Use windows precision drivers instead of synaptic pointing drivers

[Nick332]

In my opinion the biggest issue with this laptop is the fact that it relies so heavily on the synaptic touchpad drivers instead of windows precision drivers. I often have issues with accidental touch when typing (cursor moving/clicking when trying to type, etc). I know that the newest spectre that came out uses windows precision drivers instead of synaptic touchpad drivers. I was wondering if there were any way to use the windows precision drivers that the new laptop uses instead. It is to the point of making the trackpad almost unusable.

[Riddle_Decipher]

@Nick332 HP doesn't recommend using precision drivers instead of the ones designed for your device, however, I understand your concern and here are a few steps you can attempt at your own discretion, to use precision drivers instead of synaptics, now!

You may want to create a System Restore point, so that you can easily revert to your old drivers if you need to. Follow the instructions in our System Restore guide to create a new restore point, and then install the new drivers using the technique we’re about to show you.

To get started, right-click the Synaptics or ELAN touchpad device under the “Mice and other pointing devices” category in Device Manager, and then select the “Update driver” command.
 

 

Click the “Browse my computer for driver software” option.
 

 

On the next page, click the “Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer” option.
 

 

On the following page, click the “Have Disk” button at the bottom right corner of the window.
 

In the “Install From Disk” window that appears, click the “Browse” button.

Navigate to the temporary folder where you extracted the Synaptics or ELAN Precision Touchpad drivers.

Select the “Autorun.inf” file in that folder, and then click the “Open” button. Click “OK” afterwards.

Select the “Synaptics Pointing Device” or “ELAN Pointing Device” option in the list of models, and then click the “Next” button.

You’ll see a warning saying that Windows can’t verify that the driver is compatible with your hardware. This is normal. To continue with the process and see how well the Precision Touchpad drivers work on your laptop, click the “Yes” button.

Windows automatically installs the driver. Restart your PC after the process is finished to activate your new Precision Touchpad drivers.

How to Ensure That the Drivers Are Installed

When everything is done, you can head to Settings > Devices > Touchpad. You should see the words “Your PC has a precision touchpad,” which indicates that the Precision Touchpad drivers are working.

You can use the Touchpad settings screen here to customize your touchpad’s gestures, sensitivity, and other features.

P.S: Welcome to HP Community

Let me know how that pans out,

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Just in case you don't get back to us within 24 - 48hrs, and have a good day, ahead.

[remisharrock]

I totally agree, the synaptics driver is sometimes really annoying, unstable, not precise, crappy as hell and frustrating. 
As an example, the new Edge chromium has problem with this driver as explained here, Microsoft is working with HP/Lenovo and Synaptics to try to solve this issue:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/two-finger-scrolling-is-getting-detected-as-a-cli...

Anyway, hopefully I managed to do the hack of installing by force the precision driver, and it sill works :

here is the tutorial I used and it works with the latest version of Windows 1909 (if I do everything in plane mode and stop the windows update for the newer version of the poor synaptics driver), as you can see in the screenshot (you have a precision touchpad yeah!) !

After hours I have managed to get the Precision Touchpad driver from Lenovo working again:
 
If anything goes wrong you might end up without having a mouse pointer! In this case you can use an external mouse or the touch screen to proceed.
 
1. Download the "Show or hide updates" troubleshooter package from  https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/3183922/how-to-temporarily-prevent-a-windows-update-from-re...

Note: If this step does not work for you, please
1. Disable all WiFi and LAN connections before installing the Lenovo driver
2. Finally block driver updates using gpedit.msc as soon as the Lenovo driver is working - and before reenabling WiFi/LAN connections.

Here's how to achieve that (Please note that this needs to be undone whenever you want to install another driver or the installation will fail for no obvious reason!!):
https://www.howtogeek.com/263851/how-to-prevent-windows-from-automatically-updating-specific-drivers...

2. Run the troubleshooter package and make sure that the Synaptics driver 19.5.x will be hidden. This prevents it from being reinstalled over and over again.

3. Uninstall the Synaptics device (Synaptics SMBus or similar) via Device Manager (check “Uninstall driver software” on the confirmation dialog).

4. Reboot (yes, really!)

5. Download and install the older HP touchpad driver, version 19.3.31.x, not the latest version 19.5.10.x, from the HP support website https://support.hp.com (you need to look up your specific Spectre model there and download it from the software & drivers page)

Note: Installing the latest version (19.5.x) will stop the touchpad from working - so make sure you really get 19.3.31.x

6. Reboot

7. Download Lenovo's Precision Touchpad driver and unpack it anywhere: https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/n1mgx28w.exe (uncheck the option to automatically install the driver on the last step of the installation wizard)

8. Via Device Manager, manually install the downloaded and unzipped "Synaptics Touchpad Device" (n1mgx28w) driver by right-clicking the Synaptics device.

9. Reboot

10. If the touchpad still does not work as expected, open settings (Ctrl+I), go to touchpad settings, randomly change some settings an then press "Reset touchpad" on the bottom of the page.

11. Block driver updates as explained in the "Note" in Step 1

DONE!
For me everything - including 4 and 5 finger gestures - is working again. And the (native Windows) Touchpad settings tell me that my device does have a Precision Touchpad!