One forum visitor tipped me of the option to install a Synaptics driver and enforce replacement of the original Microsoft driver.
My touchpad (of unknown make) doesn´t come with its own driver, it is using a standard Microsoft HID mouse driver. I am not alone, I have found quite a few people with the same problem on various forums, but still noone with a solution. So, I have had to stop using my touchpad and use an external mouse instead. Other touchpads that do not qualify may still be able to perform gestures, but if the PC is delivered with gestures enabled, there is nowhere you can disable them. Microsoft have in their wisdom decided that only touchpads meeting their specific requirements may be called Precision Touchpads and can have their gesture settings displayed in the Control Panel. The result? Everything zooms, all the time! Web pages, applications, desktop icons, everything! The touchpad of my Win 10 laptop has the mouse buttons integrated within the pad, so I very often have both my left and right hand fingers touching the pad at the same time. But gestures can also be a pain if they can´t be disabled.
Some people have asked on this forum how gestures can be enabled in their PCs.