obligatory obscure reference

After upgrading to Windows 8 I discovered I could no longer disable touch input and keep pen/stylus input. The control panel option in many early versions of Windows 8 is missing in the release version, so there’s no obvious way to disable hand/touch input but keep the stylus input.

If you use the screen for drawing with a stylus, having your hand “help” you is not a feature, it’s a “I’m ready to sell this junk” annoyance.

Every guide I’ve found online contained instructions that didn’t work or instructions that would also remove the trackpad input.

A little hammering with brute force and I think I have a solution. I’m not sure how portable it is to systems other than Lenovo X220 Tablets running Windows 8, but it can’t hurt to try it and find out.

1. Go into Settings, Control Panel, Device Manager
2. In Device Manager, open the Human Interface Devices folder
3. Look for “USB Input Device”. There are only two on my laptop, at the end of the list.
4. Using the stylus, open one USB Input Device
5. Open the Driver tab
6. Click the “Disable” button, and answer the “are you sure?” questions
7. Test touch the screen with your finger to see if you can move the device window. If you can’t move the window with your finger, next try with the stylus and then with the keyboard controls.
8. If you disabled the correct one, close all the menus and move on. If you didn’t disable finger touch, re-enable the device, close the window, and try this with the other USB Input Device.