This post describes steps you can take to enable or disable “Show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached” in Windows 11.
If you have a PC with a touchscreen, you can use the touch keyboard to enter text with the touch keyboard.
If you do not have a Windows device with keyboard attached, you can turn on or off a feature in Windows that will show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached.
Currently there’s a checkbox that allows you to turn on or off. However, if your computer is enrolled in Microsoft Insider Preview program, and have updated to preview build 25188, you may see an updated feature that provides three dropdown options to control whether tapping an edit control should launch the touch keyboard:
- “Never” – suppresses the touch keyboard even when no hardware keyboard is attached.
- “When no keyboard attached” – will show the touch keyboard only when the device is used as a tablet without the hardware keyboard.
- “Always” – will show the touch keyboard even when the hardware keyboard is attached.
How to enable or disable show touch keyboard when no keyboard attached in Windows 11
As described above, if you do not have a Windows device with keyboard attached, you can turn on or off a feature in Windows that will show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached.
Below is how to configure it.
Windows 11 has a centralized location for majority of its settings. From system configurations to creating new users and updating Windows, all can be done from its System Settings pane.
To get to System Settings, you can use the Windows key + i shortcut or click on Start ==> Settings as shown in the image below:
Alternatively, you can use the search box on the taskbar and search for Settings. Then select to open it.
Windows Settings pane should look similar to the image below. On Windows Settings app, click the Time & language on the left, then select the Typing tile on the right pane as highlighted in the image below.
On the Time & language -> Typing settings pane, select the Touch keyboard tile to expand.
Then check or uncheck the “Show the touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached” box to enable or disable.
If your computer is enrolled in Microsoft Insider Preview program and have updated to build 25188 you may see an updated options similar to the one below.
Should the touch keyboard:
- Never
- When no keyboard attached
- Always
That should do it! You can close Windows Settings app.
Conclusion:
This post showed you how to enable or disable show touch keyboard when there’s no keyboard attached in Windows 11. If you find any error above or have something to share, please use the comment form below.
