Surface pen no longer able to highlight the article

I changed it back by uninstalling the Fall Creators update and turning off the auto update settings. 

 The obvious problem with that is you miss out on the new features in the update, but  you can also only defer new updates for a limited time. It also means your PC may be more vulnerable if there are any security updates (I'm not sure if you would be able to install those manually or if you would need the Creators update too).

It's a real pain, not least because the pen seems to work differently or not at all in different website and apps, but I don't understand why they had to change it in the first place. It was superb the way it was, and as the saying goes "If it ain't broke don't fix it!"

Having just used it as it was for the past 20 minutes has made me realise even more what a real pain the changes have made. I can only hope that a large number of people feel the same and ask for a solution. 

Absolutely agree.

And, yes, re-installing the driver and does nothing since this is not a bug but "feature."

It doesn't make any sense since being able to simply highlight and move text around with the pen is a major advantage of using the surface with the pen in the first place.  I really don't like it either and canned Microsoft response here was clearly obnoxious.

I hate this new version of copying text too.  Has nothing to do with the pen.  A lot of times I just use my finger to quickly highlight text to copy or cut.  Used to do it with no problem.  Now the same two circles show up.  I was trying to copy and paste a lot of text for an ebay listing, what a pain, it took forever.  I need to get my surface back to the way it was before.  Please let us know how to change that feature back to the original way.  The last week I have spent a couple hours on google & bing trying to find the answer with no luck.  This is the first time I saw someone else hates it too, and it was the Fall Creators update.  Today I had a lot of copy and pasting to do so I turned on my old desktop running XP.  Copy, cut & pasted easy using mouse.  Hey Coolcity2 let me know if you find a way to change it back.

No one that needs the highlighting feature of the surface pen prior to the 'Fall Creators' update could be too thrilled.  For those of us who made constant use of the surface pen to drag and highlight (without depressing button on side, and all the glitchiness it now results in), it is A BIG STEP BACKWARD, despite all the advantages that Microsoft is touting this updated version represents (obviously for people who have other needs).

So, my question to MICROSOFT remains:   

Will there be a fix in the near future???  I HATE to do the reset to PREVIOUS version and find out that the problem is solved a week or two later by another update or "fix".

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

In reply to Greg [MSFT]'s post on November 13, 2017

Hi Swee,

I think what you are seeing are some Pen interaction improvements that were made in the Fall Creators update. 

Scrolling with pen. In the effort to create a more intuitive pen interaction on Windows, we are emphasizing natural and direct manipulation of content with pen. You don’t have to “hunt and peck” for scrollbars or frequently switch between pen and touch when navigating; now you can scroll content directly and fluently as you would with your finger.

Selection with pen. We also revised selection with pen by giving it more control over the selection process. Not only are we showing selection grippers whenever text is selected via pen, but also are allowing for a consistent and fast selection of content – text, objects, or ink—by dragging the pen while the barrel button is pressed.

For example, if you are in Edge or a Store app you can now select text by quickly double tapping a word and then dragging the selection grippers to adjust the words highlighted OR you can press and hold the pen's barrel button while you highlight the desired text.

Hope this helps,

Greg

I also am not alright with this solution.  I want it to go back to underlining without having to press the button.  This kind of functionality change is not like using regular pen and paper for highlighting.  Additionally, it is rather awkward to use it this way.  Please restore the original functionality of highlighting without pressing the button.  This "improved" way is not "improved" at all and is akin to saying "We're not going to use the left mouse button for clicking anymore.  Rather it will be used to trigger the Start button."

Not cool.