Tips for using a Multitouch Monitor with Windows 10

If you’re running a multi touch monitor on Windows 10, you might need to make some settings changes

Typically your monitor will be plug and play but if not here are a couple of things to check as well as some usability tweaks you can make:

Set Your Touchscreen as the Primary Display

  1. Right Click on your windows desktop
  2. Select ‘Display Settings’
  3. Select Your Touchscreen Monitor From the numbered boxes at the top, you can use the ‘Identify Displays’ button if you need help determining which number corresponds to which monitor.
  4. In the resulting Dialog Box, locate the ‘Multiple Displays’ section near the bottom
  5. Check the ‘Make This My Main Display’ checkbox (being sure that you have highlighted the correct monitor mentioned in the above steps.

A quick explination:

  • If you are running multiple monitors, and you are extending (not mirroring) the displays Windows 10 will only support one touchscreen.
  • In the ‘extended display’ setup, the touch events generated by the touchscreen monitor will only affect the primary display. In other words, if you have your touchscreen setup as an extended monitor instead of the primary, tapping on the touchscreen will actually act as if you are clicking the mouse on the primary monitor.

Adjust Tablet Mode Settings

  1. Right Click on your windows desktop
  2. Select ‘Display Settings’
  3. In the right column of the dialog box that pops up, click the ‘Tablet Mode’ section.
  4. Adjust the settings in this section to your liking. Forcing tablet mode has not been required in our experience but it

Adjust Pen and Touch Control Panel Settings

  1. Open the Start Menu, Type ‘Control Panel’ and select the Control Panel option
  2. In the Control Panel Dialog, near the top right corner click on the drop down near ‘View By’ and choose ‘Small icons’.
  3. Navigate to and click on the ‘Pen and Touch’ item in the Control Panel
  4. Adjust the settings in this section to your tastes. We typically uncheck the ‘Show Visual Feedback While Touching The Screen’ option

10 Comments

  • So disgusted with Microsoft...hours and dollars spent on buying hardware and software that states it is Windows 10 compatible only to find it is almost always untrue...often undermined by MS's "improvements" which removed what use to work. The latest was the October 2018 version of Windows 10 which now will only support touch on the primary display...yet was supposed to support multiple monitors. And after years of patches on everything from Xp and Vista...the move to Windows 10 was supposedly to support devices with touch input. My application requires multiple touch input displays. Now I find I should have just gone to the Apple camp...there stuff seems to work!
    • Yes, I agree, they are frustrating, but at least they have put in the effort to support multi-touch in their desktop OS. Apple has all but outright confirmed that it never plans to do as much with their operating system :-/.
    • Jeff Chartier
      Have you found a solution to this? As I understood several years ago, Windows does support multiple touchscreens in an expanded desktop array. In the past few years I have had up to six touchscreens (three being the same type / same manufacturer and three not).. They were working fine and now as of Jan 2022 we are suddenly having issues with them staying calibrated. I don’t know if this is a USB/HID issue, driver issue for the touchscreens, a registry issue or what. It’s been difficult to nail down and am now looking at 3rd party management software but don’t want to have to go that route unless really necessary.
    • Just got a touchscreen monitor to add to my 3 regular monitors in landscape. I could not nor wanted to make the touchscreen my main display because of my existing setup. I found this video that solved my problem. https://youtu.be/bZ_zD4IdvFs Touch cannot go through hdmi apparently, so you must connect a display cable (hdmi, displayport, type c) AND a type c cable to send the touch signal. I have an hdmi cable for video and audio, a type c cable for power, and a type c cable going to my type c pci connection in the pc. After you ensure this setup up, search control panel for "calibrate touch". after dialog appears, choose setup... all screens will turn white. When text appears on touchscreen monitor, press the enter key... TADA it works!!! it worked for me anyhow. Hope this helps. The video explains better than me, but I tried to save everyone a click or two by getting a quick guide here... HAIL NIMROD!!!
  • right click windows start menu button and then click un run control /name Microsoft.TabletPCSettings Now you can calibrate which display should get the input of your touchscreen. ;)
  • i think im going to cry ive read several times windows 10 supports multiple touch screens and ive got 2weeks wages sitting on the desk that windows wont add touch to .ive tried at least 7 foolproff ways of getting this to work and none worked. ive allso heard many insist mucht to there anoyance that win 10 doesnt do this , this problem has been hear scince the implemention of win 10 surely theres a a app or update to install to fix the problem like its been 6 years, im completely loath to install win 8.1 where it works. however isle try the work around above but its google reputation is against it working
  • as admin, run this command line: control.exe /name Microsoft.TabletPCSettings Click on Setup, follow the instructions. Done. I never found another way to display this hidden "Tablet PC settings" window.

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