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Anyone with a MacBook or MacBook Pro can scroll by using two fingers on the trackpad. I haven't seen this implemented on a PC laptop under any version of Windows.

Is it possible, and if not, how come?

If it is, someone write the driver!

P.S. Yes, I know about scrolling with the edge of the trackpad.

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  • This is only in newer MacBooks. My old MBP (a G4) doesn't support any of those. Newer macbooks (unibodies) already support four fingers. It's a hardware issue, not just software.
    – Uri
    Commented Feb 15, 2009 at 2:58
  • why not? In 2008 I bought a refurbished HP 6785SE and it has no multitouch but then after updating Synaptics it can recognize multiple fingers at once. AFAIK all capacitive touchpads have multitouch ability. It's just not supported in firmware. Sometimes you just need to update the firmware/driver and it'll work
    – phuclv
    Commented May 24, 2017 at 2:39

6 Answers 6

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Most trackpads only report a single position.

2 Finger scrolling needs to report 2 positions, and thus, requires the trackpad to be designed in a physically different manner.

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  • Given time and research, I'm pretty sure one could guess quite accurately if a user is multitouching a resistive trackpad - but if it got it wrong it would be REALLY annoying.
    – Phoshi
    Commented Jan 2, 2010 at 0:48
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I believe the MBP trackpad support multi-touch, while most laptop trackpads do not. This means that it's not just a matter of updating the driver, but the hardware itself has to support it!

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For what it's worth, I can use two finger scrolling when I remote into my PC from my MacBook.

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I have a couple obscure laptops (Nobilis) a whitebox brand of some sort, which do have a two-finger scroll option in the driver. It is a Synaptics driver, so I would think they are made by Synaptics or at least specified by them. Unfortunately, these are all sales laptops so I don't have any in house that I can give you the version info from, but I'll edit when I do.

I haven't seen that option on any other laptop, but it does work on these few. So it's obviously possible. That said, using 2 finger scroll on a touchpad that's only 1.75" high and inset almost 1/8" into the housing of the laptop is a very different experience from the 3x4" flush trackpad on the MacBook Pro.

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Instead of two fingers, most PC laptops allow you scroll with one finger using the right edge of the touchpad.

I know that's in your question, but I wanted to make sure someone saw it in an answer, as well. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

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I installed windows 10 today on an acer S7-391 (mfd 12-2012). The trackpad now supports two-finger-scrolling as well as zooming ! (before, in win 8.1 this was not possible) So, if your hardware (i.e. the trackpad) actually supports multi-touch, there is a good chance windows 10 actually has already implemented the driver.

On my asus zenbook (mfd 2015), scrolling and zooming is supported out of the box, in win 8 as well as win 10, so the oem drivers exist, too.

(Thinking about it, most trackpads support drag-and-drop, which should already count as multi-touch... )

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