No touch keyboard

I have a windows tablet which I perhaps unwisely upgraded from Win7 to Win10. Actually Win10 is working just fine except for one problem. The touch keyboard which was in my Win7 system tray is no longer available. Win10 has an icon in the system tray which looks nearly identical and in fact when I hover over it is says "touch keyboard", but inexplicably it brings up a tool for hand writing input (which doesn't work that well for me). I can switch it to displaying a keyboard but this takes two extra clicks, the first to click on the input method button, and the 2nd to actually select the keyboard. I thought I could live with two extra clicks every time I needed the keyboard, but after opening the keyboard hundreds of times over the last month, I conclude that this is just not workable. I don't understand ... aren't there any tablets shipping with win10? I have looked for ways to make the keyboard come up right away, but it doesn't seem possible. It may not be too late for me to revert to win7 ... but is there any less drastic methods to getting my old win7 keyboard icon back?

~Paul

FrillyBits said:

What model computer are you referring to, in your system specs it says PC/Desktop
When I select a touch keyboard my selection does not change until I change it.

This is an ASUS EP121.
Your touch keyboard remembers your selection? Of course that is what I expected as pretty much any windows setting stays where it is until it is changed again. So I guess this bug does not happen on every system. I don't think I'm the only one seeing this bug however, since in one of me google searches about the problem I seem to remember that others have run into this problem as well.

> Turn On Add the standard keyboard layout as a touch keyboard option
> now select the far right option

Yes I see that this gives me a new option ... but so what? I can select it but the next time I open the keyboard up pops the handwritting input panel again.

> Also, try toggling (turning On or Off) Show the touch keyboard or handwriting panel when not in tablet mode

Yes, I tried that a few times, to no effect.

> There is also the Windows On-Screen Keyboard
> Right click on the result and select you preference of Pin to Start or Pin to Taskbar

Ok, I found this keyboard. You said "Right click on the result" so I was right clicking on the keyboard but I didn't get the option to pin it to the taskbar. I almost gave up on it, but that by accident I right clicked on the icon in the taskbar that indicates the keyboard is open, and finally got the pin to taskbar option.

Then I moved the taskbar shortcut to my quick launch bar (which seems a better place for it).

So I guess this is a reasonable workaround, although I still like the old win7 touch keyboard better because it is smaller in height. The Windows On-Screen Keyboard is divided vertically into 6 rows, with the bottom 5 rows filled with keys. All five rows of keys are pretty useful, so no complaints there, but the top row is completely blank! What's with that? If this is for aesthetics, they have a pretty strange sense of it. This blank row just succeeds in obscuring a significant portion of the screen that I'm trying to type into. (Yes, I can shrink the whole keyboard, but smaller keys are more difficult to press accurately). Perhaps this may not seem like a big deal, but my screen is not really that big to begin with. But if the regular touch keyboard is just busted ... I guess the on-screen keyboard is my only option.

Thanks a lot for the help. At least it works well enough it looks like I won't have to revert to windows 7 :)

~Paul