How to get touch keyboard to work on windows surface

Gary Wright 0 Reputation points
2026-05-20T21:18:30.84+00:00

My touch keyboard stopped working. I've gone to settings and set the touch keyboard to always display. The touch keyboard will not display.

Surface | Surface Pro | Display and screen
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  1. Clary-N 12,235 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-05-21T09:18:18.94+00:00

    Hi Gary Wright,

    The steps shared earlier are based on the built-in touch keyboard controls in Windows. I recommend giving those a try first, as they help ensure the feature is properly enabled and configured to display under normal conditions.

    If the issue persists, you may try a few additional checks to further isolate the problem. If you have a physical keyboard connected, press Windows + R (otherwise, you may use the on-screen keyboard), type services.msc, and then press Enter. In the Services window, locate Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service, then ensure they are set to Running with the startup type set to Automatic, and restart the service if needed.

    You may also check your device drivers by going to Device Manager, expanding Human Interface Devices, ensuring the touchscreen-related drivers are present and up to date. Installing the latest Windows updates under Settings > Windows Update can also help refresh related drivers automatically.

    Additionally, you may try starting your device in Safe Mode to check if the touch keyboard behaves differently in a minimal environment. To do this, go to Settings > System > Recovery > Advanced startup, select Restart now then choose Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart and press 4 to enter Safe Mode. Once in Safe Mode, try tapping a text field to see if the touch keyboard appears. If it works in Safe Mode, this may indicate that a third-party application or startup service in normal Windows is interfering with the touch keyboard behavior.

    Please feel free to update me on the results after trying the above and I’ll be happy to continue assisting you further.

    If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".  

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  2. AI answer

    2026-05-20T21:18:59.94+00:00

    Use the built-in touch keyboard controls to re-enable it and verify when it should appear.

    1. Make sure the touch keyboard icon is enabled on the taskbar
      • Right-click the taskbar and select Taskbar settings (or press and hold on a touch screen).
      • In Personalization > Taskbar, under System tray icons, find Touch keyboard.
      • Set it to Always so the icon is always visible in the system tray area of the taskbar.
      • Confirm the touch keyboard icon now appears in the taskbar; select it to open the keyboard.
    2. If using Windows 10/11 tablet mode or no physical keyboard
      • Open Settings > Devices > Typing (or use the Typing shortcut: Open Typing).
      • Under Touch keyboard, turn Show the touch keyboard when not in tablet mode and there's no keyboard attached On.
      • When the Surface is in tablet mode and no keyboard is attached, tapping a text field should automatically open the touch keyboard.
    3. If the icon was hidden/disabled
      • If the touch keyboard is open, close it.
      • Right-click the taskbar and ensure Show touch keyboard button is selected (on some builds of Windows 10).
      • This permanently adds the touch keyboard icon to the taskbar; select it to display the keyboard.

    If the icon is set to Never or Show touch keyboard button is unchecked, the keyboard will not appear even if configured to always display.

    References:

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