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I'm trying to trick windows 8 into thinking there is a touch screen connected. I've been searching the web for a way to bring up the keyboard that should be displayed once you click on a text box (while with a touch screen), but I've come up empty...

Can anyone tell if there is a way to get the virtual (not OSK!) keyboard in metro to come up even without a touch screen? Perhaps a setting or some work-around.

Thanks

ZivS
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  • The keyboard shows automatically on the touch screen devices when elements with possible input are getting focused. Let me understand : you're trying to bring on the screen the touch keyboard even when is not the case? – VasileF Aug 06 '13 at 14:54
  • afaik, there is no api to bring up the keyboard. [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17119178/how-do-i-hide-virtual-keyboard-for-select-element-in-win8-javascript-app/17120615#17120615) might give more context. – Sushil Aug 07 '13 at 08:07

1 Answers1

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One way to do this is to run your application inside of the Visual Studio simulator. To do this click on the drop-down in the debug menu and change the selection from Local Machine to Simulator:

debug-simulator

Then when you debug, VS will bring up a device simulator. You can then click on the hand in the upper right to enable using the mouse in touch mode:

simulator-touch-mode

Finally, click on a control that requires the keyboard, and you should see the onscreen keyboard come up.

More info on Testing Windows 8 apps using Visual Studio 2012 at MSDN.

chue x
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  • Thanks, but I was aiming for a something that is self sufficient, i.e a SDK command of some sort or a property of drivers. I want to know what Windows is checking before showing this keyboard, or even is it something that is not being installed (or is disabled) while installing the OS. It would be greatly appreciated if you could help me with that. – ZivS Aug 07 '13 at 07:41