Is there a way to replicate Windows 7's touchpad scrolling, where you scroll by swiping up or down on the right side of the touchpad, in Windows 8? I realize Windows 8 has two-finger swiping instead but that's not what I'm looking for.
The specific laptop in question is a Samsung NP365E5C-S02UB
This feature depends on your mouse driver and not Windows.
Look in mouse options in control panel - or depending on your driver, see if you have something like "synaptics control panel", "touchpad properties" or similar and hopefully you will be able to turn this option on.
Expanding on @william-hilsum 's answer. He is correct. This depends on your drivers already installed. There is also a hardware part of this as well. Depending on the age of touchpad, will determine the max version that can be installed. For instance:
Computer 1: Touchpad from 2006 / Driver version 8.2
Computer 2: Touchpad from 2012 / Driver version 15.6
If I download the update from the Touchpad manufacturer and install it on both machines, the installer will automatically determine which driver update is need and if it supports the new features of the latest software. In this case:
Download update 16.2 and install
Computer 1: Touchpad from 2006 / Driver version updated to 9.0
Computer 2: Touchpad from 2012 / Driver version updated to 16.2
As you can see the older touchpad did not update all the way to v16. This is because the device is to old and is not compatible.
So depending on your current hardware and installed driver, it will determine whether or not you can get these features from an update.
I know for a fact that touchpads for Windows 8 and 7 are built differently so that they can support the new features.