Solved On Screen Keyboard starts with Windows regardless of what I do

bob3d · Apr 1, 2023

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
I'd say if the accessibility/ keyboard off setting doesn't work "which is a weird option to be ignored" it's time for a refresh install.

I use an activated Windows 11 in a Virtual Machine, so when I have problems, I don't care that much. My base system is still Windows 10, which I will use until I see a Build of WIndows 11 I am confident in.

bob3d · Apr 1, 2023

Edwin said:
Paste perfmon /rel into a Run box.

I should have shown this screen:

WIndows 11 Reliability Monitor results.jpg

ThrashZone · Apr 1, 2023

Hi,
Well if these don't help then yeah life is short lol so just make a new vm if you don't have a system image when it didn't popup to go back to.
sfc /scannow
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

bob3d · Apr 1, 2023

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
Well if these don't help then yeah life is short lol so just make a new vm if you don't have a system image when it didn't popup to go back to.
sfc /scannow
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Found and fixed a lot of errors. Thanks for the commands. They are not unfamiliar to me, but I just didn't think of using them. Anyway, errors fixed and we'll see if that fixes the crashes. I suspect it will.

bob

Marcus Vinicus · Apr 1, 2023

bob3d said:
Installed it. Rebooted, then looked at Autoruns. It's quite comprehensive in its report. So much so that I don't know what it is exactly that I am looking at or for. Perhaps you can elaborate some.

There are numerous tutorials and video's online for Autoruns.
It isn't possible to give a detailed walkthrough here of why Autoruns is so useful but I can give some short comments about it.

There are many tabs in the applet, the key ones for me are:

Logons: Mostly shows apps that start during Windows bootup. Good for finding unwanted apps that are starting up during bootup.
Services: Lists all the Window services that are enabled during bootup.
Drivers: Which drivers are enabled during bootup. Very useful if there are driver issues during bootup (e.g. BSOD's caused by drivers at startup time)

With any entry it is possible to right click it in Autoruns and select the Jump to Entry... option on the menu and it takes you straight to the Registry Editor (Regedit) for that item. Selecting the Jump to Image... option opens up File Explorer in the folder where the relevant system file is located.

Another use it has is for tracking down malware at bootup time.
Unticking any app, driver etc. stops it from starting at bootup (discretion is advised when doing this).

bob3d · Apr 2, 2023

Marcus Vinicus said:
There are numerous tutorials and video's online for Autoruns.
It isn't possible to give a detailed walkthrough here of why Autoruns is so useful but I can give some short comments about it.

There are many tabs in the applet, the key ones for me are:

Logons: Mostly shows apps that start during Windows bootup. Good for finding unwanted apps that are starting up during bootup.
Services: Lists all the Window services that are enabled during bootup.
Drivers: Which drivers are enabled during bootup. Very useful if there are driver issues during bootup (e.g. BSOD's caused by drivers at startup time)

With any entry it is possible to right click it in Autoruns and select the Jump to Entry... option on the menu and it takes you straight to the Registry Editor (Regedit) for that item. Selecting the Jump to Image... option opens up File Explorer in the folder where the relevant system file is located.

Another use it has is for tracking down malware at bootup time.
Unticking any app, driver etc. stops it from starting at bootup (discretion is advised when doing this).

In none of those areas you you suggested (Logon, Services, Drivers) do I see anything related to osk.exe.

But thanks for explaining a very complex utility (autoruns). I have already used it to stop another slightly annoying program that used to plague me and it worked just fine.

bob

bob3d · Apr 3, 2023

I tried another "fix". I installed nop.exe which is a program that has the sole function of doing absolutely nothing. Then I renamed it osk.exe and copied it to my C:\Windows\Systems32 subdirectory. Now when Windows starts, it starts normally with no On Screen Keyboard coming up at all. I never did find out what is calling osk.exe up on bootup after looking at all the suggested places that were in this thread. But now I am not plagued with an unwanted keyboard that pops up every time I boot up.

I still can use the oncreen KB if I use the command oskb.exe if ever I want to, which is likely never.

bob