Temporarily disabling in-built laptop keyboard while keeping an external keyboard working

Question

I have a Windows 10 laptop (Dell XPS 17) on which a few of the keys have stopped working properly. I therefore have bought a replacement external keyboard (Logitech G710+) for home use.

When I travel with the laptop, I'll still use the broken keyboard. When at home, I'll use the external keyboard.

I want to place the external keyboard on top of the laptop keyboard, but the problem is that then some keys will be hit inadvertently. Therefore I'd like to a convenient way of turning the laptop keyboard on and off.

There's a superficially similar question here but it's different because there the OP was willing to accept the permanent disabling of the laptop keyboard via the uninstallation of the driver.

Answer 1

Nirsoft makes a handy program called DevManView that allows you to quickly disable / enable a device on your machine. In addition to this, and perhaps more relevant to you, is that it has command line functionality. With that, you could create a shortcut that disables the keyboard, and another that enables the keyboard (see the command line reference in the link above).

If the keyboard is re-enabled on startup and this is a problem, I suppose you could put a shortcut in your startup folder that disables the keyboard.

Although it's not what you asked, it's worth noting that there are replacement keyboards available for your laptop for < $20. Replacement is usually fairly easy, providing that you are competent with a screwdriver and follow directions carefully...