How To Calibrate the Touchscreen on Windows 10

Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a big number of touchscreen-enabled devices that are powered by Windows 10. From simple tablets to high-end laptops, these devices allow us to interact with content and access information in a more intuitive way.

Despite the fact that this technology has come a long way, there’s a very high chance that you’ll eventually run into some issues with the touchscreen. No matter how good your device might be, the technology is prone to wearing out, which is why you may encounter these issues.

If your touchscreen starts acting weird or loses its accuracy, don’t worry, as it’s probably just a common issue that can often be solved simply by calibrating it. Unless there’s obvious damage to the screen or a hardware issue, calibration should be able to fix the problems with your touchscreen device.

If you’ve never calibrated the touchscreen on your Windows 10-powered device before, here is a quick guide that might help.

Calibrate the Touchscreen

Calibration is the process by which you align the coordinates of the touchscreen with the display. This ensures that your screen is more responsive and accurate. Here are the steps that you need to take to calibrate the screen successfully:

1. Go to Control Panel and select Hardware and Sound.

2. Click on the Calibrate the screen for pen or touch input option, which is under Tablet PC Settings.

3. If you have more than one display, you can select the one that you want to calibrate from the Tablet PC Settings.

4. From the pop-up menu, select Calibrate…

5. You’ll be asked to choose between Pen input or Touch input, so choose the one that suits your device best.

6. You will see a white screen and will have to tap on the crosshair every time it appears on the screen. It is important that you don’t change the display resolution until the calibration is finished.

7. After you’re done calibrating the screen, make sure to save the calibration data.

If you follow these steps correctly, your device should be much more responsive. However, if this doesn’t happen, there might be something else wrong with your screen. If this is the case, there are a few things that you can do:

Run Troubleshooting

Windows’ troubleshooting feature is a fairly good one. There are many issues that it can recognize and solve on its own. The same goes for your screen.

1. Open the Start menu and type “troubleshoot settings” into the search bar and click on it.
2. Now, click on Additional troubleshooters to open another window with the touchscreen troubleshooter.
3. Run the troubleshooter for touch input.

This should be enough for your device to figure out why the screen isn’t working and try to repair it. Unfortunately, the troubleshooting option isn’t very comprehensive, so there are still some things that you might have to do yourself.

Update the Drivers

Drivers are a necessary part of your device’s software that allows the hardware to communicate with the processor. Many drivers need to be updated on a regular basis in order for the hardware to work properly.

Having this in mind, if you’re having issues with your touchscreen, you might want to try updating the drivers.

1. Right-click the Windows icon in the bottom-left corner and select Device Manager from the menu.
2. Now, right-click on the HID-compliant touch screen option and select Update Driver Software.
3. You should select Search automatically for updated driver software, as this will browse the entire Microsoft database for the available updates. If you see that there is an update, follow the wizard and then restart your device.

In most cases, this should fix any issue that’s causing your touchscreen to malfunction. On the other hand, it might be the latest version of the driver that’s causing these issues. Not all versions are equally good, so some of them might be the reason why your touchscreen isn’t working.

Roll Back the Drivers

If it’s an issue with the latest driver for your touchscreen, you’ll want to use a previous version of it.

1. Follow the steps above to open up the Device Manager.
2. Again, right-click HID-compliant touch screen and go to Properties.
3. Now, navigate to the Driver tab.
4. Then, click on Roll Back Driver. This will bring the driver back to an older version, which might fix the issue.

If none of the above solutions work, you might want to consider seeking help from a professional. There might be some damage that you’re not able to see and are thus unlikely to fix on your own.

The Final Word

Now that you have a better idea of how the calibration process works, you can try it out for yourself if you’ve noticed that your touchscreen is malfunctioning. The process shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes, so you can resolve the issue in no time.

As mentioned, this won’t fix the problem every time. If the touchscreen issues persist, you might want to contact customer care for help.