It’s a well-known fact that Windows 8 user interface has been optimized for touch screen and some features such as the Start screen and Modern UI apps has specially been designed for touch screen devices and it even includes some cool touch gestures.

Users who are running Windows 8 on a touch screen device probably know that one can swipe-in from the right-edge of the screen to see the Charms bar, swipe-in from the left edge of the screen to switch between apps, and swipe-in from the top edge to see the app bar.

Just like touch-screen users, notebook and netbook users who are running Windows 8 with a compatible touchpad can also use gestures to switch between apps and see the Charms bar. On a compatible notebook, you can move your finger from the right edge of the touchpad to activate the Charms bar, swipe-in from the top edge to see the app bar and swipe-in from the left edge to switch between apps (see all touchpad gestures in Windows 8).

These touchpad gestures are really helpful for users who don’t like to use keyboard shortcuts. But there are some users who really don’t like these touchpad gestures and want to disable them.

In this guide, we are going to show you how to disable swiping from the top, swiping from the left, and swiping from the right gestures in Windows 8 on a notebook. Please note that this guide is only for notebooks/netbooks using Synaptics touchpad.

NOTE: If you are on Windows 10, please refer to how to turn on or off touchpad gestures in Windows 10 guide.

To disable touchpad gestures in Windows 8

Step 1: Before starting the actual procedure, we suggest you create a manual system restore point as we are going to edit the Registry.

Step 2: Copy the following registry code in Notepad and then save the file as Touch.reg file. Make sure that you save the file with .reg extension.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Right Edge Pull] “ActionType”=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Left Edge Pull] “ActionType”=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Right Edge Pull Extended Zone] “ActionType”=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Top Edge Pull] “ActionType”=dword:00000000

Step 3: Double-click on Touch.reg file, click Yes for the prompt, and then click Ok.

Step 4: Reboot your Windows 8 PC to disable the above-mentioned gestures. Good luck!

To enable these disabled gestures again, follow the given below instructions:

Step 1: Copy the below registry code in Notebook, save it as TouchEnable.reg file.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Right Edge Pull] “ActionType”=dword:00000002 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Left Edge Pull] “ActionType”=dword:00000002 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Right Edge Pull Extended Zone] “ActionType”=dword:00000002 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Top Edge Pull] “ActionType”=dword:00000002

Step 2: Double-click on the file, click Yes, and then click Ok when you see confirmation message.

Step 3: Reboot your computer. That’s it!