Forum Discussion
Windows 10 v1709 AMA - Why has Creators Update Fall treated creators so badly?
Please please provide an off switch for the new pen scrolling/panning feature. It breaks SO MANY things!
The work-around with having to hold the right click pen barrel button is really awful because: 1. That's supposed to open a context sensitive menu. 2. Having to hold the button means having to hold the pen differently. 3. Some Windows 10 tablet pens (such as the Samsung Galaxy Book) do not have a right-click barrel button so in those cases many functions are actually impossible. 4. It's extremely unintuitive. Previously, I could tap & drag everything with ease... move files, rearrange start menu tiles, resize calendar appointments, drag/drop whatever. Now doing those types of things are much more difficult and much less efficient. It's a huge crutch on our workflows.
The new behavior also interferes heavily with the Wacom drivers used in Wacom pen displays, the Wacom MobileStudio Pro, and the new HP Zbook x2. Thankfully, those devices have a checkbox in the driver to disable "Windows Ink", however when the Windows Ink is in use, the new pen scrolling behavior causes major problems. For example, an easy repro scenario is to right click the address bar in Micosoft Edge using the pen's barrel button (Wacom hardware with Windows Ink on)... The whole system will become unresponsive after that right click. I've reproduced this on 2 devices as well as a workstation with a pen display plugged in. It affects other things too like not being able to move objects in InDesign, causing hangs in Adobe Bridge, etc.
I've also got a few tablets that use the Microsoft N-Trig pens and those have issues as well, but do not have the advantage of being able to switch off "Windows Ink". It's really made the pen interface into a terrible user experience.
There are a http://pocketnow.com/2017/07/29/windows-10-fall-creators-update in back in July when this new behavior was first being introduced to Windows Insiders. Some of those were fixed somewhat, but it still shouldn't have been released without an off switch. It should have been an Opt-In feature I think.
I hope an off switch will be available before the "Current Branch for Business" gets the Fall Creators Update!
Here's some more feedback hub links:
https://aka.ms/Cth1bj
https://aka.ms/Nm2ba8
https://aka.ms/Senlr6
https://aka.ms/U7g3yd
https://aka.ms/Rx0k5l
https://aka.ms/L3qw8q
This one is very important: "Always provide off switch for terrible new features"
https://aka.ms/Fg7wme
I wish all tablet PC devices had an off Switch. I'm on a Surface Pro 4. Is it possible to investigate if that option alters any particular registry key? So we at least can figure out a hack to completely disable it. Otherwize I guess my next tablet PC willl be a Wacom Mobile studio pro, or something like that.
There must be a way to manually Switch it off.
I have searched the registry like crazy trying to find something that would turn off the new behavior on a Surface Pro. No luck. :( I wish there was. Another alternative to the Wacom MobileStudio Pro that's coming out at the end of this month is the http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/business-solutions/hp-zbook-x2-detachable-workstation--1#!&tab=vao&jumpid=ps_com_nb_pm&utm_medium=ps&utm_source=ba&utm_campaign=%5B*Campaign*%5D&utm_term=hp+zbook+x2&matchtype=e&adid=81776195860097&addisttype=s. It's pretty pricey, but that was made in partnership with Wacom, so it has their same drivers, pen, and programmable bezel buttons. Check out those specs though. :)
I tried connecting a wacom tablet to the surface pro 4 and disable windows ink. It didn't have any effect on the Surface Pen though, only for the Wacom Pen. Figures! I was hoping it was a system wide block of windows ink in selected apps.
After a bit of investigation I found some controls for pen properties in the registry.
There's a few group policy settings in GP edit but nothing in regards to scrolling.
User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Tablet PC/
There are some pen settings in this key. (But pretty much the same settings you can find elsewhere)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Wisp\Pen\SysEventParameters
Wisp.dll seems to be the related to windows ink as it stands for 'Windows Ink Service Protocol'
After a bit of googling I found an old thread that might hold some further clues, but I need to investigate further if it can help in this case.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1260
So far 1703 is still very usable and I don't plan to go back to 1709 (FCU) any time soon if if this isn't resolved. If I some time in the future will be forced to update, without any fix for this maybe last resort will be one of these options.
* Getting help making an AutoHotKey script that translates all pen input in certain apps to mouse input. I'm already using an AHK-script to enable hover right click for the barrel button.
* Contacting some experts at Either http://tabletpro.com/ or https://lazynezumi.com/ to help create a 3rd party app that can catch pen input and convert it to mouse input, in certain selected apps.
TabletPro a really nice tool for Tablet users, that can do all sort of things like converting touch input to mouse, adding touch button interface etc, so I bet they could do the same for pen.
LazyNezumi captures pen input and can apply smoothing and many other effects in various drawing softwares, so they might have some expertese in how to get around the pen scrolling.
I really hope Microsoft Ink Team get their act together and fix this. I don't wanna rely on 3rd party apps and scripts and hacks to make my pen a usuable tool. If there's no other option, maybe a crowd funded project to pay some experts to create what we're after is the only option.Hi Ricard,
You've done pretty throughout research here. I was already thinking of going through Factory reset for my Surface Book, but have to finish so much work which now takes much more time. May be on Christmas I will be doing this instead of celebrating. I regret doing Reset this PC without saving personal files, because now I can't just return to 1703. I even regret buying my Surface Book with Performance Base (i7 16GB 512GB model). Here in Europe it's 150% of the US price, so I'm not going to buy any new device soon. Now I'm really thinking Wacom Mobile Studio would be much better choice. I will think twice (no, even trice) before buying anything new from Microsoft.
Adobe already released the hotfix for their Illustrator CC 2018 regarding some performance issues. But it does not fix any pen issues, because the problem is not on the Adobe side.
The initial CC2018 release date was the same as of FCU, and they delivered the hotfix in 2 weeks.
Microsoft released another cumulative update the same time with no fixes regarding the pen. I'm not sure we will see any fixes till next big update in spring 2018. But it's more probably we will get even more issues instead of any fixes.
I've noticed I'm using my Galaxy Note 8 for marking screenshots for developers more and more. Never thought I will be doing my work on the phone. Probably because it has the S-Pen made with collaboration with Wacom.I agree with you.
Surface products are marketed as Pen centric Professional tools with a pretty hefty price tag, and not so much regular consumer products. With that in mind it boggles me that there's so little customization, to pen behaviour within the system or Microsoft's own apps.
Once again OneNote UWP app, as an example. Devs just assumed that people with pen want to draw when they use a pen. I don't wanna draw. I wanna select, copy, and edit text with the pen. If I wanna draw or scribble I will use that setting myself. This is a clear indication Microsoft is deciding how you should use the pen, and not giving you any options to make settings that fit your workflow.
I get that regular consumers want to use the pen for scrolling when browsing the web, or take some notes in OneNote while in class, but for Power Users like us who use pen for everything we need to have it working efficiently, and we need to have options to set up behaviours to make our workflow as comfortable as possible.
This is where Wacom products get it. They have an Off switch. Options to Turn off Windows ink for certain applications because people need to be able to work in their own way, without lousy forced functionality getting in their way.I hope microsoft take note of that and see that the Pen is a Pro tool, and needs customization, off switches etc.
My current settings for pen is (1703):
* Flicks turned off, because it sometimes triggers when I don't want it to.
* Pen, Tap & Hold for right clicks, turned off because it can cause input lag, and trigger right clicks when drawing slowly in certain apps.
* Use Pen button as Right click. Turned off, because I prefer to have the pen doing a right click while hovering, so I'm using an AutoHotkey script to enable that functionality.
* Text selection I want it to be mouse like. Drag to select a span of text. Double tap to select word. Tripple tap, to select paragraph.
* Windows Ink workspace, disabled as it's not useful at all to me.
Pen Options that I'm currently missing (in FCU).
* System setting for hover right click.
* System setting to disable pen scrolling.
* System setting to not Ink by default in softwares like OneNote.
* System setting to have pen behave like mouse and not as touch for text selection.I'm not comfortable at all with the FCU pen behaviour, and there is no way to change the behaviour anywhere. I don't know who WindowsInk is targeted at, but it's certainly not perofessionals. Maybe students and middle managers who wanna scroll pages, scribble and take notes on PDF files. NOT for creative professionals who use Pen intesively for Drawing, Text editing, copy, pase, selection, object manipulation, etc etc.
Hmmmm, You just gave me an idea!!! First thing tomorrow when I arrive at work I will connect an intuos pro to my surface, install drivers and try disable windows ink that way. Since wacom figured out how to disable this abomination, an external wacom device might do the trick as long as you can install the drivers and use the wacom settings to turn it off. It's worth buying a cheap external drawing wacom tablet just to get the off switch.
Fall update, has had a negative effect on the pen in tablet mode, previously used as a pointer, like a mouse, with click ability like a mouse, now this function is flawed not working properly can not point to a letter in a word just the front or end of the word, then use keyboard arrows, highlight text click to bring up drop down deselect...so no more cut and paste.
This is on everyday use, eg emailing, ms edge, ms store just using the pen becomes more of a hindrance, so surface pro is real a laptop now, I dropped samsung galaxy note for pathetic support and upgrading making 2-3 year old devices obsolete, dumb, please do not go the same way windows/ms.
