Check If Your Laptop Supports Windows 10 Touchpad Gestures
Microsoft has built a new technology for Windows 10 touchpad gestures called “Precision Touch.” The laptop manufacturer needs to follow the guidelines for Precision Touch in order to install it on their device. To check if your Windows 10 laptop has Precision Touch installed, go to “Settings -> Devices -> Mouse and Touchpad.” Here, under the “Touchpad” section, see if there is a sentence that reads, “Your PC has a Precision Touchpad.” Otherwise, you will see an option to change “Touchpad delay before click works.”
That’s not the end of the story. Some manufacturers develop their own gestures technology to reduce the licensing cost of Windows 10. You should also check if there is a gesture software installed. Check the driver installation disk provided by your vendor to be sure. Also, most of the laptops that were shipped after the release of Windows 8 (October 2012) offer multi-touch gestures. Your laptop or notebook should support some of the gestures, if not all. In my case, I have an ASUS laptop which was released last year. They’ve provided “ASUS Smart Gesture” software as shown in the below screenshot.
If your laptop supports Precision Touch, then you’ll have full control over the gestures, and you can configure them as per your needs. If you’ve updated to latest the Windows 10 version (1607), then you must also be able to customize the gesture to do other tasks.
List of Touchpad Gestures for Windows 10
Tap with two fingers: Open right-click menu. This is the same as the right-click button on your touchpad. You can even open the right-click menu by tapping with two fingers on icons. Double tap with one finger and move: Drag and Drop. With this gesture you can drag and drop items which you would normally do by pressing the left-click button and then moving it using the touchpad. Hold with two fingers and move horizontally or vertically: This will allow you to scroll a web page and other windows where scrolling is possible. Scroll up and down by holding two fingers and moving it up and down. For horizontal scroll, move it left and right. Use two fingers to pinch and stretch: Zoom in/out. Pinch out to zoom in and pinch in for zoom out. Use three fingers and slide upwards: Open Task View. This will open the Task View that will allow you see all open windows in all the desktops. Use three fingers and slide downwards: Go to Desktop. This will minimize all the windows and will switch to the desktop. Use three fingers and slide left or right: Switch between open windows. It’s equal to the ALT +Tab shortcut to switch between apps. Tap with three fingers: Open Cortana Search. This will activate Cortana or will allow you to do a search if Cortana is disabled. Tap with four fingers: Open Action Center. Allows you to quickly check notifications.
Conclusion
Most of the gestures mentioned above should work on your Windows 10 laptop. If you have an old laptop and updated it to Windows 10, make sure you update the trackpad drivers. These touchpad gestures should help you in multitasking and make you more productive. They are meant for power users, but an average user can also benefit from it.
