Location services is a built-in tool in Windows 10 is a useful tool that offers users location information even when your laptop or desktop computer does not have a GPS since it uses Wi-Fi positioning as well as your device’s IP address. However, there are instances when you might encounter some problems when using this service. One instance is when you suddenly find the toggle button for Location service greyed out.
This kind of program could be due to some glitch in the system or some third-party application on your computer. Because of this problem, you won’t be able to toggle the Location service on or off and you won’t be able to make any changes in its settings. Worry not, for this post will guide you on what you can do to fix the greyed-out toggle button of Location services in Windows 10.
Before you perform some troubleshooting steps, you might want to restart your computer and see if it fixes the problem. If it didn’t, then this problem is not just some minor glitch. Thus, you have to follow the potential fixes provided below to fix the problem but before you do that, make sure that you create a System Restore point first. After that, follow each one of the following options.
Option 1 – Put your PC in a Clean Boot State
The first thing you can do to resolve the problem is to put your computer in a Clean Boot State. It could be that there is a third-party program that’s preventing the toggle button from functioning. To isolate this possibility, you need to put your computer in a Clean Boot State.
- Log onto your PC as an administrator.
- Type in MSConfig in the Start Search to open the System Configuration utility.
- From there, go to the General tab and click “Selective startup”.
- Clear the “Load Startup items” check box and make sure that the “Load System Services” and “Use Original boot configuration” options are checked.
- Next, click the Services tab and select the “Hide All Microsoft Services” check box.
- Click Disable all.
- Click on Apply/OK and restart your PC. (This will put your PC into a Clean Boot State. And configure Windows to use the usual startup, just simply undo the changes.)
- Now check if you can now use the toggle button of the Location service or not.
Option 2 – Try to use the Registry Editor
If putting your computer in a Clean Boot state didn’t fix the problem, you might want to make some adjustments in the Windows Registry via Registry Editor.
- Tap the Win + R keys to open the Run utility and type “regedit” in the field and then tap Enter to open the Registry Editor.
- After that, navigate to this registry path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServiceslfsvcTriggerInfo
- From there, select the Key (folder) named as “3” and right-click on it, and then delete it.
- Once done, exit the Registry Editor and restart your computer.
Option 3 – Try to use the Windows Services Manager
- Tap the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box and type “services.msc” in the field and hit Enter to open the Services Manager.
- Next, look for the “Geolocation Service” entry from the list of services.
- Once you find it, right-click on it and select Properties. This will open a new mini window.
- From there, make sure that it is “Running” and its Startup Type is set to “Automatic”.
- After that, close the Services Manager and check if the problem is now resolved.
Option 4 – Try to use the Group Policy Editor
- Tap the Win + R keys to launch Run and type “gpedit.msc” in the field and click OK to open the Group Policy Editor.
- After that, navigate to this path: Administrative TemplatesWindows ComponentsLocation and Sensors
- Next, double click on each one of the following settings and select the “Not configured” or “Disabled” option.
- Turn off location scripting
- Turn off location
- Turn off sensors
- Once done, navigate to this path: Administrative TemplatesWindows ComponentsLocation and SensorsWindows Location Provider
- From there, double click on the “Turn off Windows Location Provider” policy setting and set its configuration to either “Disabled” or “Not configured”. You should see the following description of the policy setting in the window:
“This policy setting turns off the Windows Location Provider feature for this computer. If you enable this policy setting, the Windows Location Provider feature will be turned off, and all programs on this computer will not be able to use the Windows Location Provider feature. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, all programs on this computer can use the Windows Location Provider feature.”
- Now restart your computer.