The Distracting Keyboard
In an effort to make desktop typing feel more like a modern smartphone experience, Windows 10 includes a predictive text engine. If you are using the on-screen touch keyboard on a tablet, or even a physical hardware keyboard on a desktop PC, Windows can monitor your keystrokes and display a small, floating bar of suggested words directly above your cursor. This feature is controlled by the “Show me suggestions as I type” setting.
While this is incredibly useful for hunt-and-peck typists using a touchscreen interface, it is highly distracting for fast touch-typists using a physical keyboard. Having a little white box constantly flickering and changing words right where you are trying to focus your eyes can severely disrupt your typing flow. Furthermore, if you are typing passwords, sensitive commands into a terminal, or highly technical jargon, the generic dictionary suggestions are completely useless and simply get in the way. If you prefer a traditional, distraction-free typing experience, you should disable this feature.
How to Stop Windows from Suggesting Words
You can turn off the predictive text engine via the Windows Typing settings.
- Click the Start button and select the Settings gear icon (or press
Windows Key + I). - In the Settings menu, click on Devices.
- In the left-hand navigation pane, select Typing.
- Look for the section titled Hardware keyboard.
- Locate the toggle switch for Show text suggestions as I type.
- Toggle the switch to the Off position.
- (Optional) While you are here, you may also want to toggle off the “Autocorrect misspelled words I type” switch just below it, if you find Windows changing your technical terms automatically.
The floating suggestion box will immediately vanish. You can now type freely across all your desktop applications without Windows attempting to guess your next word.