SOLVED

Edge - On-Screen Keyboard - Not Working

Steel Contributor

Edge will not activate the on-screen keyboard. We have Kiosk machines that now have Edge (Stable) on them. The on-screen keyboard opens on login, but if it is closed, no way to reopen it. IE would give a little icon if a text input field was made the focus.

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@Keith Davis We're sorry to hear that. Currently, kiosks are likely not fully supported, I'm moving this post so that our Enterprise team can see it and let you know if they have any further questions or insights.

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

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@Keith Davis 

 

Thanks for getting in touch with us! As Fawkes mentioned, Kiosk is a work in progress for us...so all feedback is welcomed and keenly listened to. I'm pumped to hear that you are using the new Edge for your Kiosk needs! :)

 

Just curious: Are your Kiosk devices all touch-only, meaning they do not have a physical keyboard or other forms of physical input devices and hence the question?

 

I detached the keyboard base in my Surface Book running Windows 10 - to mimic a touch only setup. Then I tried navigating to bing.com in Edge Stable and also in IE. I was able to tap into the address bar in Edge (or IE) or the search bar in Bing page and the on-screen keyboard promptly popped up. If I dismissed the keyboard, all I had to do was tap again in the address bar or the search box to have it pop up again. This was the same behavior in Edge Stable and IE too.

 

Are you by chance still using Windows in "Desktop mode" - meaning Windows possibly thinks you have a keyboard attached? Or maybe you want the virtual keyboard to popup, even with a physical keyboard attached? Here are a few links I thought might be helpful for you:

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027960/windows-10-turn-tablet-mode-on-or-off

https://www.windowscentral.com/auto-display-touch-keyboard-windows-10-desktop-mode

 

Hopefully these will help resolve your problem. If not, I'll need more help from you to try to reproduce the scenario on my end. Are you trying this on a specific website? If so, can you try this in a non-Kiosk touch device that you may have access to, to see if this is a site-specific issue? Maybe the site is not using the right HTML element, etc that helps Edge and Windows understand that it needs a keyboard? How did you configure the Kiosk setup? Is Edge in fullscreen mode or does the address bar show up? Anything else you can share about your setup, including which site you are trying this on?

 

Feel free to message me directly in case you do not want to share all the above information in this public post. I'll also be very interested to learn more about your Kiosk scenario and needs.

@Raj_GS 

 

Thanks for all the input, but as it turns on it was working after all. We have 2 devices, one was Windows 7 and one was Windows 10. It appeared that Edge on both was not activating the on-screen keyboard, but after further testing, only the Windows 7 machine using Edge was not working. We removed that machine and are using only the Windows 10 one now. FYI, it is a machine that does not have a physical keyboard attached (HP All-in-one).

@Keith Davis 

 

Glad to hear that Keith! :) Feel free to reach out to us in case you need more help.

 

Raj

@Raj_GS 

 

I have an ASUS All In One Touch Screen Desktop.  I have installed Windows 10 Enterprise on it and got all the latest patches to date.  When logged as a user and switching on Tablet mode, I see the virtual keyboard but when I switch to Kiosk mode, the virtual keyboard won't show.  I have unplugged the physical keyboard and rebooted the machine and still no virtual keyboard.  I have even tried adding these three keys to registry

 

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\TabletTip\1.7\EnableDesktopModeAutoInvoke = 1
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\TabletTip\1.7\DisableNewKeyboardExperience = 1
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\TabletMode = 1

 

and still no luck.  The app I am using is Microsoft Edge.

 

Not sure how @Keith Davis  got it working on his HP All in One.

@The_Naval_Museum, thanks for the ping! I'm assuming you're referring to the new Edge's kioks mode?

Keith should have setup kiosk with the new Edge EITHER in a normal user setup (with/without ShellLauncher configured to launch Edge in kiosk mode) OR using the Windows Assigned Access multi-app kiosk mode - both of which were supporting the new Edge ever since it released to Stable a couple of years ago.

1. Are you using the Settings UI's "Setup a kiosk (assigned access)" option (which started supporting the new Edge in Insider builds very recently)? If not, could you please let me know how you are setting up the kiosk experience?
2. What version of Windows (as seen when you run 'winver') and what version of Edge (and what channel of Edge) are you using to setup the kiosk?

The above info will help root cause the issue on our end.

@Raj_GS , thanks for the quick response.

 

Here is the screen capture from my winver: 

 

The_Naval_Museum_0-1614867185096.png

 

And here is my Kiosk Setup

 

The_Naval_Museum_1-1614867266457.png

 

Settings when logged on as Admin: 

The_Naval_Museum_2-1614867461199.png

 

Virtual keyboard shows up just fine when logged in as Admin but not when logged in as Kiosk.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

@The_Naval_Museum , thanks!

 

We'll try this on our end and loop in the right folks regarding this. In case there's a short-term workaround that'll get you unblocked, I'll let you know.

@Raj_GS  I found another issue. I have a simple website hosted locally (Wordpress using Apache, MySql, PHP) that I was trying to open up in Edge. What I found is that when I reboot the computer, after logging in the Edge browser just has a grey background screen and the mouse cursor shows up as blinking (loading) sign and that is it. Things get stuck and nothing further happens. I waited 10 minutes (even thought I have applicated restart set to 5 minutes) and nothing happens. If I hit ctrl+alt+del to logoff Kiosk and log back in as Admin and then logout and log back in as Kiosk, everything loads up. I figured there might be an issue with Apache and Mysql service starting while Edge trying to access the page and going crazy. To troubleshoot, I switched the website to a simply static HTML page with one page only. What I noticed is something similar. The simple image is a loading gif and the gif animation gets stuck with the cursor again blinking and nothing else happens - this time only apache involved and no mySQL db. Then I tried the same but instead of using a URL, just provided the direct URL to the file "file:///C:/load/index.html" and same results. Upon reboot and first login to Kiosk, Edge just gets stuck in a loop of some sort and nothing more.

Then I figured maybe there is an issue with the Kiosk account so I deleted it and created a new one with a different name altogether and still the same exact issue. I am able to reproduce this issue consistently.

 

I have a brand new ASUS all in one desktop that I just bought two days ago. Downloaded all the latest Windows patches (updates) and the latest Edge browser.

 

The_Naval_Museum_0-1614882164658.png

 

 

 

@The_Naval_Museum , do you mind starting a new thread for this? Having separate threads for issues would help with discoverability of the new issue and will also keep the original thread's intent intact.

 

Also, for the original issue, do you mind submitting a feedback via Feedback Hub (the admin or some other normal user) under the category "Security and Privacy" > "Assigned Access"? This will collect additional logs relevant to the category, which might help the dev team debug the issue better

@Raj_GS started the new thread and have submitted the issue through feedback hub

@The_Naval_Museum 

 

Did you get the OSK issue resolved?

 

I've also got Edge Chrome working in kiosk mode and I cant get the OSK to show up at all. The usual registry settings in HKLM (rather than HKCU to make sure i catch all).

@frustin ,

 

Sorry to hear that! How have you configured Edge kiosk?

 

  1. Is it via the Settings UI workflow to setup a kiosk (or maybe Intune, Powershell, etc) or are you just running Edge in kiosk mode as a normal user via the documented command-line args?
  2. Is this public browsing or digital/interactive signage?
My set up is using the settings UI workflow initially to set up edge chrome with a public facing website. No address bar, no other applications. The same way that @The_Naval_Museum set his up.

The idea is that there's standing physical kiosk with a touch screen and a small form-factor pc (hidden within the stand).
The user is presented with buttons on the touchscreen, however one of those buttons is where they input a alphanumeric (only letters and numbers) code.
My expectation is that if the user taps the text box the OSK should appear in order to type the code. That's what I _expect_ to happen. However I can not get the OSK to appear under any circumstances.

I tried using the same reg settings but I set them up in HKLM just to try and set it up for any account.
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\TabletTip\1.7\EnableDesktopModeAutoInvoke = 1
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\TabletTip\1.7\DisableNewKeyboardExperience = 1
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\TabletMode = 1

@Raj_GS Hi Raj,  I am attempting to set up an all-in-one touchscreen tablet in kiosk mode to use Edge (a PioneerInc CarisTouch Medical Tablet).  I have the osk set to automatically appear when the admin user is signed in and that works well, but once logged in to the kiosk user account the osk disappears.  Registry edits I have found in other posts don’t work.  Windows version 10.0.18363.  Edge version 94.0.992.31. Thanks

Raj,

 

I've always had excellent luck with Win10 Pro in Kiosk mode.  Win11 Pro was good too until this summer.  Any system built with the most recent clean ISO (either directly from microsoft.com or from the OEM like Dell) build, including 23H2, refuses to be consistent with the touch keyboard.  Of course, there is no "tablet mode" on 11 and it's supposed to work, but even though the About shows "Touch support with 10 points", the display works great as a mouse, but with nothing attached to the PC, in this case an OptiPlex with a fully clean install of 11 Pro with the only changes being allowing it to apply available Updates, the touch keyboard will NOT display in any app, including Edge, which means no Kiosk mode which I need for over 3 dozen aging Windows 10 Pro kiosks.  There are a plethora of complaints all over the web about this but none of the hacks seem to work.  If I can't find a solution with 11, the other solution that I have already tested and know works is to wipe the 10 machines and go to Ubuntu in Kiosk mode.  That keeps my very capable i7/8GB RAM/SSD Optiplexes out of the landfill for several more years and negates the need to pay Dell or Microsoft for more systems.  I'd rather go with 11, but at some point Microsoft needs to step up and fix this or at least provide some guidance.

@Terabyte , thanks for alerting me on this and sorry for the delay - I was away on vacation! I'll ping the right contacts for this issue - so that they can engage with you on this further if they need more info.

Looping in @sydbruck 

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@Keith Davis 

 

Thanks for getting in touch with us! As Fawkes mentioned, Kiosk is a work in progress for us...so all feedback is welcomed and keenly listened to. I'm pumped to hear that you are using the new Edge for your Kiosk needs! :)

 

Just curious: Are your Kiosk devices all touch-only, meaning they do not have a physical keyboard or other forms of physical input devices and hence the question?

 

I detached the keyboard base in my Surface Book running Windows 10 - to mimic a touch only setup. Then I tried navigating to bing.com in Edge Stable and also in IE. I was able to tap into the address bar in Edge (or IE) or the search bar in Bing page and the on-screen keyboard promptly popped up. If I dismissed the keyboard, all I had to do was tap again in the address bar or the search box to have it pop up again. This was the same behavior in Edge Stable and IE too.

 

Are you by chance still using Windows in "Desktop mode" - meaning Windows possibly thinks you have a keyboard attached? Or maybe you want the virtual keyboard to popup, even with a physical keyboard attached? Here are a few links I thought might be helpful for you:

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027960/windows-10-turn-tablet-mode-on-or-off

https://www.windowscentral.com/auto-display-touch-keyboard-windows-10-desktop-mode

 

Hopefully these will help resolve your problem. If not, I'll need more help from you to try to reproduce the scenario on my end. Are you trying this on a specific website? If so, can you try this in a non-Kiosk touch device that you may have access to, to see if this is a site-specific issue? Maybe the site is not using the right HTML element, etc that helps Edge and Windows understand that it needs a keyboard? How did you configure the Kiosk setup? Is Edge in fullscreen mode or does the address bar show up? Anything else you can share about your setup, including which site you are trying this on?

 

Feel free to message me directly in case you do not want to share all the above information in this public post. I'll also be very interested to learn more about your Kiosk scenario and needs.

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