Fix: Two Finger Scroll Not Working

Two-finger scroll is a great option for laptops where you can scroll pages using your two fingers. It offers accessibility and ease of access where you are not restrained in only using the arrows while scrolling pages.

While this feature occurs no problem during its operation, there are several cases where the scrolling doesn’t work. This mostly occurs when you install a new copy of Windows on your machine or update your system to a newer version. We have listed down a number of different workarounds for you to try. Take a look.

Solution 1: Changing the Mouse Pointer

As we are starting from the most basic fixes, one of them includes changing the mouse pointer. Somehow it seems that changing the mouse pointer resets the current configuration of your mouse. If there was anything wrong, it will most probably be fixed by this solution.

1. Press Windows + R, type “control panel” in the dialogue box, and press Enter.
2. Once in the control panel, click the sub-heading “Hardware and Sound”.

3. Now click on “Mouse” under the sub-heading of Devices and Printers to open the options.

4. Click the tab of “Pointers” and select another pointer. After making the changes press “Apply” and restart your computer. Now check if the problem is solved.

Solution 2: Enabling Two-Finger Scrolling

You won’t be able to use two-finger scrolling if it is disabled in your pointer settings. We can enable it (if it is disabled) and hopefully, the problem will be solved.

1. Navigate to the mouse settings as described in the solution above.
2. Once in the mouse settings, click on “TouchPad” tab The name might be different for different manufacturers. In this case, the touchpad is made by Synaptics.
3. Click on “Settings” present at the near bottom of the screen.

4. Open the tab “Scroll” and make sure all the entries in the two-finger scrolling are enabled. If they were disabled, enable them and restart your computer for the changes to be implemented.

Solution 3: Restoring Default Drivers for your Touchpad

If the above solutions don’t work, it means that there is a problem with the drivers installed for your touchpad. We can uninstall the driver for the hardware and then scan for hardware changes for the computer to automatically detect the hardware. Then it will install the default drivers present on the computer and you can then check if the problem is solved. Feel free to check if the two-scrolling is enabled after you install the default drivers.

Note: You would require an external mouse to carry out this solution.

1. Press Windows + R, type “devmgmt.msc” in the dialogue box, and press Enter.
2. Once in the device manager, open the category of “Mice and other pointing devices” and click “Properties”.

3. Open the tab of “Driver” and click on “Uninstall” present at the near end of the screen. Do this for all the touchpad/mouse drivers.

4. Right-click on any empty space in the device manager and click “Scan for hardware changes”. Windows will now install the default drivers for your touchpad. Restart your computer and check if the problem is solved.

Note: There were several cases where software such as Elan_Touchpad or Synaptics was causing the problem. You should try uninstalling the software using the control panel and download the latest version of the software and install it. If the latest version doesn’t work, you can try rolling back to a previous version and see if this does the trick. Make sure to perform these remedies before moving on to the other solutions as most of the time these are the cause of the problem.

Solution 4: Updating or Rolling back Drivers

If the above solutions don’t work, we can try updating the drivers to the latest build or roll them back to a previous version. We will target both methods in the solution starting with rolling back the drivers to a previous version.

1. Press Windows + R, type “devmgmt.msc” in the dialogue box, and press Enter.
2. Once in the device manager, open the category of “Mice and other pointing devices” and click “Properties”.

3. Open the tab of “Driver” and click on “Roll back Driver” present at the near end of the screen.

4. Restart your computer and check if the problem got solved.

If rolling back the drivers don’t solve the problem for you, we can try installing the latest drivers for your touchpad. Identify the manufacturer’s name and head over to their official website. Download the drivers to an accessible location and follow the steps listed below.

1. Navigate to the device manager, right-click on the touchpad and select “Update Driver Software”.

2. Select the second option “Browse my computer for driver software”, browse to the driver you just installed and let Windows install the driver accordingly.

3. Restart your computer and check if the problem got solved. Feel free to check using solution 2 if two-finger scrolling is enabled.

Solution 5: Editing Registry Values

If the above solutions don’t work, we can try editing the registry values. Do note that the registry editor is a powerful tool and changing keys that you have no idea about can hamper your computer. In this case, we have demonstrated how to fix Synaptics touchpad using the registry editor.

It is always wise to make a backup of the registry so you can always restore if anything goes wrong.

1. Press Windows + R, type “regedit” and press Enter.
2. Once the registry editor, navigate to the following file path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTP\TouchPadPS2

3. At the right-hand side, you will see a number of different keys present. You should change them according to the guidelines listed below. Double-click on any key, change the value accordingly and press OK to apply the changes.

2FingerTapPluginID – Clear existing value, this should be empty

3FingerTapPluginID – Clear existing value, this should be empty

MultiFingerTapFlags – Change the value from 2 to 3

3FingerTapAction – 4

3FingerTapPluginActionID – 0

2FingerTapAction – 2 for making right click work, 4 for middle click

4. Restart your computer and check if the problem got solved.

Note: You should also check your manufacturer’s website for software that enables two-finger scrolling if it is not already supported on your computer. One such example is Dell Multi-Touch Touch Drivers.

Solution 6: Changing Touch Events API in Chrome

If you are unable to use the two-finger scroll in Google Chrome, the reason can be that the two-finger scroll API (also known as the touch API) in the browser is disabled. Even though this isn’t the case in numerous instances, there are chances that it might have been disabled. In this case, we will navigate to the settings of Chrome and enable the API and see if this fixes the problem.

1. Open the chrome browser and enter the following in the address bar and press Enter:

   chrome://flags/

2. Now, press Ctrl + F and locate the Touch APIs present.
3. If all any of them are marked as default or disabled, make sure that you change them to Enabled or Automatic.
4. Save changes and exit. Restart your computer completely and then check if the problem is solved for good.