Laptop keyboard misbehaving or not working correctly? Follow these simple steps to deactivate, turn off, or disable the laptop keyboard in Windows 10.
Every laptop, no matter how cheap or expensive it is, has a built-in keyboard. Generally, laptop keyboards are pretty reliable and work as expected. However, there might be situations where you don’t want to use a laptop keyboard. Those situations include but are not limited to not liking the laptop keyboard, ghost typing problems, hardware issues, unreliability, etc.
In those cases, you can disable the laptop keyboard to avoid accidental key presses. Even after turning off the built-in laptop keyboard, you can attach an external wired or wireless keyboard and type on it. That way, you don’t lose functionality while avoiding what you don’t want to use.
In this quick and straightforward Windows 10 guide, let me show you how to turn off the laptop keyboard.
Methodology
Since you cannot simply unplug the built-in laptop keyboard, we must find a software method to disable the laptop keyboard.
The problem is that the keyboard is considered an integral part of a computer/laptop, and Windows doesn’t let you disable it easily. So, we are going to do it in a roundabout way. i.e., first, we uninstall the keyboard driver and then prevent Windows from automatically installing it. Since every hardware device requires a driver to function, the laptop keyboard is essentially disabled without the keyboard driver.
To make this happen, we will use the Group Policy Editor. As such, you should be using Windows 10 Pro edition. If you are running Windows 10 Home Edition, you cannot make the required changes.
Important note: Before proceeding, unplug any connected external keyboard. It reduces confusion when trying to get hardware IDs.
Disable laptop keyboard in Windows
There are two major things we must do. First, prohibit Windows 10 from auto-installing laptop keyboard drivers. Second, uninstall the laptop keyboard drive.
Follow these steps to disable the keyboard driver.
1. First, we must get the laptop keyboard’s Hardware ID. We use this ID to block auto driver update via Group Policy Editor. So, right-click on the Start menu and select the “Device Manager” option. Next, expand the “Keyboard” section, right-click on the keyboard device and select the “Properties” option.
2. In the Properties window, go to the “Details” tab and select “Hardware Ids” from the dropdown menu. Next, right-click on the first ID in the Value section and select the “Copy” option. After copying, close the Properties window.
3. Now, press the “Win + R” shortcut, type “gpedit.msc,” and press Enter. This action will open the Group Policy Editor.
4. In the Group Policy Editor, go to the “Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Device Installation -> Device Installation Restrictions” folder. Here, find and double-click on the “Prevent installation of devices that match any of these device instance IDs” policy.
5. Here, select the “Enabled” option and then click on the “Show” button under the “Options” section.
6. Double-click on the empty field and paste the earlier copied Hardware ID. After that, click the “Ok” button.
7. Click the “Apply” and “Ok” buttons in the policy properties window and close the Group Policy Editor.
8. Now, open the Device Manager.
9. In the device manager, expand the “Keyboard” section, right-click on the keyboard device and select the “Uninstall device” option.
10. Windows will show a confirmation window. Click the “Uninstall” button.
11. After uninstalling, Windows will prompt you to restart the system. Click “Yes” to continue.
12. That is it. With that, you have disabled the laptop keyboard.
Enable laptop keyboard
To enable the laptop keyboard, disable the “Prevent installation of devices that match any of these device instance IDs” policy and restart the system. After restarting, Windows will automatically install the keyboard driver and enables it back.
I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below, and I will try to help as much as possible.
Like this article, check out these useful Windows 10 keyboard shortcuts.
