not need to manually launch it on a daily basis.

The application supports several types of scrolling modes and it is best to experiment with all of them before settling for one of them. More exactly, one can choose between compatible, smooth or smart, while also adjusting the speed and acceleration according to their preferences.

When it comes to tapping, Two Finger Scroll provides users with multiple options as well as the application supports not only two-finger scrolling, but also one + one finger mode, two + one finger and even three fingers.

Users can assign dedicated mouse buttons to each mode, to ensure they will not encounter any issues in managing their files and apps.

All in all, Two Finger Scroll can help users fully benefit of their Synaptics touchpads and enhance their functionality, even if they do not have advanced computer skills. It might require some time gettings used to, but in the long run the app can prove to be quite handy.