How do I turn OFF Windows Narrator?

Question

As a software developer I want to test my app under a variety of settings, so I played around with the Ease of Access settings on my Surface RT. Now I have the Narrator on and I cannot figure out how to turn it off again. It's making me crazy, because anything you tap on it just tells you what the control is, you have to double-tap to actually click it.

Please make my Surface usable for me again!

score 73 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 11 '13 at 02:08

73

If you want to quickly exit Narrator, press Caps Lock+Esc.

Source: Windows 8 Narrator page

answered Jul 11 '13 at 02:08

nc4pk

9,257
14
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score 18 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 18 '14 at 16:59

Caps Lock + Esc didn't work for me, but Windows Logo + Enter did:

Exiting Narrator

There are also different ways to exit Narrator. These are the two shortcuts many people prefer:

On a keyboard, press the Windows logo key Windows logo key +Enter. On a tablet, press the Windows logo button Windows logo key and Volume Up button together.

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 10 '16 at 01:17

3

Ctrl + Alt + Delete, click Task Manager, Scroll down to background tasks, click Screen Reader, click End Task. This is the only thing that worked on my computer so I am posting this.

answered Feb 10 '16 at 01:17

JEFF

31

Jeroen Wiert Pluimers · Answer 4 · 2018-12-15T19:17:51.157

As of Windows 10, you need to include the Ctrl key, which means that Windows + Enter is not enough: it needs to be Windiws + Ctrl + Enter.

Without the Ctrl key, you can also use Narrator + Esc, which depends on the configured Narrator key (Both the Caps lock and Insert keys serve as your Narrator key by default).

See Appendix B: Narrator keyboard commands and touch gestures - Windows Help for a full table with commands and explanation about the Narrator key.

Note that

[WayBack] currently pages at support.microsoft.com cannot be saved in the WayBack machine, so I have not included an archived link.
Caps Lock + Esc does not work on an RDP connection originating from a Mac

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 15 '16 at 20:33

IN Windows 8.1, go to the Settings, Ease of Use, Turn the Narrator off.

I'm not sure what turns it on, but this is the way to turn it off.

The sad part is that you have to know that it's called "Narrator" before you can figure out how to find setting adjustments for it.

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Nov 25 '14 at 07:37

0

A tip from the Microsoft Accessibility on my phone page:

Turn on Narrator quick launch and you'll be able to turn Narrator on or off with a quick button combo—press and hold the Volume Up button button, and then press the Start button button.

edited Nov 25 '14 at 07:37

Jan Doggen

4,657

answered Nov 25 '14 at 06:09

user393119

11

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 28 '15 at 05:59

Just could not make it die with the previous suggestions, so I did the following.

Windows-key + Q
Search for and run "narrator"
Open Task Manager (righ-click taskbar -> "Task Manager")
Go to details tab, find "Narrator.exe"
Right-click -> "End task"

How do I turn OFF Windows Narrator?

7 Answers7