How To Turn Off Touch Screen On HP Laptop

Touch screens have become more than just a feature that provides users with better accessibility and accuracy. Although an incredibly convenient feature, there are times when you would like to disable this on your PC, especially if you’re not comfortable using it.

As a matter of fact, you can disable this feature on any manufacturer’s laptop running any Windows operating system. Disabling it can even help with mishaps caused by unintentional touches or ghost touching. Since the touchscreen counts as additional hardware that requires extra power, disabling it can also help you save the battery of your laptop.

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How to Turn Off Touch Screen on HP?

Most laptops have a dedicated key or a button to instantly enable/disable the touch screen. You can press the button to turn off your touch screen. But if the shortcut is missing or not working, you can check out some other ways to disable the touch screen below:

From Device Manager

The device manager is a windows program that has a list of all hardware connected to your PC. It lets you change advanced settings related to all devices, including your touchscreen. Follow these steps to learn how to do it:

Press Win + I and select Device Manager.
Expand Human Interface Devices.
Right-click on your touch screen driver and select Disable device. Although HID-compliant touch screens are common, the driver’s name may differ depending on your PC model.
Press Yes to confirm.
To re-enable the touch screen, right-click on it and press Enable device.

From Control Panel

Control panel is an older interface for Windows settings that you can use to change advanced settings on your PC. You can also disable the touch screen from the control panel. However, this option is only available for Windows 8 or lower.

Press Win + R to open the Run app.
Type control panel and press Enter.
Click on the drop-down menu next to View by and select Large icons.
Select Pen and touch.
Go to the Touch tab.
Click on the tickbox next to Use your finger as an input device.
Press Apply and then OK to confirm the changes.

Using Windows PowerShell

Windows PowerShell is another command-line interface of your Windows operating system. You can use it to make advanced changes to your computer using specific commands. Although a powerful tool, you can also use it to disable the touch-screen on your HP laptop.

Press Win + X.
Select Windows Powershell (Admin).
Type the following command and press Enter.
Get-PnpDevice | Where-Object {$_.FriendlyName -like ‘*touch screen*’} | Disable-PnpDevice -Confirm:$false

If you want to re-enable the touchscreen on your device, execute the following command:
Get-PnpDevice | Where-Object {$_.FriendlyName -like '*touch screen*'} | Enable-PnpDevice -Confirm:$false

From Registry

The registry editor lets you change the ground-level settings of your Windows Operating system. Tampering with this setting may be risky, as any unintentional change may break your PC. Backing up the registry is always a good idea before making any changes to your registry.

Here’s how you disable your touch screen from the registry editor:

Press Win + R to open the Run program.
Type regedit and press Enter.
Go to the Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Wisp\Touch key. You can also simply copy and paste the key in the navigation bar to access that key directly.
Create a new key by right-clicking on an empty space and selecting New > DWORD(32-bit) Value.
Name the new key as TouchGate.
Open the key by double-clicking it.
Set the Value data to 0 and select the Hexadecimal under Base.
Press OK to save.

In case your touchscreen gets re-enabled automatically, making this registry change will disable that as well. Your touch screen will stay disabled until you set the Value data to 1 or delete the key itself.

From BIOS

BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System, which is the most foundational program that allows you to manipulate your PC’s firmware settings. It directly allows you to enable or disable the touch screen on your HP Pc without having to boot into your operating system.

Although BIOS settings may differ depending on its version, the general steps are similar. Here’s how you do it:

Shut down your PC and turn it back on.
Press the F2 or F12 key repeatedly until it boots into the BIOS. Depending on your BIOS, it may also be Esc, Delete, F1, F10, or F11.
Search for your touchscreen device.
Disable the touch screen by using the navigational keys as shown in your BIOS.

Disabling it from the BIOS can be very helpful if your touch screen is damaged and preventing you from using your computer.

Using Command Prompt

You can use the command prompt on Windows to run the Pnputil tool. It is a special tool that lets you manipulate drivers on your PC. And we can use it to uninstall the touch screen driver package, ultimately disabling the touch screen. Follow these steps to learn how to do it:

Press Win + R to launch the Run app.
Type cmd and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter.
In the command prompt, type Dism /Online /Get-DriverInfo /Driver:“input.inf”
Scroll and search for “HID-compliant touch screen” under the “Description” from the list.
Note down or copy the Compatible ID.
Type pnputil /disable-device /deviceid "<Compatible_id>” and press enter. Replace the <Compatible_id> with the compatible id you copied before.