Can we disable the charms bar in Windows 8?

Anonymous
2013-01-22T14:37:05+00:00

Old Title: when I move the mouse around the right hand side bar keeps appearing, when I don't want it to.

I recently bought a new computer with Windows 8 and have managed to work with it OK.  The thing is that when I move the mouse around, the right hand sidebar with the Search, Share, Start, Devices and Settings buttons (and the date and time, bottom left),  keeps appearing.  It is so frustrating as I keep having to click to get rid of it. Ironically, when I am ready to close the computer down, I have to fiddle around with the mouse trying to get the damn bar to appear so that I can get the settings button to shut it down. Are there any solutions for this?

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Anonymous
2013-06-05T09:31:15+00:00

"I am sorry to inform you that we do not have any option to disable the Charms Bar in Windows 8."

OMG, when I pay hundreds of my hard-earned dollars, especially in this economy, I expect to customize my product after purchasing. Did Microsoft have regular people try Win 8 for awhile before releasing it?

Got it!!! Its simple, go to control panel, synaptics touchpad and disable side swipe function, simples. it was really beginning to annoy me.

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Anonymous
2013-01-23T10:24:36+00:00

Hi Deborah,

Thank you for choosing Windows 8 and posting your query on Microsoft Community Forums.

It seems that you are not happy with the “Charms Bar” in Windows 8 as it always appears when you move the mouse pointer to the right hand side of your computer screen and would like to know if we can disable it.

I am sorry to inform you that we do not have any option to disable the Charms Bar in Windows 8. I can definitely forward your suggestions to the concerned department.

Microsoft has designed it for making things faster and easier. The charms bar help you do the things you do most often, like search, share links and photos, connect devices, and change settings without any difficulties.

For more information, please check this link:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/charms#1TC=t1

Hope this information is helpful.

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Anonymous
2013-07-31T18:02:19+00:00

"I am sorry to inform you that we do not have any option to disable the Charms Bar in Windows 8."

OMG, when I pay hundreds of my hard-earned dollars, especially in this economy, I expect to customize my product after purchasing. Did Microsoft have regular people try Win 8 for awhile before releasing it?

Got it!!! Its simple, go to control panel, synaptics touchpad and disable side swipe function, simples. it was really beginning to annoy me.

This issue was driving me crazy with my new week old inspiron 7720 windows 8.  I even spent time on the phone with tech support who suggested using an external mouse. I followed your suggestion to disable side swipe function and it worked perfectly.  Thank you.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-09-10T20:14:07+00:00

    now  b, n,  forward slash and space bar are not working!

    What are the exact symptoms?   This would be another good reason to know your product number to find your user manual and specifications.  E.g. one possibility might be that you have enabled NumLock on a machine which does not have a Numeric keypad.   In that case you would toggle the NumLock.   Use the On-Screen Keyboard (osk.exe) to do that if you can't find a real NumLock key (or equivalent machine option) to use.

    found the above Driver number 16.2.10.3

    I eventually found a path from Synaptics to Lenovo which suggested that that might be what you could be able to use.  OTOH the same page mentioned something about ElanTech (possibly both?), so I didn't bother mentioning it.   (I wasn't sulking about being called Richard, just exasperated.).   So, what happened?   Did you install it?   What are your problem symptoms now? 

    Also, please clarify what it is that you want to do.   E.g.

    • try to use the latest and greatest with Touch screen emulation (which you must understand that you will have to adapt to using regardless of how perfect or adjustable the emulation is now) or
    • try to use the latest and greatest (which would imply Touch screen emulation) but trying to disable the Touch screen emulation features as much as possible in order to leave you with normal mouse emulation only or
    • try to find an older driver which does not have any pretense of doing Touch screen emulation but only emulates a standard mouse or
    • disable your Touchpad completely for most use and go with a real mouse (of some kind).
    • Another possibility if you actually have a Touch screen would be using a pen only.

    Heh.  Trying a simpler search to reproduce what I had done earlier, now I have found another one:

    http://www.synaptics.com/resources/drivers

    (BING search for

        lenovo site:synaptics.com

    )

    So, apparently we can still get  16.3.15.1 there?  (That's the one that I can use but W8 keeps regressing on me.)   Good news.   Maybe I'll try to figure out why it keeps regressing when it appears to be working Ok.   With your more modern version of Synaptics Touchpad (Syn073B) you might not suffer the same regression that I do anyway.   But, for example, when I try to get that update installed via Device Manager it keeps telling me I have the latest.

    Also, do you know what version of driver that Windows Update or Device Manager gives you?  It's entirely possible that MS could have a version available for you to update to which is somewhere between the two versions that we are mentioning here or even better (e.g. there is a mysterious 16.6 that the MS Catalog is offering some Synaptics users).   Unfortunately this is something which can only be known by trying to get the update because we can not search the catalog for Syn073B, even though it may be there.   For example here is what happened when I tried that idea with another Lenovo user earlier after finding his Touchpad device version:

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1_pr-performance/exe-thumbnail-view-made-cpu-to-100-on-useand/8fbd508c-76f5-4504-8935-6f8af824649d?msgId=2ad48394-73bb-4d04-b916-dcbcecb42416

    (I can't remember if I have given that reference before in this thread.)

    I may try downloading that Lenovo package to see if the 16.3.15.1 documentation at least would be any more useful for you.

    HTH

    Robert

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-09-10T15:32:30+00:00

    So sorry, Robert I called you Richard [I really haven't been the same since getting '8' , now  b, n,  forward slash and space bar are not working! ] Ironic, we use computers to solve problems. Here the computer is the problem.  Anyway as above I found the above Driver number 16.2.10.3

     Regards        Malcolm Cutlan

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