Surface Pen makes screen flash black

Anonymous
2019-08-08T17:39:38+00:00

I recently purchased a Surface Go to use for in-class note taking, along with a surface pen. I have been using it for approximately 2 weeks and have noticed an issue when using the pen. Randomly, about once a day when taking notes in OneNote, when I press the pen to the screen, the screen will flash black. Oddly, this only occurs when using solid colors for the the pen and pencil. The highlighter and rainbow colors do not do this. I can fix it by restarting it, but it is an inconvenience. Any ideas what is causing it and how I can prevent it from happening in the future?

Surface | Accessories | Surface Pen

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-12T11:21:18+00:00

    Hello everyone,

    Like many here I have been going round in circles over this issue for months (SP5, Windows 10 18363). I too tried adding the "Window Manager\Window Manager Group" to the "Increase scheduling priority" privilege in the Group Policy Editor- it never seemed to find this user, and adding it as a new user never helped. MS support even seemed unable to help.

    So, I have finally solved this on my device by doing the following:

    • Run gpedit (in the Windows search box);
    • Select Local Computer Policy\Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings;
    • Click Action-> Export Policy, save on Desktop as Policy.inf;
    • Open Policy.inf in Notepad:
      • The “Increase scheduling priority” privilege is named “SeIncreaseBasePriorityPrivilege” in this file;
      • The “Window Manager\Window Manager Group” ID is “*S-1-5-90-0” (note that  it is present on “SeInteractiveLogonRight");
      • Paste “, *S-1-5-90-0” after “SeIncreaseBasePriorityPrivilege";
      • Save;
    • Back in gpedit:
      • Action-> Import Policy, import Pol.inf;
      • Check “Increase scheduling priority" privileges: “Window Manager\Window Manager Group” is now listed under “Increase scheduling priority;
    • Reboot;
    • The pen now works in all applications without flashing.

    I really hope this helps some of you trying to get this resolved!

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-09T22:58:04+00:00

    This worked for me too, but without the custom driver I can no longer connect to an external display, which in my use case was a bigger loss so I re-installed the driver.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-06-28T01:58:18+00:00

    I was following your advice, however when I tried, it was already done. It must have been added in the version 2004 update. The bad thing is that this did not work. It is a shame to have such a high end computer such as this and Microsoft cannot get a simple whiteboard to work correctly. Thanks anyway for your assistance.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-06-11T22:06:23+00:00

    I notice the problem in OneNote and PowerPower thus far. Although the galaxy pen color does not cause the issue in OneNote.

    I tried the configuration profile permission fix but unable to edit the permissions even though I have local admin rights.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-05-14T21:18:50+00:00

    It's hard to believe this hasn't been addressed by MS.

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