Forum Discussion
Excel selects wrong cell
On my side we've tried almost all the above options but to no avail. However, I note the mention of disabling touchpad, and this was something I started experimenting with yesterday and which I will be checking further. It would be a problem for me if this were a solution, as I use the touchpad and a trackball mouse, for accessibility and convenience reasons. But if it solved it, it could be useful when working on certain worksheets where it's most essential to avoid the error (i.e. where it's crucial I don't miss Excel damaging my data without my realising it).
People have indeed found various ways to reset the issue, but these are of course a massive inconvenience to have to keep actioning, repeatedly. My solution of fast up-down touchpad scroll is perhaps the best I've found, but it's still galling.
Microsoft need to respect paying customers, their quality of life, and their mental health, and fix the problem. It's very much changed how I feel about my work, and for that, I have to say I despise Microsoft.
From what you’ve described, the touchpad seems to be a critical variable—disabling it might temporarily stop the misalignment, but at a huge cost to accessibility and workflow. The fast up-down scroll trick is clever as a workaround, but I get why it feels galling—no one should have to work around a core function just to avoid silent data corruption.
This isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s impacting your trust in the software and your sense of control over your work.
If it helps, here are some nuanced strategies people have tried when they can’t disable the touchpad entirely:
Use a separate dedicated device for high-risk worksheets – For certain files where accuracy is critical, some users temporarily switch to a different PC or laptop without a touchpad, so the issue doesn’t even have a chance to trigger.
Virtual machine / sandbox environment – Running Excel in a VM or remote desktop session can sometimes isolate input issues, because the VM can ignore the touchpad input entirely.
Macro or monitoring workaround – Some advanced users set up a simple VBA script that warns or locks the worksheet if unexpected cell selections occur. It’s not perfect, but it can prevent silent mistakes.
High DPI / display scaling adjustments – Oddly enough, some users find toggling Windows display scaling between 100%, 125%, or 150% can influence how Excel interprets pointer locations, even with touchpads.
The core truth is what you’re expressing: until Microsoft directly fixes this, any “solution” is a compromise between convenience and safety.
Thank you. Out of interest, which AI chat tool are you using for your responses? I use Gemini, is this same for you?
I use several AI tools where I can compare and check, and then combine them with my own comments or experience. It doesn't always work; sometimes I have to teach the AIs how to solve certain problems, and sometimes they give me a different idea or approach that I hadn't considered at the time. In any case, in the end, everyone learned something 🙂.