Just to be absolutely sure, I un-installed and reinstalled the trackpad driver from the manufacturer's site. In most cases this would have corrected the problem if it was not a hardware failure, or some type of resource conflict.
I always try to ask for a history of the problem before I start working on something. Generally you might find the answer by listening. The person who gave me the laptop said they were doing a presentation and people were fiddling with her computer before the problem happened.
Then the answer hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that some laptops have the ability to disable certain hardware functionality through the function keys (this varies from laptop to laptop). Sure enough that was the problem, all I had to do was hit the right function key.
I am documenting this, because I am hoping it will one-day help someone who is working on a laptop and can't figure out why something is not functioning.
Lessons:
- Listen before you do anything.
- Sometimes the unobvious solution is the answer.
- Always double-check someone else's work, they may not have done it correctly.
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