How to disable Dell Vostro 1200 touchpad

It was a frustrating experience when the network guy in our office gave me the new Dell Vostro 1200 notebook to use. I just couldn't find how the hack to disable the touchpad device. The touchpad keeps me away from typing properly because of its sensitivity, which means a slight touch of hands (fingers/palms) when typing can caused the mouse cursor to disposition somewhere else. As a result words always run out of line and its very frustrating.

I tried to disable the touchpad from the control panel>device manager however there was no option to do so other than mouse. It took me sometimes to figure how the touchpad work without an option to disable/enable it. After few hours of searching eventually i found the solution, which i think a little illogical. The solution to the problem is simply the driver was not installed but the irony is the touchpad still work normally except that it cannot be enable/disable. Perhaps i believe this problem happens to most dell laptops/notebook.

How to get the enable disable option for the Synaptic Touchpad on Dell Vostro 1200

1. Download the driver from Dell Drivers & Download site
2. Select Mouse & Keyboard and Download the Synaptic Touchpad Driver
3. Once downloaded proceed to install it on the computer
4. After installed Touchpad icon will show up on the Toolbar system tray
5. Double click on the Synaptic icon --> Device Select -->Disable