If you’re like most people, you use your computer for work and entertainment. But sometimes you might need to use your computer without touching the screen. For example, if you have a disability that prevents you from using the mouse or keyboard. Or maybe you just don’t feel like touching the screen all the time. To enable or disable your computer’s touch screen in Windows 10, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Start menu and search for “Settings.” When Settings appears on your screen, click it to open its menu.
  2. Under “System and Security,” click “Touchscreen & Pen Settings.”
  3. If this is the first time you’ve opened this setting, Windows will ask if you want to enable touch support on this device (or any other devices connected to this computer). Click “Yes” if you want to enable touch support on this device (or any other devices connected to this computer), or click “No” if you don’t want to enable touch support on this device (or any other devices connected to this computer).
  4. Under “Touchscreen & Pen Settings,” make sure that either “Enable Touch Screen On This Device When Not In Use” or “Disable Touch Screen On This Device When Not In Use” is selected under “Use Touch Screen When Available To Improve Experience With Mouse And Keyboard.. . . . . . . . ." If it isn’t already selected, select it from the drop-down list and click OK.
  5. If necessary, under “Advanced Options,” make sure that “Enable Pointer Gestures” is selected and then click OK twice to close both windows.
  6. Restart your computer for changes to take effect ..

We’re all familiar with touch screen tablets, but some laptops also have touch screens. We think they’re pretty useful, but if you tend to use your laptop with the standard keyboard and mouse combination, you can disable the touch screen on your Windows 10 device pretty easily.

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Maybe you’re showing someone how to do something on your laptop and you end up touching the screen and doing something unintentional. Or maybe you don’t use the touch screen. It would be helpful if you could disable the touch screen, even temporarily. There is no built-in way of disabling the touch screen, but it’s easy to do so using the Device Manager.

To disable the touch screen in Windows 10, press Windows+X on your keyboard to access the Power User menu, then select “Device Manager”.

In the Device Manager, click on the right arrow to the left of Human Interface Devices to expand the list.

Right-click on the “HID-compliant touch screen” item and select “Disable” from the popup list.

A warning dialog box displays telling you that disabling this device will cause it to stop functioning. Since that is what you want, click “Yes”.

A small icon that looks like a down arrow is added to the icon for the HID-compliant touch screen item, indicating it is disabled. Now, when you touch your screen, nothing should happen besides adding more finger smudges to the screen.

To re-enable the touch screen again, simply right-click on the “HID-compliant touch screen” item under Human Interface Devices in the Device Manager and select “Enable” from the popup menu.

There is also a special Tablet Mode that makes use of the touch screen to interact with Windows. The Windows desktop is disabled when Tablet Mode is enabled and the Start screen is used exclusively.