How-To

How to Fix an Unresponsive Windows 10 Touch Screen

Touchscreen misbehaving? Windows 10 has a few quick and easy remedies to get it up and running again. Plus, we offer a few tips on what to do if those automatic fixes don’t work.

While the Microsoft Surface is the flagship Windows 10 hybrid device, it’s not alone in the realm of Windows 10 touchscreen devices. Touchscreen laptops are getting more affordable, which means chances are, if you buy a decent new laptop today, it’ll have a touchscreen. As always, the downsides of formerly exclusive hardware reaching critical mass are compatibility and reliability issues. It’s not uncommon to experience issues with touchscreens being unresponsive or downright non-functional in Windows 10, relegating you to the traditional keyboard and mouse.

Troubleshooting a touchscreen in Windows 10 is similar to the steps to fix a touchscreen device running Windows 8.1. Check out the details (with screenshots) below.

Fix a Windows 10 Touchscreen

Several issues may affect the performance of your Windows 10 touchscreen. Try the remedies below to narrow down what’s ailing your PC.

1. Reboot Your Touchscreen Device

This might seem patronizing to suggest this, but with longer battery lives and advanced sleep and wake functionality, you may shut down your device for less than you realize. Sometimes, a restart is just what your computer needs to get that touchscreen working again. Before you spend your time and effort troubleshooting, try this first to see if it fixes the issue.

2. Clean Your Touchscreen

The first thing to check is to see if you have a dirty screen. Grease and dirt accumulate on the display after a while, affecting its sensors and making them less responsive. If you have a dirty or smudged-up screen, clean it up with a microfiber cloth.

For stubborn blemishes, you can use a gentle cleaner that’s safe for electronics. Don’t use rubbing alcohol or soap on the screen, as those chemicals can damage the screen even more. Instead, fill a spray bottle with equal parts of vinegar and distilled water, spray the mix on a cloth and clean it up.

Clean Touchscreen

3. Troubleshoot the Drivers

If the simple steps above don’t solve the problem, run the Hardware and Devices troubleshooting tool.  Open Control Panel and head to Troubleshooting > View all > Hardware and Devices. Then step through the wizard and wait while Windows 10 tries to detect a problem.

You might also want to select Advanced and make sure Apply repairs automatically are checked.

If a fix is discovered, select Apply this fix and restart your PC if prompted.

Apply Fix

 

4. Disable and Enable Touchscreen Drivers

This is the driver equivalent of turning something off and turning it on again, and for some reason, it sometimes magically fixes the issue. Hit the Windows Key and type: device manager and then select the Control Panel option at the top of the results.

In Device Manager, left-click on Human Interface Devices to expand the drop-down menu. Then right-click on “HID-compliant touch screen” and choose to Disable the driver. Right-click on it again and select Enable.

Device Manager Windows 10

5. Update Your Device Driver

If enabling and disabling the device doesn’t work, try choosing the Update driver option by right-clicking it in Device Manager (the same screen shown above). Windows will search the web and automatically find a newer driver if one exists.

Conclusion

Microsoft has embraced touch interfaces for all devices, from laptops to tablets that run Windows 10. Hopefully, one of these tips will work for you. If you’re still having issues with the screen, it’s probably time to bring it back and hope it’s still under warranty.

What’s your take? Have you had problems with a touchscreen PC or other device that’s running Windows 10? If none of the tips covered here worked, leave a comment and let us know what we missed.

16 Comments

16 Comments

  1. Leslie

    I have a Lenovo Flex 14 laptop which has always functioned well until a few days ago when its touchscreen stopped working. I have spent two days going through all the suggested tips on the web but to no result. Simple things like clean the screen, reboot, go to Device manager and disable/enable Hid touchscreen etc, trying various troubleshooters. I’m afraid “this device is working properly” is no help when patently it wont.

  2. Deb McClellan

    My HP Notebook-15-130-nr (Touch) touchscreen stopped worked after an update sometime in late May/early June. Tried all solutions offered. None worked.

  3. John

    My touchscreen generally works except along the border of open windows ie minimize /maximize buttons etc

  4. Tim

    I think that Step 4 is incorrect, or at least it didn’t work for me. I used the Microsoft suggestion, which is to disable the touchscreen drivers and then restart the computer. The drivers will automatically be enabled when the system restarts.

  5. Ronnie Sinclair

    I have a Lenovo yoga 3 (win 10 home). Touchscreen does not work on starting laptop. In device manager HID compliant touchscreen is greyed out. However if I make the laptop sleep before logon and then awake from sleep touchscreen then is connected and works perfectly. Don’t know why this works but does every time. I have not been able to find a permanent fix though.

  6. Nancy

    Somehow my touchscreen HDI touchscreen was removed. I originally had a touchscreen. However, it states none is available for my HP. ??? Followed all steps: Nothing worked. Maybe it will magically reappear again? It did before… Think the touchscreen feature on computers needs WORK!!!

    • Marcus

      The same exact thing happened to my HP Pavilion, the option for HID-compliant touchscreen doesn’t exist! It was working fine in the first half of the day and then all of a sudden it stopped working later on.

      • hanhan

        My dell latitude also its touchscreen sometime work sometime not work, it is very annoying. cannot repair by all effort, just waiting the good luck

  7. Lucas Farnbach

    My touchscreen stops working after I leave it for an hour or so. Restating it is the only thing that works, but this is hardly “a solution”. I’ve been looking for a solution to this problem for years now, you’d think by now they’d have fixed the problem, but then Microsft doesn’t really seem like a company that is about fixing problems, it seems to prefer distracting you by creating new ones. I guess there isn’t enough money to be made in fixing it

  8. Pam Nunn

    The HID compliant touchscreen does not exist under my HID Devices. This is odd because I have always had touchscreen. I did all of the suggestions but none worked. Any other ideas?

  9. RICHARD KATAYAMA

    THANK YOU for fixing my touchscreen on my old Gateway stand alone computer. It would lose or gain the touchscreen every Win10 update. Microsoft trouble shooters could not release your simple fix of disabling and enabling the human resources driver. Please note had to restart the computer after fix before it would work. BRAVO!!

  10. Val C.

    This fix is not working for me. I have a Dell laptop with Windows 10. When I get to step 3 (Troubleshoot the Drivers) I go to Control Panel but cannot find Troubleshooting. The areas I get are: System and Security, Network and Internet, Hardware and Sound, Programs, User Accounts, Appearance and Personalization, Clock and Region and Ease of Access. Where is Troubleshooting?

  11. alexander mcinnes

    I have a Lenovo all in one PC and at least once a month my touch screen stops working. I now know the symptoms of when it is going to happen, my mouse pointer starts flickering and shortly afterwards my touch screen stops working. My cure is that I uninstall the mouse then restart my PC. After this, my mouse loads and does not flicker and my touch screen works perfectly until the next time.
    Seems to be a problem with the ms mouse driver

  12. Vida

    I have an HP Pavilion 360. When I turned it on this evening, the actual computer came on, but the screen stayed dark. The screen won’t do anything. Just stays dark like it’s not on but the light on the left side by the power button is lit up like it usually is when I’m using the computer????? Any advice is welcome…..

  13. mct

    9/7/22 it seems no one likes to date anything here so I will. Have had a DELL Inspiron 660 CPU with a dell 2314T 24 inch monitor touchscreen both purchased in 2016. Worked until a couple of years ago. Nothing I have done has worked to date. I pay Best Buy for help; they cant help me. I have the original discs for drivers which I have re installed. nope. I have downloaded the microsoft catalog update for older drivers. nope. I have not seen the HID compliant touchscreen in my task manager. They tell me this is a hardware issue? How can that be? It does not have the driver? that’s a program that’s a software issue. Nothing I do will load the HID compliant touchscreen driver in my system. I have used the Dell update driver from the DELL website too. Nope. Is this a Microsoft issue or a Dell issue? why does the geek squad keep telling me its a hardware issue if they cant find the HID compliant touchscreen software in the programs? where is the touchscreen soft ware is it in my “Drivers and Documentation” Dell P2314T disc cd I have from the original pruchase date? Is it in the “Drivers and Utilities” Dell Inspiron 660 disc? which disc has this HID Compliant Touchscreen program and why havent the answers been found. What about the discs?

  14. Brian

    I have an HP Elite X2 G3. I broke the screen about a year ago. I finally bought an official HP replacement screen, installed it, and the touchscreen does nothing. Finger touch doesn’t work. Pen doesn’t work. I got a refund thinking the screen was defective. Ordered another. Finger touch does nothing. Pen works…but very jittery. Magnets fall out and I realize this was not an HP screen even though the listing claimed it to be. Got a refund. Ordered a third HP replacement screen. Does not work. No finger touch. No pen touch. This can’t be a hardware issue. Must be a software issue. I reinstall the original broken screen. It works perfectly, aside from the upper left corner is dead. I’ve tried disabling, reinstalling, resetting, bios updating, troubleshooting. Nothing works for all three screens. I finally sent to HP where the phone tech told me it would be $300 to fix. When they received the product they contacted me and told me that replacing the screen would cost $1459. So now I absolutely HATE HP and likely will look elsewhere for future computers. What have I missed. I highly doubt three screens could all be dead screens.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

To Top