How to use Touchpad and Keyboard at the same time on Windows

If you can’t figure out a way to enable & use touchpad and keyboard at the same time, this trick shows you how to use Touchpad & Keyboard at the same time on your Windows 11/10 laptop. This issue is seen especially while playing games when you use a touchpad and keyboard and it fails to respond at the same time.

How to use Touchpad & Keyboard at the same time on PC

While playing a game, the PC disables the touchpad whilst using the keyboard. The unwanted change blunts your gaming experience. Switching to an older version of Synaptics ClickPad drivers solves the issue to some extent, it makes the touchpad quite unresponsive. This is because it isn’t fully compatible with the hardware.

Turning down ‘Palm Tracking’ to a minimum doesn’t work either. Here’s what you can do,

Open the Registry Editor.
Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE configuration key.
Expand the SOFTWARE folder.
Scroll down to the Synaptics folder.
Expand the SynTP folder under it.
Choose TouchPad.
In its right pane, double-click on PalmDetectConfig to edit its value.
Change the value to ‘0’.

Press Win+R in combination to open the Run Command box.

In the empty field of the box, type ‘regedit’ and press ‘Enter’.

Next, when the Registry Editor window opens, navigate to the following configuration key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Synaptics\SynTP

Thereafter, choose ‘TouchPad’ and switch to the right pane.

Here, double-click on the ‘PalmDetectConfig’ DWORD (32-bit Value) entry to edit its value.

When the Edit String box appears, change the value from the default value set to ‘0’. Click on the OK button.

When done, close the Registry Editor.

Restart your computer.

Hereafter, you should be in a position to use a touchpad and keyboard at the same time.

Related read: TouchPad gesture not working.

Adjust Touch Sensitivity to use Touchpad and Keyboard at the same time

This is another working solution that some users find very useful. Those using a Synaptics TouchPad can adjust the Touch Sensitivity to use both the touchpad and keyboard at the same time on their Windows 11/10 laptop. Touch Sensitivity helps to adjust how much finger pressure should be applied before the touchpad responds. Here are the steps:

Press the Win+I hotkey to open the Settings app
Access the Bluetooth & devices category
Scroll down and select the Mouse page
Click on the Additional mouse settings option present under the Related settings section
This will open Mouse Properties. There, switch to the Device Settings tab
From the devices list, select Synaptics TouchPad (if multiple devices are present)
Click on the Settings button and another Properties box will open
Expand the Pointing section and double-click on the Sensitivity setting. Some devices have SmartSense setting or both depending on the device manufacturer
In the Sensitivity box, move the slider to Heavy Touch to decrease the touch sensitivity
Similarly, if you have a SmartSense setting, you can adjust the settings accordingly
Close the box and press the OK button in the Properties box to save the changes.

Now test the game and you should be able to use the keyboard and touchpad at the same time on your Windows 11/10 laptop with no issues.

Hope this is helpful.

How to enable touchpad while using keyboard?

If the touchpad is disabled on your Windows 11/10 laptop, then you can enable it in various ways. For example, you can go to the Device Settings tab in the Mouse Properties and select your touchpad device. Press the Enable button and then hit the OK button. Now you should be able to use it along with the keyboard if there are no other issues. You can also enable or disable the touchpad using the Settings app, Device Manager, or freeware.

Why does my touchpad not work when I type?

Some laptops come with a dedicated key (usually a Fn key) to enable/disable the touchpad. So, check if your laptop supports such a key and use it to make your touchpad work again. If that is not the case, then you should update or reinstall the touchpad driver, and see if this works.