How it was before
Before this Windows update - the touchpad was appearing in mouse & touchpadafter the update only the mouse appeared
the touchpad was unresponsive - when the mouse was unplugged, there was even no mouse cursor
very annoying
I suspect that if the cause was not the Windows update - it might have been the consequence of a prolonged sleep mode activated on the laptop - (as I was using an external keyboard and mouse - I didn't not realised there was a problem at all for some time.)
How I fixed it
I restarted when the Dell logo appeared I pressed the F12 button to enter the biosand from the Bios screen the mouse cursor re-appeared - which confirmed to me that the problem was not a hardware issue - from that I just rebooted and windows got the cursor back from the touchpad - and the mouse & touchpad would show the touchpad again (and even the pointstick, which I never use)
