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

Thanks you. Edge swipes were making me insane.

Attention all desperate people who still suffer from this **** problem.

I learned that there is no solution to this problem.

Downgrading back to Win 7 is not allowed unless you PAY for the downgrade rights by purchasing Win8 PRO, and even then it's a huge gamble that Win7 will even run on your machine.

Having learned all that, I **** CANNED my laptop and bought a great little Toshiba win Win7.

Problem SOLVED!

**** You, Microsoft.

Have a nice day!

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!

Thanks! I have a Toshiba Satellite as well. This made Windows 8 much, MUCH tolerable!

Thank you Jules, I didn't fancy doing all that technical stuff that others have listed and also have a lenovo- your simple solution has worked for me

1, bottom right of desktop (nxt to battery level and wifi connection) click on the tiny triangle 'show hidden icons'

2, click on ELAN pointing device (like you say looks like a monitor with a blue light in the centre)

3, one finger - edge swipe (4th down) - disable it

4, voila no more stupid charms