Turn On or Off Key Background for Touch Keyboard in Windows 11 Tutorial

Nov 19, 2021

Staff

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off showing the key background on the touch keyboard for your account in Windows 11.

Windows 11 includes a touch keyboard you can click/tap on to enter text. This can be handy if you have a PC with a touchscreen without a physical keyboard.

The key background on the touch keyboard outlines and highlights the individual keys to make them standout more on the touch keyboard.

Contents

Option One: Turn On or Off Key Background for Touch Keyboard in Settings
Option Two: Turn On or Off Key Background for Touch Keyboard using REG file

EXAMPLE: Key background on and off for touch keyboard

Option One

Turn On or Off Key Background for Touch Keyboard in Settings

1 Open Settings (Win+I).

2 Click/tap on Personalization on the left side, and click/tap on Touch keyboard or Text input on the right side. (see screenshots below)

Open Text input settings

3 Under Keyboard theme, turn On (default) or Off Key background for what you want. (see screenshots below)

In Windows 11 build 22504 and higher, you will need to click/tap on Touch keyboard to expand it open first, then check (on) or uncheck (off) Key background.

4 You can now close Settings if you like.

Option Two

Turn On or Off Key Background for Touch Keyboard using REG file

1 Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you would like to do.

2 Turn On Key Background for Touch Keyboard

This is the default setting

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_ON_key_background_for_touch_keyboard.reg

Download

(Contents of REG file for reference)

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\TabletTip\1.7]
"IsKeyBackgroundEnabled"=dword:00000001

3 Turn Off Key Background for Touch Keyboard

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_OFF_key_background_for_touch_keyboard.reg

Download

(Contents of REG file for reference)

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\TabletTip\1.7]
"IsKeyBackgroundEnabled"=dword:00000000

4 Save the REG file to your desktop.

5 Double click/tap on the downloaded REG file to merge it.

6 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

7 You can now delete the downloaded REG file if you like.

That's it,
Shawn Brink