Screen mirroring Android to Windows 10: How to enable keyboard/mouse as input devices?

I'm using Android's Miracast system to project my Android screen to my Windows 10 computer. This is working fine (though I notice I have to reboot my computer sometimes to get it to show up as an available device to the phone).

However, once I connect, I get this mysterious/unhelpful message:

Touch Input is Turned off. To turn it on, go
Back to your PC, and select action center >
Connect > the check box

As I've searched around, it appears this message is causing others confusion too. I think there is a checkbox in the Action center > Connect menu when connecting to some other devices (like maybe another Windows 10 box?). But nothing shows up in the Connect area when this Android device is connected, so I can't figure out how to enable touch controls - there's no checkbox to click.

(Basically I want to use my mouse and keyboard on the computer to control the inputs on the Android phone.)

stevemidgley

Posted 2018-07-06T04:02:32.090

Reputation: 545

Have you done all the actions described in the last entry of this post ?

– harrymc – 2018-07-10T08:03:41.533

1@harrymc - Thanks - yes I found that article and followed the instructions precisely. It makes no difference - the Connect area of the Action Center simply doesn't show the Android device even when I'm actively casting the screen to the PC. So there's no checkbox to check, to enable mouse/keyboard. Or at least I can't find the checkbox and that post you shared doesn't seem to enable it. – stevemidgley – 2018-07-10T17:08:18.213

Answers

Ensure that the system service of Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel (or Tablet PC keyboard) is on. If that does not help, read on.

The famous checkbox that everyone talks about but can only rarely find is here:

A test done by a user named rajeshthampi in the post "Project to this pc" not available on Win 10 despite correct hardware shows that the checkbox is present when projecting from Windows to Windows, but not when projecting from Android to Windows.

The conclusion of the user was that this checkbox being available is dependent on the sender (Android) and not on the receiver (Windows).

I suggest therefore to avoid the standard built-in casting in Android and to use a third-party Android product.

One of the following free apps might do the job :

In listing these apps, I'm judging purely by their descriptions, not having tested any of them.

harrymc

Posted 2018-07-06T04:02:32.090

Reputation: 306 093

Thanks - it's possible Android, or some editions, do not enable touch input via Miracast. As I was poking around on that line of thinking, I noticed this semi-duplicate post on SO: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28408679/wireless-display-plus-touch-input - I've seen screenshots of the magic checkbox - importantly, not only is the checkbox not there, but android device itself doesn't show up. So something is definitely buggy, IMO, on the Windows side too.

– stevemidgley – 2018-07-10T21:52:05.773

I would guess rather that Microsoft has created a proprietary extension to the Miracast protocol which is not part of the standard implemented by Android. There are some more possible products not listed in my answer such as TeamViewer QuickSupport and Mobizen. – harrymc – 2018-07-11T06:37:32.123

There is an alternative to Miracast - Try MyPhoneExplorer by FJ Soft.

In phones with Android 5 (Lollipop) and newer versions, you can enable "Extras" > "Control Phone / Screen-Mirroring". This can be done via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB after installing the companion app on the phone.

The feature gives you options to adjust zoom, type, gestures, etc.

xypha

Posted 2018-07-06T04:02:32.090

Reputation: 2 434

2Thanks @xypha - this doesn't solve the screen casting solution, but it's an interesting alternative which is to use my computer's keyboard/mouse with my phone as the "monitor." It would help address my main issue in some ways.. I can't call it a solution for this question, but it is a nice idea and it is an open source app, so not as cruddy as some of the screen cast apps in the Play market. (So I'm upvoting - thanks for posting.) – stevemidgley – 2018-07-16T18:57:33.983

I've found a for-fee product called Vysor that solves the problem via USB cable. This provides excellent, stable bandwidth and resolution. It has a free, crippled version or a full featured version for $10/year. It doesn't meet all the requirements in the question but it's the highest quality option I've found yet.

Requires USB debugging mode to be turned on and it side loads an apk on the phone. It works via executable on windows, Mac and Linux.

stevemidgley

Posted 2018-07-06T04:02:32.090

Reputation: 545

1How about TeamViewer Host? Free for non-commerical use. – Cardin – 2019-08-18T02:07:14.547