[Fix] Windows 10 Touch Screen Not Working After Update

Yesterday I installed a cumulative update in one of my Windows 10 devices. The device was a touch-enabled Dell PC. I was using the device since long time without any issue and the touch screen was working fine in Windows 10.

Once the update was installed and I restarted the device to finish installation and apply updates, I noticed some changes in Taskbar notification area (system tray) icons spacing. I was 100% sure that something was changed in notification area and the icons were looking a little bit different to me.

When I compared the notification area icons with an old screenshot which I took for another article, I found the difference. The horizontal spacing i.e. gap between notification area icons was reduced a lot. Now the icons were displaying very close to each other. To be honest I didn’t like this change.

Following image shows the difference between notification area icons spacing:

You can see in above image, the first notification area icons spacing is very less. On the other hand the second notification area icons spacing is wide.

I was surprised that why did Microsoft make this change to notification area icons in Windows 10? I never saw such kind of UI changes performed by a cumulative update in Windows 10.

After a few minutes, I noticed that the touch screen was also not working in my device. When I touched on the monitor screen, it didn’t recognize the touch.

Now everything was clear! The Windows 10 update somehow disabled the touch screen functionality in my device and that’s why the notification area icons spacing was reduced as Windows 10 was treating my touch device as non-touch device. Actually Windows 10 automatically detects touch-enabled devices and if it finds a touch device, it increases the spacing between notification area icons so that users can tap on the icons with their fingers without touching other icons. Since Windows 10 was detecting my device as normal non-touch device, it reduced the spacing between notification area icons as previous Windows versions used to do.

I started troubleshooting the issue to force Windows 10 to detect and recognize my touch-enabled device. Finally I was able to fix the issue and Windows 10 successfully detected touch screen functionality in my device.

If you also face this problem in your Windows 10 device and suddenly Windows 10 disables touch screen in your device, this tutorial will help you in fixing this annoying issue.

Check out following simple method if touch screen not working in your Windows 10 touch-enabled computer:

1. Press WIN+X keys together to launch WIN+X menu and select Device Manager option. Alternatively, you can open it using devmgmt.msc command in RUN or Search box.

2. Now look for Human Interface Devices section. Double-click on it and select HID-compliant touch screen option.

3. Right-click on HID-compliant touch screen and select Disable device option. Windows will show “Disabling this device will cause it to stop functioning. Do you really want to disable it?” warning message. Click on Yes button.

4. Again right-click on HID-compliant touch screen and now select Enable device option.

That’s it. It’ll immediately activate and enable/restore touch screen functionality in your Windows 10 device.

The above mentioned solution restored touch screen functionality in my Windows 10 device and also enabled wide spacing between notification area icons.

Also Check:

[Tip] How to Disable Touch Screen in Windows 10