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Stop on-screen keyboard from appearing when bluetooth keyboard is connected

@CmdrKeene 90,626 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2013-02-19T02:50:20+00:00

I've just purchased the very awesome wedge keyboard (an excellence piece of hardware by the way), and paired it to my Surface RT.  The trouble is, whenever I tap in a text field to move the cursor/focus to it, the on-screen keyboard appears.  It hides itself when I start typing on the Bluetooth keyboard, but that is quit jarring and certainly gets old when you're conducing a chat and are constantly switching to input areas.

Is there any way to tell the screen keyboard to back off until summoned from the settings charm?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Search, touch, and mouse

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-06-03T22:30:04+00:00

    I was still having this issue in Windows 10 three years after you posted it. My solution was to go to Settings > Devices > Typing and uncheck "Show the touch keyboard ...when not in tablet mode and there's no keyboard attached." Then, I put my tablet into desktop mode when my keyboard is connected and back into tablet mode when it's not. In desktop mode the touch keyboard doesn't appear; in tablet mode it does.

    This isn't an automatic solution - ideally the touch keyboard would know not to appear when a Bluetooth keyboard is connected regardless of whether the tablet is in touch or desktop mode - but at least this way I can control the behavior of the touch keyboard by switching modes.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-07-28T19:40:03+00:00

    This does not answer the question, at least for my device (Samsung series 7 slate). The settings does not include a way to turn off the onscreen keyboard when a Bluetooth keyboard is attached.

    This does not occur with a USB keyboard attached.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-08-03T18:45:39+00:00

    Windows 8 (not RT)

    Yes, the Samsung Series 7 Slate was sold with Win7, but Microsoft was selling it as a Win8 development system before Win8 was released. It has Win8 from MSDN running on it now.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-08-03T18:33:39+00:00

    Hi,

    -        Which version of Operating System is installed on the computer?

    The steps from the article provided in my previous reply is applicable only for Windows RT.

    You have posted your issue in Windows 8 category. I would suggest you to create a new thread with more information regarding the issue in Windows 7 category.

    This is to avoid confusion for others who visits this forum.

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-02-19T16:31:10+00:00

    Hello Shawn,

    Thank you for approaching Microsoft Community. I understand that you have difficulty in disabling the On-screen keyboard on your computer. I would definitely help you in fixing this issue.

    I would suggest you to refer to the link “How to use the on-screen keyboard” to know how to hide On-screen keyboard and to know how to work with On-screen keyboard.

    I hope this helps you to hide on-screen keyboard.  If you have any other questions regarding Windows, please do post it in Microsoft Community. We would be happy to help you.

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