Laptops are not like the desktop PCs; they are quite different. Unlike the huge desktops in the office, school or premises, the laptops are portable, handy and the best part is they come with all the peripherals one could possibly need to work on it. The mouse, keyboard, processor, and monitor are included in the laptop, while you have to arrange it one by one for turning on a desktop. As much as it sounds so tempting, there is a problem too. Since all the peripherals are hardwired to the laptop, replacing them is very hard. For example, if the keyboard of the laptop stops working completely or partially, you can’t just simply disconnect them. You might have to open the laptop hood and change the entire keyboard which is pretty expensive. However, you can disable it and connect an external either though USB or Bluetooth. So, how to disable laptop keyboard and use external keyboard? Well, this blog post will answer you that. But before getting to that, let’s focus on some of the common reasons of disabling the laptop keyboard.
Common reasons behind turning off the laptop keyboard:
There is nothing wrong in disabling the laptop keyboard, but you should know that there is no easy way to do that on Windows 10 operating system. However, if you have appropriate guidance and knowledge, you can disable your keyboard and attach an external keyboard or re-enable it after the specific work with ease. It is a less expensive way to change your laptop keyboard than upgrading the hardwire. Also, it works the best in the time of temporarily disabling the keyboard of your laptop. Following are some of the reasons why would one turn off your laptop keyboard.
A. The keyboard is damaged:
A damaged laptop keyboard is very painful as it randomly presses the keys and creates issues over the time. Apart from this, it can make your system restart or behave oddly without any input. You can lose all your work with just a single press and you might not be able to recover them again. At this scenario, only repairing the laptop will save, but it is costlier. Therefore, many people choose to disable the built-in keyboard of the laptop and connect an external one.
B. Turning the keyboard off intentionally:
Sometimes, even if the keyboard is damaged, we choose to turn it off for safety measures. For example, suppose, there is something rolling over on the keyboard such as your pet or the coffee cup you just put beside your laptop just fell on your keypad and cause unusual keystrokes that can hamper your work. But if the keyboard is disabled, it will not happen. This is best for office environments where there are lots of tasks to do and you are working for deadlines.
C. Disabling the laptop keyboard for uninterrupted media streaming:
If you are watching a movie on your laptop with your friends or family, chances of accidentally keystrokes are there that can hamper your viewing experience. At this scenario, if your keyboard is disabled, it won’t cause any problem. Same goes for the working parents as well. Attending a meeting while taking care of the little one can get on the similar trouble by pausing or closing the window, on which the temporarily keyboard disabling will help.
Ways to disable the built-in laptop keyboard and connect an external one:
In the above portion, we have mentioned some common reasons for choosing to disable the built-in keyboard of the laptop. In the following section, we will discuss the possible ways of how to disable laptop keyboard and use external keyboard. Well, it might not be that easy like the desktops, simple to plug in and out the keyboard when needed, but is it not impossible. You can easily disable your machine’s keyboard either by using third party apps or without using them. Here are the four ways with which you can do that,
Disabling the laptop keyboard using device manager:
Device manager is the only platform on any Windows laptop through which you can access all the settings of the machines. And it is one of the simple and straightforward ways to access the keyboard settings and disable its functionality. Following here is the step-by-step guide to disable your laptop keyboard via device manager,
- Search for “Device Manager” on the search bar on the Windows menu to open the device manager of the system. Alternatively, you can also press the Windows logo + R to open a dialogue box. Type ‘devmgmt.msc’ into the box and press ENTER to get direct access to the system’s device manager.
- Once the device manager is opened, locate the “Keyboard” options among the other options and double click on it to expand it. All the keyboards connected to your device will come down under it.
- Select the one you want to disable and right click on it to reveal the further options.
- Click on “Disable” to disable your system’s keyboard. It will disable you keyboard functionality at that time. However, sometimes there is no disable option. At that scenario, you should click on the “Uninstall” and disable your laptop keyboard.
- Often it will ask you to confirm if you really want to disable your laptop keyboard or not. Press YES in the confirmation box and wait for the same to happen.
- You might be asked to restart your device right away after the action. Do it.
- To re-enable it, simply do the same thing up to the keyboard option locating step. Then right click on it and tap on “Enable” or “Install” to re-enable it.
This is how you can easily turn off/on your keyboard without any issues. But there are some issues too. Like, after the disabling action when you restart the device, Windows 10 might automatically update the drivers once it detects that it was the keyboard. At that moment, you might again have to make you way back to the device manager and uninstall the drivers for the laptop’s built-in keyboard.
Disabling the laptop keyboard by turning off the Windows default feature:
In case the above option doesn’t work on your machine and keep enabling your laptop keyboard even after several uninstalling it several times from the device manager, this step can be useful. By this, you can turn off the Window’s ability to automatically fetch the required drivers in the machine and getting back to the default settings. However, this is only available on the systems with Windows 10 Professional and Enterprise edition. This process is lengthy and needs attention to perform; therefore, follow the below steps attentively,
- Type ‘gpedit.msc’ on the search bar.
- On the left-hand side, you will find a list of different functions with files names. Choose “Computer Configuration”.
- Click on the section to get further options. Click on “Administrative Templates” and then “System”.
- Find the “Device Installation” option. It will arrow down many options. Select the “Device Installation Restriction” among them and look at the try of options at the right side. This section helps you control the installation of different built-in features or drivers on your machine.
- Find the option “Prevent Installation of Devices not described by other policy settings” and right click on it to edit the option.
- You will find the option “Not configured” or “Disabled” by default. Enable the option right away and click on OK button to make these changes permanent.
- After doing that, you are done now. Now whenever any intentional changes made on the hardwire settings will not be restored back by to the default settings by every Windows restart no matter how many times you do it.
- Now follow the previous step again. Go to your Device Manager in your laptop from the Windows search bar and follow the guide accordingly to uninstall or disable the keyboard driver to permanently disable your laptop keyboard.
Disabling the laptop keyboard by disabling the service that controls the PS/2 port:
If all the two methods shown above do not help you disabling your laptop keyboard, try this method. With this, you can alternatively disable the port that controls the data and input of PS/2. This would work as most of the laptop keyboards are internally connected through that port. So, disabling it means disabling the power which won’t be able to further control the data of the port once the service is disabled. To do that, you need to follow the step-by-step process given below,
- Search for “Command Prompt” on the search bar of the Windows menu.
- Select the application and take a look on the right-side section.
- Select “Run as Administrator”.
- A black window will open with a cursor.
- Type sc config i8042prt start= disabled.
- Now restart your laptop and once it will open the in-built keyboard will not work.
After some days, if you change your mind and want to re-enable the built-in keyboard of your system, do the same think up to the black window opening step. After that, type sc config i8042prt start= auto to enable your laptop keyboard and restart the system.
Disabling laptop keyboard with the third-party applications:
Though the above-mentioned three points are the most common ones that can disable your laptop’s built-in keyboard, sometimes they don’t work promptly. And, you might experience your keyboard have been brought back to life. In this scenario, we have to take help from some third-party applications that can block the functionalities of the keyboards and mouse. Some of them are the following,
a. KeyFreeze:
It is a simple yet useful application that locks your laptop’s keyboard and mouse. It is very straightforward and simple applications featuring a very easy to use user interference. It comes with a simple large button which will take up to 5 seconds to turn off your keyboard once pressed. Re-enabling them are also very easy. All you need to is press CTRL+ALT+DEL, and your keyboard and mouse are back to life.
b. Keyboard Lock:
Just like the previous application, this is also an exciting application that can temporarily tun off the laptop’s keyboard input along with the mouse. The operation of this application is similar like KeyFreeze, but the only difference is you will have to set a password to disable your keyboard and mouse together or separately. Anytime, you want to unlock them, just put the password and they will be brought back to life.
c. Anti-Shaya:
It is a simple application that can protect your laptop from unwanted and unintentional inputs by locking the keyboard use with a password protection. Even you don’t have to install the application on your computer, you can just save it to any location on your system and execute whenever needed.
d. Kidkeylock:
This is also a password protected application that can lock your keyboard and touchpad/mouse to protect your system from the unintentional inputs.
Above-mentioned all the steps are for Windows based laptops, but if you have a Mac-based machine, you can do the following to disable your system keyboard,
- Open the Application folder on Mac.
- Provide the “Utilities” menu.
- Double-click on the terminal and open it. Once it opens, put the following script: sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext/ and press ENTER
- The keyboard is disabled now.
To re-enable it, follow steps mentioned above up to the terminal opening step and then put the following script: /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext. However, the system might take it back to the life after a restart. Apart from this, you can also use an application named Karabiner to disable the keyboard.
Adding an external keyboard to the laptop:
Unlike the disabling process of the in-built keyboard of a laptop, adding an external keyboard is much easier. It will not only give you freedom of typing on a desktop keyboard, but also make your typing more comfortable and freer. Maximum external keyboard come with a type 2.0 USB port. You can start using the keyboard the second it is plugged in. Apart from that, there are non-USB keyboards available in the market, which can connect to your laptop’s Bluetooth adapter without using any of your laptop’s USB ports. Usually, both these USB and non-USB keyboards are very much popular and easily available in the Indian computing marketplace.
Last but not the least,
All the above-mentioned points for both Windows and Mac-based laptops are meant to provide you a suitable answer on how to disable laptop keyboard and use external keyboard. Though it seems easier and less expensive to purchase an external keyboard for your laptop and disable the built-in one than to upgrade the hardwire, it is really important to repair the keyboard of your laptop if it is broken or damaged. The use of an external keyboard should be a long-term solution in this scenario. Because the laptop is means to be portable and carrying an additional keyboard along with it hampers its portability. But if you are a coder or typist looking, getting an external keyboard will be a help as it offers more comfortability than the built-in ones.