So, this is just a quick tech tip so I don’t lose track of this in the future. If you’re using Windows 8.1, you may start seeing “helpful” pop-ups explaining new ways of using the OS. Designed to assist users in transitioning to the wonders of touch-screen bliss, they are nothing more than just plain bothersome if you do not have a touch-screen, especially since they don’t go away until you do what the screen asks.
In theory you can use your mouse to perform whatever task is being shown, but for me that has proven problematic – partly because I’m running Windows inside a VM I guess.
To kill these there are a couple of things you can do:
- Disable the touchscreen device in the device manager. If you don’t have one, it’s useless anyway. Just open up the device manager, find the touch-screen, right click on it, and select “disable”. Why does Windows add a touch-screen device when there isn’t one? Who knows.
- Run a command prompt as administrator, then execute the following command:
reg add HKCUSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsEdgeUI /v DisableHelpStick /t reg_dword /d 1 /f
That’s all there is to it. Simple fix, but there’s no way I’d remember it next time I rebuild.
