How to Stop On-Screen Keyboard From Launching Automatically

In this article, we shall discuss how to Prevent on-screen keyboard from starting automatically and from appearing at login. The On-Screen keyboard is an accessibility feature built into Windows that can be utilized whenever the physical keyboard on your computer is malfunctioning. See how to enable or disable Touch Screen (by finger) in Windows 10, How to manage automatic login on Ubuntu Linux, and “How to change or add another keyboard language in Windows Server“.

However, the on-screen keyboard might not be needed when you are implemented certain lockdown scenarios or due to space, it consumes when it starts automatically as soon as you login to your computer.

With the later, this can be quite frustrating. To prevent the on-screen keyboard from starting automatically, use the following methods.

Please see how to Fix Windows Stuck on System Restore, and how to fix “Unable to change screen brightness and volume etc: Disable standard function keys on Mac“. Here is “How to stop an application from starting up automatically on macOS“.

Prevent on-screen keyboard from starting automatically Via the Control Panel

Launch the control panel and navigate through the following areas

Click on Ease of Access, and then Ease of Access Center. Next, you will have to modify the settings as desired for your keyboard

Modify as shown below

Via the Settings Window

Search for Ease of Access Center as shown below

This will open the following windows below. Switch of “use the On-Screen Keyboard”

Via the registry

This can be achieved by searching under the Windows search “Regedit.exe” and navigate to the following location

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
- SOFTWARE
- Microsoft
- Windows
- CurrentVersion
- Authentication
- LogonUI

Double click on “ShowTabletKeyboard” and set it to “1” to enable it. Set it to “0” to disable it.

Note: If this key does not exist, you can create it. Here it is set to zero (disabled)

Via the “Msconfig“ or “Task manager”

This can also be one via the “msconfig“ or “task manager”, then check under the “Startup” tab to disable (uncheck) any keyboard software that might be running.

Now in Windows 10 you will be redirected to select “Task Manager“, then select the “Startup” tab to disable keyboard software.

- Launch msconfig or
- Task Manager directly

Here I would like to proceed with the msconfig option

Double click on the System Configuration, this will open the System Configuration Window.

Screenshot of the Startup tab in the System Configuration utility, highlighting the 'Open Task Manager' link for managing startup items.

Here you can disable any keyboard software that is running

Screenshot of Windows Task Manager showing the Startup tab, with options to manage startup items, including a highlighted item that is enabled, and the 'Disable' button at the bottom.

Via the OSK in windows 10

Disable OSK in windows 10, Click on Windows from C drive. Then, click on system32, and open properties of “OSK”.

Screenshot of the properties window for 'osk.exe', the Accessibility On-Screen Keyboard application, displaying file details including location, size, and timestamps.

Go to the security tab, and select advanced. Change Ownership from Trusted Installer as shown below to the Administrators user, and click OK.

Image showing the properties of the osk.exe file located in C:\Windows\System32, displaying security and permissions settings.

Go to edit, select Add option, then add “everyone”.

Screenshot of the properties window for osk.exe in Windows, showing security settings and user permissions with an arrow pointing to the 'Edit' button.

Lastly, deny “full control” to everyone

Via the Command Prompt

You can use the command prompt in the following ways to disable the on-screen keyboard service.

Click Start, and type “CMD” in the Start Search box. Right-click Command Prompt or CMD, select run as Administrator. In the command prompt window, enter the command below and press enter:

sc config “TabletInputService” start= disabled

Next, enter the following commands below to stop the service.

"sc stop"“TabletInputService”

This will stop the service that was already running.

Note: To re-enable the service, user the commands: sc config “TabletInputService” start= autosc start “TabletInputService”.

I hope you found this blog post on how to prevent the on-screen keyboard from starting automatically helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session.