Two-finger touchpad swipe doesn't scroll the sheet tab strip in Excel (works fine everywhere else)

Your tests point to how Excel’s sheet-tab strip handles the touchpad input, rather than a workbook or add-in problem. Scrolling the worksheet grid successfully doesn’t guarantee that the separate tab-strip control handles the same gesture.

There isn’t a documented Excel setting to enable two-finger scrolling specifically for sheet tabs. The HP comparison is useful, but it doesn’t establish a driver difference unless both machines also have the same Excel build.

The most useful next steps are:

1. Compare File > Account > About Excel on both laptops, including the full build number. If they differ, test again on matching builds before changing touchpad settings.
2. On the ThinkPad, check Lenovo Vantage/System Update for the recommended touchpad/input updates for the T490. If the issue started after an input-driver update, consider rolling back that update instead. Don’t install the HP driver or force a different touchpad driver.
3. If the builds match and the behaviour still differs, report that comparison through Help > Feedback in Excel. Include that it reproduces in Safe Mode and affects only the sheet-tab strip.

For remapping, Windows’ built-in touchpad settings don’t let you assign a custom action to a two-finger swipe only when the pointer is over Excel’s sheet tabs. Some tools can map gestures to Ctrl+Page Up/Down, but that switches the active worksheet rather than scrolling the tab strip, and may interfere with normal worksheet scrolling.

So there isn’t a reliable switch to recommend here. Matching the Excel builds and checking Lenovo’s supported input driver is the best way to narrow down whether this is Excel behaviour or device-specific gesture handling.