How can I disable my laptop's built-in keyboard in Windows 7?

Question

I have a HP Compaq Presario C700 laptop with Windows 7 installed on it.

My laptop's keyboard is not working properly; some keys never work and some keys will keep on pressing. I've formatted the OS but it didn't solve my problem.

I bought an external USB keyboard and it works well. As some keys in the built-in keyboard activate themselves, I still couldn't work effectively.

After searching Google I tried the following steps to disable the built-in keyboard:

1. Disabled keyboard drivers:
   This didn't work because when the system reboots, the driver gets installed again automatically.

2. Installed irrelevant driver for keyboard:
   This failed - I couldn't install the driver. After rebooting it installed the correct driver automatically.

Can anyone help explain how I can temporarily uninstall my built-in keyboard? I don't want to remove it manually (removing the hardware cable).

Answer 1

Look at this article, it will help you to disable your laptop keyboard by uninstalling your keyboard driver.

• Go to Start–>Search type in gpedit.msc
• Click the file to open the Local Group Policy Editor and show Windows who is in control!! You want to go here: Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->System->Device Installation. Click on the subfolder Device Installation Restrictions on the left and on the right side you will see the possible restrictions.
• Right Click on Prevent Installation of Devices not described by other policy settings and edit this option, set it on ENABLED.
• Reboot Windows and enjoy its inability to pollute your system with its standard driver, open gpedit.msc again and revert the change so you will be able to install your driver.

Answer 2

I'm not familiar enough with this machine to tell you how easy it is, but generally the keyboard on a machine like this is end-user replaceable, so you could simply replace it. Alternatively, you could just open the machine and unplug the data cable connecting it to the motherboard. (I suggest this way specifically so that it doesn't cause you grief in the BIOS or something like that, if the occasion arises.)

Answer 3

For laptop Asus X82S using Windows XP, I was successful using these steps

Please go to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\.... You will see some files start with kb, change kbfiltr to kbfiltr_del. And you will have done it.

This will disable laptop keyboard. At the moment, I use USB keyboard. And no problems for keys anymore.

Answer 4

Installing the wrong driver for the laptop keyboard, as outlined here worked for me: https://superuser.com/a/788372/7018

Answer 5

In case you can't access gpedit.msc (group policy), what you can do is, uninstall the standard keyboard driver from device manager and don't restart the computer. Just sign out and log back in. You'll see your inbuilt keyboard won't be working. Tested on my Windows 10 Home Edition 1607, and it works fine. Now, I can safely put my external keyboard on the laptop's keyboard and not worry about the keys anymore. Hope it helps!

Answer 6

There is a way to disable a specific builtin keyboard with registry:

1. In Device manager, select Properties for the keyboard in question.
2. Go to Details.
3. Select "Device Instance path" from the list.
4. Note the string, it will be used later.
5. Download SysInternals psexec
6. Run psexec /s /i regedit - this is because even Administrators can't modify these registry settings
7. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum
8. Further navigate according to string from step 4.
9. Change the value of ConfigFlags to 1.
10. Reboot.
11. When you want to enable keyboard again, change the value of ConfigFlags to 0.

Answer 7

My try on Windows10.
1. Open Device Manager, right click Standard PS/2 Keyboard, select Properties, select tab Driver, click Driver Details and you can see a list of three Driver files.
On my laptop, there're:
C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\i8042prt.sys
C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\kbdclass.sys
C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\SynTP.sys
In my exploration, i8042prt.sys is my laptop keyboard's driver together with touchpad, kbdclass.sys is general keyboard driver and SynTP.sys is touchpad driver. Disabling laptop keyboard is also disabling laptop touchpad.
2. In my case, I need to rename C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\i8042prt.sys, find the driver file, right click driver file, select Properties, select tab Security, click Advanced, click Change, type YOUR_USERNAME, click OK, click OK, click OK, right click driver file, select Properties, select tab Security, click Advanced, click Add, click Select a principal, type YOUR_USERNAME, click OK, checked Full control, click OK, click OK, click Yes, click OK.
Now you can rename the driver file, I renamed it to i8042prt.sys_bak.
3. Reboot.

Answer 8

For me I was trying to disable "Standard PS/2 keyboard" and was able to do so by nerfing an apparently well-known ps2 service.

admin console

sc config i8042prt start= disabled

see https://superuser.com/a/1846929/39364

Answer 9

Installing a proper mismatched driver through device manager worked fine for me.

I have an acer. All I did was click the option which let me choose from a list of drivers. I installed a toshiba japanese driver and shutdown the laptop. When started back up, the keyboard did not work at all. (P.S.: I did not restart; I shut it down.)

Answer 10

I solved my similar problem by clicking Start>Devices and Printers, then clicking on the icon for the computer and clicking the Hardware tab in the Properties dialog. Then I double-clicked the keyboard entry to open the Driver Properties dialog and clicked the Change Settings button, which should require administrator privileges. Once that dialog opens, click the Driver tab, and the option to disable the driver should be available. Click disable and bingo, laptop keyboard all gone away. Make sure you have you USB keyboard installed properly first.

Worked first time for me.