I’ve just discovered that my laptop touch pad has multitouch, it just needed to be enabled! There are two parts to this process and it will take a few minutes but it’s well worth it in my opinion.

The first part is the simplest. Download two-finger-scroll which is a simple little free program to enable Mac-style two finger scrolling on Windows. No installation necessary, just put the TwoFingerScroll.exe file somewhere out of the way, run it and enjoy two finger scrolling! You’ll probably want to go to its settings page (right click on the hand icon next to the clock) and check “Start with Windows”. While you’re there, check out the bonus features such as middle button emulation using two-finger tap. The “one + one finger” options were a bit obscure to me. Turns out it means “hold one finger on the trackpad and tap with another” to simulate, for example, a right click. Nice idea but I couldn’t get it to work reliably.

The next part is a bit more complicated and doesn’t pay off as much so you may not want to bother. It turns out the basic Synaptics drivers include a whole load of multitouch features that have, for some reason, been disabled. Some enterprising souls have hacked the drivers to re-enable these features. Basically you need to download the hacked drivers, uninstall your current drivers, restart, install the new drivers and restart. This enables some cool features like “Swipe two fingers left to go Back” or “Swipe three fingers down to minimize the current window” etc.

Unfortunately the Synaptics drivers don’t support two finger scrolling and the TwoFingerScroll program seems to override the two finger gestures. I’m still playing around with the settings to see which I like most.

I was playing with a friend’s MacBook a few weeks ago marvelling and the gestures like 4 finger swipe down for Exposé. Little did I know my laptop could do the same!