How to disable gestures (charms bar, edge swipes, etc...) without changing the registry

Thank you, thank you, thank you! The chalms were driving me mad, I thought I was going to have to buy an old pc with Windows 7 or move to Apple. Did Microsoft not research this?

John

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've had a Windows 8 laptop for a few days and the charms bar/settings pages that kept popping up out of nowhere were driving me absolutely insane.  BUT, I finally figured out how to turn them off. 

I went into control panel>hardware and sound>mouse>device settings>settings.  From there you can adjust a lot of the trackpad settings, including DISABLE EDGE SWIPES. 

I have a Toshiba Satellite with a synaptics mouse/trackpad, so i cant guarantee this works with all models, devices, etc. 

Windows 8 for laptop is now tolerable!  Hope this helps!

I would very much like to turn these things off too but I have a Lenovo Ideapad and I cannot find the edge swipe options.  I have followed the instructions above but I've clicked on every option under device setting> setting and I have not found it.  I found Edge Motion but that does not seem to the correct item...  any help would be very much appreciated. 

Hi. Can I start by saying I'm clued up with some things, but really a novice compared to most of you guys on here. A BIG thanks to who wrote the original post above.

 

I have a new Lenovo G580 laptop and in the control panel mouse properties under the last tab I have an "Elan" smart pad. Under the tab there was a bullet ticked to say there was an icon in the system tray (that looks like a screen monitor of all things). When I double clicked on this icon in the hidden icons area it was there that I found the edge swipe setting. I've now disabled it and voila!! the side bar is now disabled via edge swipes. Thank f!*@ for that. This has driven me insane since day 1!!

Many thanks, and I hope this will help those with the new Lenovo Laptops. All the best. Jules.

Hi, Just wanted to say a huge thanks. I have a brand new Asus K55VD and the never-say-die charm bar was killing me. Found the icon in the system tray as you said and adjusted settings. Genius, thanks mate :)

I too have an ASUS K55VD and found your magic words - 'an icon in the system tray that looks like a screen monitor of all things' - a life saver. I wouldnt have known where to look otherwise and what to click on. Because of your remarks, I still have hair!

Found this when I was browsing, its simple and fast:

Open the Control Panel, click the Hardware and Sound category, and select Mouse under Devices and Printers. Click over to the Device Settings tab (you should see this if you have a Synaptics touchpad driver installed), click the Settings button, and uncheck the Enable Edge Swipes option. Click OK to save your settings.