Windows 8.1 -- disable touch screen?

Question

My computer comes with a touch screen. I may want that someday, but right now I don't. Is there a way to disable it? I am running Windows 8.1. Thanks!

EDIT: When I go to Pen and touch via control panel, this is what I see. There is nothing about using my fingers as input

Answer 1

Start the Device Manager, e.g., through Control Panel, or by running devmgmt.msc from

• Start > Run, or
• +R, or
• Command Prompt

Expand "Human Interface Devices" and disable the touch screen from there:

Be careful to not shutdown your keyboard and/or mouse!

Answer 2

You can disable a touch screen device with PowerShell. Here is a code snippet that works on Windows 10.

# Get 'Plug & Play' (PNP) devices by name
$devices = Get-PnpDevice  | where friendlyname -like "*touch*"
Disable devices
$devices | Disable-PnpDevice -Confirm:$false
Enable devices
$devices | Enable-PnpDevice -Confirm:$false

for earlier windows releases you can use WMI to get the same devices:

gwmi Win32_PnPSignedDriver | Where-Object { $_.DeviceName -like "*touch*" }

Answer 3

Try these steps

1. Press + Q
2. Type Control Panel
3. Go to Hardware and Sound
4. Pen and touch
5. Click the touch tab
6. Disable use your finger as an input

Reference