One of the worst annoyances of touch-enabled Windows 11/10 devices is ‘Ghost Touching’ on the screen. It’s the random phenomenon where the computer screen starts flashing bubbles or spots around the edges of the screen, with the mouse cursor bouncing around it, becoming almost unusable. It appears that the screen develops a mind of its own, paying scant regard to user input. If you are experiencing the same issue, here’s what you should try to fix the issue.
Ghost Touch Bubbles & erratic mouse behavior
When these ‘Ghost Touching’ circles appear on the screen, you virtually have no control over it. The intermittent cursor behavior makes the problem much worse! To solve this, take the following steps.
- Change Power Management Settings.
- Disable visual touch feedback
- Update or Rollback Graphics Driver
- Run Hardware Troubleshooter
- Calibrate your touchscreen
- Get the hardware checked
- Disable HID-compliant touchscreen.
How to remove Ghost Touch bubbles from Windows 11
1] Change Power Management Settings
Windows touchscreen devices are configured to preserve power, but sometimes unforeseen changes can make your touchscreen overactive. As such, it is desirable to disable the power-saving feature on your touchscreen. To do this,
Press Windows key + X to open a menu. From it, select Device Manager.
Next, double-click on Human Interface Devices, then double-click the listing for HID-compliant touch screen.
The action, when confirmed, will open a new window. Switch to the Power Management tab and uncheck ‘Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power’ option. Click OK, then restart your system.
Related: Fix Transparent or Translucent Box on Screen
2] Disable visual touch feedback
Open Windows Settings and choose Ease of Access.
After that, scroll down to locate ‘Other options’ in the left pane and uncheck the option ‘Show Visual Feedback when I touch the screen’.
Click ‘Apply’ and then press ‘OK’ button. This has been known to help many.
3] Update or Rollback Graphics Driver
Check Windows Update to see if there is a pending update related to your Graphics Drivers. If necessary, you can always install them manually from the OEM’s website. However, If you recently updated your Graphics Driver, you may want to roll back to the old one. Open Device Manager > Select the Graphics Driver > Look for the Roll Back button. This is only enabled when it’s a recent update. Maybe you need to visit the manufacturer’s website to download the latest driver.
4] Run Hardware Troubleshooter
Run Hardware Troubleshooter and see if that helps you. To invoke the troubleshooter, all you need do is to launch the command prompt, then type or copy and paste the command below and hit Enter.
msdt.exe -id DeviceDiagnostic
You can also download and use our useful freeware FixWin to open the troubleshooter with a click.
5] Calibrate your touchscreen
If your touchscreen is slow to respond or records your touch gestures inaccurately, recalibrating the process might fix the issue.
You may need to calibrate the screen for pen or touch.
6] Get the hardware checked
Maybe you need to get the touchscreen checked by hardware support to rule out the possibility that it’s faulty.
7] Disable HID-compliant touchscreen
Duane Hutton adds below in the comments that this is what helped her:
Open Device Manager > Human Interface Devices > HID-compliant touchscreen > Right-click> Disable.
8] Uninstall and reinstall the Human Interface Devices driver
Follow these steps to uninstall the HID driver:
- Press Win+X and select Device Manager.
- Search for Human Interface Devices and expand it.
- Right-click on the Touchscreen and select Uninstall.
- Restart your computer.
- Windows will install the generic drivers after you restart.
Now see if this helps.
Lastly, sometimes laptops or tablets start behaving erratically when the touchscreen is not working, especially under conditions of high temperature, humidity, lights, or other conditions that interfere with the screen features. So, try to avoid working under such unfavorable conditions.
