Pinch zoom is a very important feature on Surface laptops, as many of them can act as a tablet. Therefore, when used as such, the pinch zoom function is very convenient for easy use. Now, according to some users, the pinch zoom feature no longer works on their Windows 10 PC or their Microsoft Surface device, so you have to ask yourself what is the cause, and can it be corrected once and for all. Well, from what we have gathered so far, the problem can be resolved in just a few steps.
Keep in mind that people can zoom in with the trackpad, so if at the moment you don't have time to follow the steps below, use your trackpad. It's not as intuitive compared to the touch screen, but it's the only viable alternative at the moment.
Pinching your finger to zoom doesn't work on Windows 10
If zooming in with your finger on a Surface computer is very important to you, read on to find out how to fix it when it stops working. In such a case, you have two options:
- Update touch screen driver
- Force the stop surface.
Before you start, make sure you've installed the latest Windows 10 updates and that your Surface has all of the latest firmware installed.
1) Update the touch screen driver
OK, so the first thing we need to do here is to navigate to human interface devices, or HID for short. To get there, you will need to turn on the Device Manager by right-clicking the Start button, then select Device Manager from the list. Alternatively, you can click the search button, then type in Device Manager.
- On a Windows 10 laptop, expand HID and right-click HID compliant touch screen then select the option that says Uninstall the device.
- On a Surface device, expand HID and right-click Intel Precise Touch Driver, then select the option indicating Uninstall the device.
If you see these two entries, uninstall them.
If you see a prompt saying "Remove driver software for this device", Please do not check this box and restart your computer.
Once the system is operational again, the driver reinstalls and the pinch zoom feature should now work properly. If not, do the following
2) Force stop
When you perform a forced shutdown, this amounts to removing the battery from a laptop. This is one of the best ways to fix many problems, as it clears the cache, memory and resets the Surface hardware or the Windows 10 laptop. So let's see how we can do it.
You will need to press the power button for 10 seconds and then release. The system should shut down immediately. From there, wait 10 seconds, then press the power button again to restart.
Now check if the pinch zoom works properly.
Doing one or both of these tips should get things going again, at least from our point of view.
It worked for us, so we hope it will work wonders for you as well.