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I have an application where I have to restrict users from using Windows functionality, so I do this by killing the explorer.exe process, and launching my application in fullscreen.

Everything worked fine until the Windows 10 1709 (Fall Creators) update, when the virtual keyboard won't show up anymore (when touching a text-box, or some any other user-input widget).

How can this be fixed (without downgrading the OS)?

The application is written in WPF, and it runs on a Surface 3 tablet.

harrymc
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mariusmmg2
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    Did you check Settings => Devices => Typing, if enabled "Automatically show the touch keyboard in windowed apps when there's no keyboard attached to your device" (or similar text)? – harrymc Feb 06 '18 at 13:31
  • @harrymc That's on, as it was before the update. – mariusmmg2 Feb 06 '18 at 14:11
  • Why did I get a -1? Please argument your actions, so I can have a clue on what I did wrong, thanks. – mariusmmg2 Feb 06 '18 at 14:18
  • +1 I also dislike these spurious downvotes. Try to run Keyboard troubleshooter from Control Panel > Troubleshooting > View all. – harrymc Feb 06 '18 at 14:44
  • @harrymc I can't access Troubleshooting menu while `explorer.exe` is killed. And if I run the keyboard Troubleshooting while the `explorer.exe` process is running there's no problem found. I think it my be related to this problem: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/apps_windows_10-winapps-appscat_productivity/windows-10-fall-creators-update-problem-with/0b88f28e-8ff7-427b-9915-66e7438dd39e – mariusmmg2 Feb 06 '18 at 16:34
  • You can access Troubleshooting while explorer is still there and run it after killing explorer, but I doubt that this will help. You might launch yourself the On-Screen Keyboard (osk) in a permanent manner. – harrymc Feb 06 '18 at 16:44
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    I have the same problem Windows version 1803 does not work well And with the last 1809 it gets even worse. When killing the explorer the virtual keyboard is no longer triggered. – Dorathoto Dec 17 '18 at 23:14
  • Note that if all you are doing is killing explorer.exe, a user can easily restart it via the task manager. You should look into using kiosk mode instead. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/kiosk-single-app – R Schultz May 15 '20 at 05:25

1 Answers1

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Got it, y'all. I don't need to kill explorer anymore so the keyboard shows up.

I'm using Win 10 Home. Here's the fix: (This will disable all edge swipe, but shouldn't mess with other gesture stuff.)

  Open regedit.exe, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI
    (If EdgeUI is not present, Add a new key under Windows, named EdgeUI.)
  Set AllowEdgeSwipe value to zero (0).
    (If AllowEdgeSwipe is not present, add a new DWORD and name it AllowEdgeSwipe, then set to 0.)

That's it. You may or may not have to reboot.

Cheers.

Guilherme Simão Couto
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