Surface Pro 7 touchscreen unresponsive - windows 11

If incorrect drivers are installed from Windows Update, the touch screen either appears installed properly in Device Manager but doesn't work, or doesn't appear at all. Update your chipset (platform) drivers directly from the tablet manufacturer and restart.

spapakons said:

If incorrect drivers are installed from Windows Update, the touch screen either appears installed properly in Device Manager but doesn't work, or doesn't appear at all. Update your chipset (platform) drivers directly from the tablet manufacturer and restart.

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The tablet manufacturer happens to be Microsoft themselves! If you look at "My Computers System Two" below, it is in fact a Microsoft Surface Pro 7. I purchased it in February of this year. It was updated to release Windows 11 on Oct 5 and is fully functional with no problems whatsoever. There is something else afoot with other Surface Pro 7 users in this thread.

Just FYI, but my Lenovo laptop with a touch screen and running the beta of Windows 11 also has no touch screen issues.

I would go to Microsoft Support and download the latest Windows 10 (if 11 unavailable) driver pack for the Surface 7 Pro. Install it and see if touch functionality is restored.

See here: Download Surface Pro 7 Drivers and Firmware from Official Microsoft Download Center

I did a clean install with the final Windows 11 iso on my Surface Pro 7 and am facing the exact same problem: after every sleep state, neither the touchscreen nor the pen is working. The above mentioned tricks also works in my case.

I have also already downloaded the msi package with the latest drivers and firmware from Microsoft and installed them, but it did not help. The problem persists and is reproducible every single time.

It is a shame that Microsoft is not able to make their own devices work properly with their own software.

I would avoid putting the tablet to sleep mode. I would hibernate it instead. It won't take much longer to resume and hopefully won't have the same issue. Try that and let us know.

DonHS said:

I did a clean install with the final Windows 11 iso on my Surface Pro 7 and am facing the exact same problem: after every sleep state, neither the touchscreen nor the pen is working. The above mentioned tricks also works in my case.

I have also already downloaded the msi package with the latest drivers and firmware from Microsoft and installed them, but it did not help. The problem persists and is reproducible every single time.

It is a shame that Microsoft is not able to make their own devices work properly with their own software.

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What can the difference be between your Surface Pro 7 and my Surface Pro 7? Mine is working perfectly. You can see mine below in My Computers System Two.

The only thing I did differently was to upgrade from Windows 10. I did not do a clean install. My SP7 never ran beta software.

Probably something with the advanced power settings. The default settings for Windows 10 could be different from the default settings for Windows 11. So the clean installation is affected while the upgrade carries the settings from 10 and is not affected. Apart from the hard way, that is format, install 10 and upgrade to 11, you could also try to disable any wake timers in advanced power options. You must also enable hibernation if it is not already enabled, so you can test it. Also it is a good idea to access UEFI firmware (BIOS) and see the power settings, just in case something interferes with the touch screen. Set it to never sleep in BIOS and let Windows 11 set the device in sleep mode.

TraderGary said:

The tablet manufacturer happens to be Microsoft themselves! If you look at "My Computers System Two" below, it is in fact a Microsoft Surface Pro 7. I purchased it in February of this year. It was updated to release Windows 11 on Oct 5 and is fully functional with no problems whatsoever. There is something else afoot with other Surface Pro 7 users in this thread.

Click to expand...

I used the windows diagnostic toolkit and i ran a test since the touch screen was not working. It said to check about the problem to hold the power button and volume up button till after the windows logo for like 10 seconds then it will open a menu which if it accepts touch inputs then the problem was a software problem. In the menu it accepted touch input so it is some sort of software problem. I don't know about you or your surface but for mostly everyone else this seems an issue that they need to fix.

Most likely power related. The touchscreen goes into sleep and cannot wake properly. Avoid standby (sleep), use hibernation instead. That's why I suggested to disable any power management in BIOS

Having the same problem on my surface pro 7, only after the last update (which did fix the snipping tool, but broke more!).

Thanks @Talisman39 for the trick, worked for me after some practice!

spapakons said:

Most likely power related. The touchscreen goes into sleep and cannot wake properly. Avoid standby (sleep), use hibernation instead. That's why I suggested to disable any power management in BIOS

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In UEFI and I cannot see any reference to "Power Management" on any screen. How did you disable sleep in BIOS?

I didn't, just suggested it. Some tablets/laptops have power settings in BIOS, others don't. It seems you have to wait for an updated driver pack from Microsoft that works in Windows 11. In the mean time, have you tried to hibernate instead of sleep? Do you have the same issue?

Any news here?
Seems to be a general issue:

Still happening to me, but @Talisman39 posted a hack that works reliably for me.

Why use standby (sleep, save to RAM)? I would use hibernation (suspend, save to disk) instead. The internal storage device is too fast you would only wait a few seconds and the issue would not be seen. Try that. If the suspend option is hidden, go to Control Panel, Power settings and click the "Choose what happens when you press the close button". Click to enable more settings and then check the box next to hibernation (suspend) to enable it.

spapakons said:

Why use standby (sleep, save to RAM)? I would use hibernation (suspend, save to disk) instead. The internal storage device is too fast you would only wait a few seconds and the issue would not be seen. Try that. If the suspend option is hidden, go to Control Panel, Power settings and click the "Choose what happens when you press the close button". Click to enable more settings and then check the box next to hibernation (suspend) to enable it.

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The problem also appears when I close the type cover. Is this the same action as clicking the power button? I never use the power button to go into standby, I always simply close the type cover and have the problem

Have you tried to manually standby before closing the type cover? Do you see the same symptoms?

I noticed the same issue after upgrading my new Surface Pro 7 to Windows 11 today; I did confirm briefly closing and quickly re-opening the lid worked for me but this workaround seemed awkward so I changed my power settings from sleep to hibernate for when the power button is pushed and when the lid is closed, both while on battery and plugged-in. At first, it seemed to mitigate the issue, though now the problem just occurred again after resuming from hibernate. I'm switching back to sleep mode since it at least has a quick workaround compared with rebooting everytime.

Same here as described by Chu45. Switching to hibernate does not solve the issue but makes the workaround unusable, so I rolled back the setting. As there are a lot of users on the internet who report the same issue, I am really disappointed that Microsoft hasn’t offered a solution yet. I mean, the touchscreen and ink support is one of the basic and most important features of the device. And the SP7 is Windows 11 ready - so what’s going on here?