Windows 10: How to prevent Windows switching keyboards when there is a physical keyboard attached

I have a desktop computer that has a English UK keyboard and I want to carry on using it. I also have a new laptop/tablet that has a English US keyboard as I live in NZ and can only get US keyboards, and a Win 10 phone set to English UK.

The problem is that on both the PCs the keyboards often switch to the wrong type without me forcing it, i.e. the UK physical keyboard layout (desktop PC) changes to US (the " and @ swap places), or vice versa (the laptop PC changes from physical US to logical UK and the " and @ swap places). This often happens when using browsers and the like to write a email address, so inconvenient. Are the apps forcing a keyboard? it's hard to work out what's happening here.

The workaround is unsatisfactory - Windows-spacebar to switch keyboards is time consuming and should not be necessary. I would very much like to have the physical keyboard honoured - that's because I peck at the keys, I'm not a typist and look at the keys whilst typing.

:)

 

How do I disable the touch keyboard while there is a physical keyboard attached?

I have a Surface Pro 4 and like to use a bluetooth keyboard with it, but not necessarily a mouse. This means I prefer to keep it in tablet mode as the interface works a lot better for touch. It works fine with physical keyboard in tablet mode, apart from
it seems to insist that you also use the touch keyboard.

The problem is that the touch keyboard keeps popping up whenever I switch to a window where typing is possible. Sometimes it just flashes on the screen but sometimes it stays open until dismissed or I start typing, which is rather annoying and in some applications
prevents me from working.

So, how do I get Windows to not show the touch keyboard while there is a physical keyboard attached?

 

No virtual keyboard in tablet mode with a physical keyboard attached

Clean installs of Windows 10 on either a Surface w/Keyboard or an Ultrabook (doesn't matter what kind test this in a store with multiple Surfaces or Ultrabooks same thing on all devices). When you place the device in tablet mode the virtual keyboard is
not available which makes the device completely useless. This is not a device or corrupt Windows install this is a clean install of Windows 10 and appears to be a design bug or flaw so reinstalling windows does not fix the issue. It is not related to a
certain device either as this can be replicated on several different machine types as long as they have a physical keyboard attached. On a surface if you remove the physical keyboard and put it in tablet mode the virtual keyboard appears but if you leave
it connected you cannot work in tablet mode. Is there a Windows 10 patch to fix this issue?

 

How to prevent windows from switching keyboard layout on the fly ?


In the past I also found Windows sometimes randomly changed the language by itself, however it seems to have stopped doing that now. When I last clean installed Windows I did change the way I had the languages setup, which 'may' be the reason that it's OK for me now. You could try setting it up as per the second screenshot below, however if you already have Windows setup this way anyway, then I'm afraid I'm not sure what causes it.

How I originally had Windows set up (when it used to change by itself) was I had one language as the default Windows language (English United Kingdom) and then two keyboards for that language (United Kingdom and United States International Keyboards). When I needed to type in a language with accented letters, I'd just switch to the United States International keyboard by using either Win Key + Space or the taskbar icon.






How I have it setup now (which Windows doesn't seem to change by itself anymore) is two separate main languages. Still the same default Windows language (English United Kingdom), but I also added a separate language and each language now has it's own keyboard assigned to it. Having it set up like this also means spell check works for the respective language you're typing in the Mail app, Browser, etc. and also word suggestions too on Windows Phone (when typing SMS for example).