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Windows 10 v1709 AMA - Why has Creators Update Fall treated creators so badly?

Brass Contributor

I'd like to know how the incomprehensible change in stylus behaviour, which severely impacts those who primarily input with pen, was ever considered a positive?

 

The multiple adverse effects are cropping up via user complaints, which a quick web search will reveal. Rather than provide a summary list I can illustrate the ill-thought out nature of the change using just one example.

 

Pen flicks and navigation has been rendered completely unusable but yet is still a component part of Windows 10. Personally I've relied on pen flicks as a productivity tool for as long as I've been a pen user - which is now over ten years. At a stroke, ironically, this feature has been broken through incompetence or neglect - either fit so take your pick.

 

Please provide an answer or even better a timetable for reversing this calamity.

 

Regards

 

Patrick

 

P.S. Any typos entirely the fault of the 2nd incomprehensible decision to replace the fully featured on-screen keyboard with a finger friendly but condensed keyboard. Doesn't the Windows 10 engineering team have any pen-centric members on board?

69 Replies

If it is any comfort they did seem sincere in their earlier posts. I got a reply from WindowsInk on twitter earlier and hopefully they are looking in to it. I'm not giving up yet, but sticking with 1703 for now. (Which works as expected thankfully) 

Only my old Surface has Fall Creators update on it so I can see if anything happens, regarding pen.

Even if we are a minority. I don't see any harm in adding options. I don't mind new features as long as they come with an off switch.


"After that revelation in user interface (pre iPhone launch) it was slate style all the way for me."

Ditto. Acer C312x, Dell something that was a tablet convertible, 2 Thinkpad X200Ts, Lenovo X1 Yoga 1st gen, and now X1 Yoga 2nd gen. Can't imagine going back, which is why I'm going to see what a Linux build can give me, with my Yoga 1st gen.
lam going to install Ubuntu on the weekend and will be switching to google.

I was on board with MS for over 15 years and l was ok with minor bugs or occasional DSOD...

But when CE0 send a message that MS no longer care about consumer market (which is sad, but still understandable) and focus on Enterprise instead.

But the end result is Pushing untested updates and zero interest in fixing what they broke clearly sends the message that Mr. Nadella is living in some stupid dream that MS is still in monopol position. I give you 10-15 years and MS will end up as Nokia.

Two years ago it seemed that they knew what needs to be done and they had a vision.

this year they keep cancelling products and ignore issues that their customers have.

This will back fire pretty hard and soon.

What lam 100% sure that I will never buy Surface product again. I love them, but testing is my profession and I get paid for that.

Getting surface is paying MS to test for them LOL

Lots of websites AND APPS still don't have controls optimized for touch input. Especially interactive elements.  For example the option to cut uploaded picture. Before Fall Creators update I would use pen for such controls. Now the pen starts scrolling instead of selecting. 

Apps are now a nightmare. I use several that require specific use of the pen in the way it used to work and so now I cant use them without using a mouse.

 

Whos idea was it to implement this bad idea without first checking with the users?? That is bad business - come on MS - do your market research before changing things... stick to the basics.

 

Please at least give a button to switch back to how it used to work.

I have a Surface 3 and a Surface pen. I used to be able to press on the screen, drag and highlight text or a website link. On a panoramic photo I used to be able to drag it across the screen by just pressing on the screen and moving across. Simple things compared to the items mentioned above, but can't do it any longer since the Fall update. Very annoying, clicking the barrel button only opens Note, no options in Settings to change it 'highlight' as suggested. 

Any sign of  a fix yet?

In case this recent development has been missed by contributers to this thread there seems to be light on the horizon.

 

A developer from the Edge team has taken on board the severe discontent this has generated among pen centric users on a cross-referenced forum and promised to get our grievances looked into.

 

Hope springs eternal.

 

See here: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/issues/14277341/#comment-50

 

 

Hi I want to chime in here too. I am just a plain old user not a creator or professional. I want Microsoft to know that this change on the pen is not just an inconvenience to the pro's who use the pen for a living its effecting the consumer who were happy highlighting text in a variety of apps. You have turned a $130 pen into a mouse. If i want to click and drag I will pull my windows 95 pc out of my storage shed and click and drag with my mouse all I want but here in 2018 i would like to go back to using my surface and pen. But to do that you need to give us back what you took.
Thanks


@Patrick Lawless wrote:

I'd like to know how the incomprehensible change in stylus behaviour, which severely impacts those who primarily input with pen, was ever considered a positive?

 

The multiple adverse effects are cropping up via user complaints, which a quick web search will reveal. Rather than provide a summary list I can illustrate the ill-thought out nature of the change using just one example.

 

Pen flicks and navigation has been rendered completely unusable but yet is still a component part of Windows 10. Personally I've relied on pen flicks as a productivity tool for as long as I've been a pen user - which is now over ten years. At a stroke, ironically, this feature has been broken through incompetence or neglect - either fit so take your pick.

 

Please provide an answer or even better a timetable for reversing this calamity.

 

Regards

 

Patrick

 

P.S. Any typos entirely the fault of the 2nd incomprehensible decision to replace the fully featured on-screen keyboard with a finger friendly but condensed keyboard. Doesn't the Windows 10 engineering team have any pen-centric members on board?



Hi I want to chime in here too. I am just a plain old user not a creator or professional. I want Microsoft to know that this change on the pen is not just an inconvenience to the pro's who use the pen for a living its effecting the consumer who were happy highlighting text in a variety of apps. You have turned a $130 pen into a mouse. If i want to click and drag I will pull my windows 95 pc out of my storage shed and click and drag with my mouse all I want but here in 2018 i would like to go back to using my surface and pen. But to do that you need to give us back what you took.
Thanks

I created a damned profile just for this. I'm sorry but this won't be civil. 

 

-begin rant

WHO THE HELL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO TAKE THE DAMNED PEN TIP AND CHANGE IT TO LEFT BUTTON INPUT!!!! 

 

Why would you take the life blood OUT of what creators actually do!? Jeez, I'm sorry but it's a bone-headed idea. I'm a professional and depend on my various art software to get work done. I'm also a dev, so I know a thing or two about programming. Why wouldn't there have been a config setting for everyday people and one for ACTUAL creators!? I mean c'mon, man, what the hell? 

 

Now, I have to revert or wait for another update with a config setting OR (much worse) wait for individual software developers to update their drivers. (remember how long it took for wintab situation to worked out for art, anyone?).

 

Sorry, I just don't have time for this type of stuff working in a profession. So, you're going to hear when I'm upset this time. God, fix it. I'm gonna have to revert for now though, because apparently, a slew of people have been sending feedback emails and still no answer after a couple months. Wonderful.

 

-rant over.

I created a profile just for this. I'm sorry but this won't be civil. 

 

-begin rant

WHO THE HELL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO TAKE THE DAMNED PEN TIP AND CHANGE IT TO LEFT BUTTON INPUT!!!! 

 

Why would you take the life blood OUT of what creators actually do!? Jeez, I'm sorry but it's a bone-headed idea. I'm a professional and depend on my various art software to get work done. I'm also a dev, so I know a thing or two about programming. Why wouldn't there have been a config setting for everyday people and one for ACTUAL creators!? I mean c'mon, man, what the hell? 

 

Now, I have to revert or wait for another update with a config setting OR (much worse) wait for individual software developers to update their drivers. (remember how long it took for wintab situation to worked out for art, anyone?).

 

Sorry, I just don't have time for this type of stuff working in a profession. So, you're going to hear when I'm upset this time. God, fix it. I'm gonna have to revert for now though, because apparently, a slew of people have been sending feedback emails and still no answer after a couple months. Wonderful.

 

-rant over.

I have the following code in our WindowProc routine that is supposed to detect if an event is a touch event and whether or not the event originated from a pen input device:

 

       #define TOUCH_MASK         0x00000080

       #define SOURCE_MASK        0x000000FF

       #define SIGNATURE_MASK     0xFFFFFF00

       #define MI_WP_SIGNATURE    0xFF515700

       #define IsPenDevice(dw)    (((dw) & TOUCH_MASK) == 0)

       #define IsTouchDevice(dw)  (((dw) & TOUCH_MASK) == TOUCH_MASK)

       #define IsTouchEvent(dw)   (((dw) & SIGNATURE_MASK) == MI_WP_SIGNATURE)

 

       // Is this a pen or touch input message

       LPARAM lMessageExtraInfo = GetMessageExtraInfo();

       BOOL bPenInput = (IsTouchEvent(lMessageExtraInfo) && IsPenDevice(lMessageExtraInfo)) ? TRUE : FALSE;

       BOOL bTouchInput = (IsTouchEvent(lMessageExtraInfo) && IsTouchDevice(lMessageExtraInfo)) ? TRUE : FALSE;

 

This has worked perfectly on all supported currently Microsoft operating systems (e.g., Windows 7, Windows 8[.1], and Windows 10) since it was implemented in March of 2014. Since the Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update we have received numerous customer complaints (and confirmed them to be accurate) that the pen input reacts and behaves like a single finger touch event. This would indicate that IsPenDevice(…) macro is returning FALSE. That would imply that your pen device handler (not the driver, but your handling of driver I/O) is not propagating the 0x80 bit to the message queue.

 

Our user base is composed of roughly 500,000 users with a wide range of system configurations – many of which have selected the Microsoft Surface [Pro/Book/etc.] as their primary device. Since Microsoft updates tend to occur silently, many of those users are suddenly finding their pens as useless finger proxies. Your changes are affecting customers that are running older version of our product that are no longer under active support. This issue is more than just an inconvenience, it is a breaking change to existing functionality and behavior.

 

Having worked with Microsoft support (in various forms) since 1992, I am keenly aware of the glacial speed of getting fixes into the pipeline and out to the masses. Hotfixes are generally the quickest solution but have their own baggage. I know your cutoff for the next major rollout is probably already past. The FCU edition is one of the worst release I have seen (even surpassing Windows 8/8.1 and Vista).

 

Please provide me with C++ code snippets that will return the pen/touch functionality to its previous behavior.

 

P.S.

FWIW, this is just one of the MANY regressions in legacy Windows applications introduced in FCU.

Tim,

 

Might be worth re-posting your forensic post to the Edge forum below, as it looks like it is being actively monitored and to be frank I'm not sure this forum is. The issue has been recognised by the moderating Dev as being far wider than an isolated Edge issue alone and has undertaken to bring pressure to bear on the Ink team responsible for this dire decision.

 

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/issues/14277341/#comment-50

As I mentioned earlier, the work-around of holding the right click button to select stuff doesn't work with pens that don't have a right click button.  Here's a video showing that: 

 

Even on those tablets/pens that do have a right click button, the new interface is still awful to use. You have to change the way you hold the pen, hold down a button, press the pen to the screen, AND move the pen across the screen. That's a huge amount of work to do something that had been much easier before July when this change was made in the Windows Insider builds. 

any workaround? some registry on/off tips? :p

The best forum to keep abreast of events is here;

 

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/issues/14277341/#comment-50

 

To date MS has acknowledged the depth of discontent but has stopped short of an announcement as to what it will do about the issues caused by FCU. Some folks have identified a baked in bug within FCU so no registry tweak will resolve the issue until MS tackles the problem at source.

Hello everyone. Microsoft has created a Collection in the feedback hub regarding this issue. So far 99 upvotes. Make sure you go there, upvote and add your comments. Hopefully they will revert this change or add option sooner rather than later. 

 

Link: https://aka.ms/Bltdx5

 

Make sure they understand the scope of the changes, and not only scrolling. Text selextion, flicks, behaviour needs to be completely reverted.

It's been over a month now since that post and MS have gone completely silent again. This is really unacceptable! Come MS is this the level of customer service you provide? These issues have been know and reported for months now. What's your ETA for a fix??

The problem is Microsoft and the WindowsInk team don't think it's broken.  They just think we don't like the new functionality they implemented. 

The idea of completely redesigning how something as integral as the keyboard or mouse works wouldn't be allowed, but the pen input process doesn't qualify at the same level as the other input methods.  Which is a shame, because so many have been using the pen for so long.  Yes, many people asked for "Use the Pen to Scroll" functionality.  And it should be a choice.  Just like Lenovo gives me the choice to automatically use the function keys as function keys or as the volume/brightness/microphone buttons.  They gave me a choice, not eliminated the function keys. 

 

However, what the pen input team has done is akin to eliminating the function keys on the keyboard altogether, in favor of the control keys.  Simply not something that should be done.  They don't see it this way, they don't understand the user base, and they only listened to the input from people with their nice shiny Surfaces who really never even use the function keys...

 

IMHO.

 

-Michele

The ongoing fingerpointing between MS and WACOM is a shame - as a graphics professional it seems I need to go back to apple as I am no longer able to work in a proper fashion with my equipment. I cannot afford to watch nathing happening. There is multiple peers that experience similar issues - regardless if ink is switched off or not. As stated previously it is a shame that this is now going on for over 3 months with no progress ...

It is obvious we are either the few (not worth there time), or it is outside there abilities, can not think of any other reason for the snub.

 

I believe they (Microsoft) see their future in social (the masses) and not the professional, eventually dropping office suite, reducing staff (less overheads).

 

So planning for the future we all need to find a suitable platform for professionals, is this apple?

 

End of March (our financial) a decision on 47 tablets to upgrade will be made, I am very peeved at present as Surface was the clear winner till now, now its the clear loser in one foul swoop, they should of called the suicide hotline before release, now its to late.