This is the first step, and the step that should suffice for the majority of users. The touch keyboard loads as a Windows Service by default. The most direct way to get rid of the annoyance it is to simply disable the service. To do so open up the Services menu by pressing Windows+R on your keyboard and typing “services.msc” in the resulting run dialog box.
In the Services menu that pops up, click on the “Name” column to sort the services by name, and then scroll until you locate the “Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service”. Double click on the entry.
In the resulting properties menu, look for “Startup type” and, in the drop down menu, change it to “Disabled”. At the bottom of the window, under “Service status”, click “Stop” to halt the service.
Click “OK” and then, upon rebooting your computer next, the change should be permanent. No more annoying icon in the system tray.
Solution Two: Rename the TabTib.exe
If you find that the touch keyboard pops up again, despite disabling the service as you did in the previous step, then you may need to take a slightly more drastic approach to getting it out of your face: by disabling the actual executable.
This step is simple and easily reversible, but does involve messing around with your Windows system files, so you need to carefully follow the instructions. To rename the necessary file, press Windows+R to pull up the run dialog box and enter the following location:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink
Press Enter to jump to the folder and then scroll down until you find the “TabTip.exe” file. We’re going to make some minor changes to the file that include changing ownership of the file (so we can rename it) and then renaming it so it no longer runs. These changes are completely reversible should you wish to enable access to the touch screen keyboard at a future date.
Right click on the “TabTip.exe” file and select “Properties.”
At the bottom of the properties box, click on “Advanced”.
At the top of the Advanced Security Settings window and look for the entry labeled “Owner”. By default, the file belongs to “TrustedInstaller”. Click on the “Change” button to change that.
In the “Select User or Group” box, look for the “Enter the object name to select” box and type “Administrators”, as seen below. Click OK.
Click OK on each window until you are back in the folder where we found the TabTib.exe file (you have to OK everything and exit out of the properties windows for the owner change to take effect).
Open up the exact menus we just opened–right click and select “Properties” then click on “Advanced” to take us back to where we were. In the “Advanced Security Settings” click on “Change permissions”, located in the lower left side of the screen, then click on “Administrators” to change the settings for that group.
In the “Administrators” permission window, select “Full Control” (it will check all the other boxes automatically, except for “Special permissions”).
Go ahead and click OK, and then keep clicking OK until you are all the way back at the file list we were originally looking at. Right click on “TabTip.exe” and select “Rename”.
Rename the file “TabTip.exe.bak”. This will change the extension from .exe to .bak, as far as Windows is concerned, and the file will no longer be executable–thus anything that triggers the touch keyboard to pop up will fail to do so. You can reverse this at any time by returning to this folder and renaming the file “TabTip.exe” without the “.bak” on the end.