Disable the touchscreen for a Windows 8 laptop?

Anonymous
2012-11-06T23:19:41+00:00

I have a Dell XPS L702x notorious for having ghost clicking issues, where the touchscreen randomly "clicks" on arbitrary areas of the screen (mine seems to be in the lower right hand corner, often minimizing all my open windows or opening the calendar), and through the upgrade to Windows 8 it seems as though an old N-Trig driver went missing which let me disable the touchscreen. Now I have no way to turn off the touchscreen, and while Google has suggested unclicking "User your finger as an input device" under Pen and Touch, I don't even have that checkbox available to un-click!

So: How can I disable the touchscreen on my laptop or is there a program that can do that for me? I am uninterested in actually using the touchscreen -- I'm more worried about being able to functionally use my laptop without sporadic clicks on my screen.

Thanks.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Search, touch, and mouse

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Anonymous
2012-11-09T03:00:43+00:00

I had the same problem with my wife's XPS 17.    I needed to restore basic functionality so disabling the touch screen was acceptable.     However, unlike Vikin (but like you) I didn't have the "Use your finger as input" option in the control panel.

I tried to disable the N-Trig device driver in the Device Manager but the driver did not seem to have be correctly installed (after upgrading from win7)

I went to the N-Trig driver download site (http://www.n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=Downloads_Drivers) and downloaded the new drivers for windows 8 (I have the feeling they were not there last week).

I then when to the "Device Manager" options on the "Hardware and Sound" page of the Control Panel.    

In the Device Manager display I saw a N-trig DuoSense Digitizers node with several sub-node underneath it (before dev driver install there was only one).

I right mouse buttoned on the item at the top, with a name ending in "Root Interface" and selected "Disable".   

This successfully disabled the touch screen.

Shame to lose the touch screen but my wife did not use it and I was in danger of my life as it was.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-05-20T20:23:51+00:00

    Okay so I had a thought. Maybe not having the "Use finger as an input device" thing and all the other stuff, might be a result of not being an administrator. If this is true, then PLEASE MAKE THE OPTION TO DISABLE THE TOUCH SCREEN AVAILABLE TO NON-ADMINISTRATORS. You get no freedom as a user. You should at least be able to do basic system stuff like disabling the tough screen. So, microsoft, that's my request to you. Give users at least a little more freedom.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-04-18T17:40:26+00:00

    i have figured it out on a windows 8.1 laptop.

    1. go to control panel

    2.click the arrow next to the word control panel at the top of the window and select 'all control panel items'

    1. now click on system at the bottom
    2. click remote settings

    5.a new window comes up, change the tab to hardware

    1. click device manager
    2. scroll down till you find human interface devices
    3. double click it
    4. right click HID-compliant touch screen
    5. select disable
    6. it will ask are you sure click yes and there you go! you can always turn it back on later

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-04-18T17:36:03+00:00

    i have figured it out on a windows 8.1 laptop.

    1. go to control panel

    2.click the arrow next to the word control panel at the top of the window and select 'all control panel items'

    1. now click on system at the bottom
    2. click remote settings

    5.a new window comes up, change the tab to hardware

    1. click device manager
    2. scroll down till you find human interface devices
    3. double click it
    4. right click HID-compliant touch screen
    5. select disable
    6. it will ask are you sure click yes and there you go! you can always turn it back on later

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-04-15T03:09:52+00:00

    thank you - that worked for me!  It's such a relief to have that turned off, I couldn't type on this little ASUS Vivobook, without the screen interfering. Glad to have that thing turned off.

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