How to Enable or Disable a Touchscreen on Windows 10

Though the registry editor can be dangerous if you don’t use it correctly, you’ll be just fine if you read our safe editing guide first. The bottom line is that this is a nice and quick way to disable or enable a touchscreen in Windows 10.

1. Open the Registry Editor
   

   
   Press the Windows button to open the Start menu, then type “Registry Editor”. Click the top result.
   
   

2. Find and change the TouchGate registry key
   

   
   In your Registry Editor search bar, paste the following:

   Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Wisp\Touch

    If that doesn’t work, navigate using the folder menu in the sidebar. Once you’re in the right place, double-click the “TouchGate” DWORD in the main pane and change its “Value data” to “0” When you’re done, click OK and restart your computer.
   
   If you don’t see the TouchGate DWORD, right-click in the main pane to create a new DWORD (32-bit) and name it TouchGate. Then, follow the steps above.
   
   

If the registry is a bit too intimidating for you, Device Manager is your friend. It will give you a nice, readable interface from which you can easily enable or disable your touch screen in Windows 10.

1. Open Device Manager
   

   
   Press start and type “Device Manager”, then click the top result.
   
   

2. Disable the touch screen
   

   
   Scroll down the “Human Interface Devices” section of Device Manager and click it to open the full list. Find the device named “HID-compliant touch screen”, right-click it, and select “Disable device”.
   
   

3. Accept the touchscreen disable prompt
   

   
   Device Manager will surface a warning dialog that says “Disabling this device will cause it to stop functioning. Do you really want to disable it?”. In our case, that’s exactly what we want, so click “Yes”.
   
   

4. Enable your touchscreen in Windows 10 Device Manager
   

   
   If your touch screen is not working on your HP or Lenovo laptop, it may have been automatically disabled in Device Manager. This can happen if it runs into a driver issue, for example, or there’s a resource conflict.

   To enable it again, find the “Human Interface Devices” section in Device Manager, scroll until you see “HID-compliant touch screen”, right-click it, and select “Enable device”.
   
   

If your touch screen won’t stay enabled via the above method, you may need to turn it on via the Device Manager properties menu instead. This will give you a wizard to follow.

1. Open Device Manager
   

   
   Press Start and type “Device Manager”. Click the top result to open it.
   
   

2. Press ‘Enable Device’ in the properties menu
   

   
   Find the “Human Interface Devices” section in Device Manager and press the arrow to expand its list. Double-click “HID-compliant touch screen” to open its properties, then press “Enable Device” at the bottom of the “General” tab.
   
   

3. Press ‘Next >’ in the troubleshooting wizard

   
   

4. Click ‘Finish’

   
   

5. Close the device properties

   
   

If you prefer the command-line or you’re on a GUI-less server install, you can use PowerShell to modify your Windows 10 touchscreen settings.

1. Open PowerShell as an administrator
   

   
   Press “Windows + X” to open the advanced Start menu, then click “Windows PowerShell (Admin)”. It’s important that you start it as an admin or Windows may not have the permissions to make this change.
   
   

2. Run the touchscreen disable commands 
   

   
   Paste the following command into your PowerShell window by right-clicking or enabling copy/paste shortcuts:

   Get-PnpDevice | Where-Object {$_.FriendlyName -like '*touch screen*'} | Disable-PnpDevice -Confirm:$false

   If you need to enable it again, you can just switch out “Disable” for “Enable”:

   Get-PnpDevice | Where-Object {$_.FriendlyName -like '*touch screen*'} | Enable-PnpDevice -Confirm:$false