If you’ve a laptop or notepad Windows PC, you might sometimes find that the right-click of your touchpad feature isn’t working properly (if at all). This can be very frustrating when working in Windows Explorer or using any Windows shortcuts: the context-sensitive menu doesn’t appear when you right-click.
There’s a lot of the usual garbage around when you Google for a solution to “right click not working in Windows 10”. Some sites that offer the ‘solution’ shamelessly try to flog you some software (‘free download’) instead. Many such utilities can do as much harm as good, sometimes frightening you into thinking that you've got an unrelated problem with your PC that their paid-for software will cure.
One web site comically suggested using Task Manager (ctrl + alt + del > Task Manager) and right-click the Windows Explorer app to stop or restart it: but how can you, if right-click isn’t working in the first place?
The answer could be very simple – before splashing out on software that might be useless anyway, try this: on your desktop go Start > Settings > Devices and choose Touchpad.
Scroll down till you find the option Press the bottom right corner of the touchpad to right-click
This option may be hidden at first, no thanks to the scrollbar being hidden by default over on the right edge. In my case, this option was ticked but I’d forgotten! This feature overrides the traditional Windows right-click option, and so that was the answer: just tap the touchpad on the bottom-right to make a right-click. You can of course disable this option altogether to restore the traditional way of working.
Windows 10 thin scroll bar annoyance
The scrollbar width mentioned above is another annoyance, and a feature too clever by far. Only by hitting the wafer-thin ‘scrollbar’ does a full width one pop into view, one that you can actually operate with a touchpad. It is borderline inaccessible and very frustrating for many users.
To override this feature and make scrollbars ‘normal’ again, just go to Settings > Ease of Access > Display, and scroll down (somehow!) to find Disable the option ‘Automatically hide scrollbars in Windows’. There you can restore scrollbars to the normally accepted behaviour and the problem will be gone for ever.
Wednesday, February 9, 2022 at 1:13PM
