Pen top button won't open OneNote

Anonymous

I just got a Surface Pro 3 yesterday. I now have Windows 8.1 Enterprise and after a long ordeal without networking drivers (even for the Ethernet dongle), all the drivers are installed and almost everything seems to be working correctly. The firmware update is complete. Everything seems up-to-date in Windows Update.

The one problem is that when I press the OneNote button on the pen, OneNote doesn't open up.

I have followed the troubleshooting steps for the Pen not opening OneNote by following the steps for Solution 1 here: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/touch-mouse-and-search/troubleshoot-surface-pen#penonenote

I have not replaced the batteries (Solution 2) for a couple of reasons, including that I just got it yesterday with new batteries and I seem to be able to get the device to pair via Bluetooth manually in the above step and I don't think it would do that if it needed new batteries. The light on the device also seems to indicate that it's able to pair and successfully paired, when I pair it manually.

When I use the pen for inking, erasing, selecting, etc. everything works fine. It's only the OneNote part that isn't working. Even that top button works for pairing, so it doesn't seem to be the button or coin batteries up there.

Furthermore, when I look at the Bluetooth settings screen it looks to me like everything is working fine. Usually the Pen is "Not Connected" but it's showing up on the list since I paired it. When I click the big purple OneNote button on the pen, the "Not Connected" message goes away. It doesn't explicitly say it's connected, but the Surface Pro 3 is clearly recognizing the activity at least and it seems like it's connected (no error messages or indications of problems). Sometimes when I press the button, instead of the "Not Connected" just changing to blank, it'll show a brief loading bar first and then look just the same (blank, without the "Not Connected" message). Either way, the "Not Connected" message comes back after about 5 seconds, which seems reasonable if it's connecting and then disconnecting to save power. So I interpret that (perhaps incorrectly) as it's able to connect via Bluetooth.

Nonetheless, nothing happens. OneNote doesn't open. Pressing the button when the device is locked, in sleep mode, with the screen off or lock screen on does not cause OneNote to come up. Even if logged in with OneNote closed or open in the background on the desktop, it doesn't come up.

OneNote on the desktop prompted me to be the default notetaking app and I agreed to that. I also have the metro OneNote app installed.

I don't see any settings in Pen or the Tablet PC control panel applet to allow me to change what action is triggered by the OneNote button or verify it's set correctly. I don't know how the trigger works or if there's any way to verify it's setup correctly. Any help would be appreciated.

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Anonymous

My pen was not working on Windows Enterprise (did not open OneNote when I clicked pen button).

Here are the steps I followed to get my pen to work:

First, I made sure that OneNote desktop was the default, according to these instructions:

http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devices/surface-pro-3-tip-configure-which-onenote-use-pen

Then I applied this update:

Update Info

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2968599/en-us

Actual Update File

http://download.windowsupdate.com/d/msdownload/update/software/crup/2014/06/windows8.1-kb2968599-x64\_de4ca043bf6ba84330fd96cb374e801071c4b8aa.msu

I rebooted and tried the button but it still did not work.

So, then I unpaired and re-paired the pen according to these instructions:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/touch-mouse-and-search/troubleshoot-surface-pen

After I did that, everything works well. Not sure if it was the result of the update or the combo of the update and re-pairing though. The double-click-to-take-a-snapshot feature works also now and is pretty cool too.

Observation: from the Windows lock screen the button click only goes to OneNote once you have logged into the machine. That is, if you do a fresh restart and click the button all it does it goes to the login screen. I guess that makes sense because if you have multiple accounts on the machine then how would it know which account it was supposed to open OneNote in.

Anyways, that's what worked for me. Good luck.

~Joe

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Anonymous

OK, after looking at all the variables in what could have changed a rather obvious one was found. The app version of One Note had been removed from our baseload, leaving only the desktop version.

The pen top functionality doesn't appear to work when only the desktop version is installed (or at least not on Enterprise) when I downloaded the app version from the windows store, the pen top functionality began working with that version. It is interesting that on my personal SP3 running Windows Pro 8.1 which has both installed, when I choose to make the desktop version my default version (never got this option on Enterprise) that all of the pen top functionality works. On the Enterprise unit, even if I go into the default file associations it doesn't even see the app version of OneNote?

So if you are using Enterprise 8.1 and you don't have the OneNote app version installed and your pen top functionality isn't working, try installing the app version. Once you have both versions of OneNote on your device, if you want to change which version of OneNote opens the easiest way is to install the Surface Hub app, which allows you to make some pen customizations.

So when we first tried our baseload using Enterprise 8.1 vs Pro 8.1 this fix worked just fine to restore the pen top functionality. However we appears the file was added to one of the Updates but the actual functionality of this patch is no longer working. The pen top does nothing on our SP3s with Enterprise installed on them, and when we try to add the msu file it says it is already installed.

I have 7 devices to deploy tomorrow and the last thing we need is basic core functionality like this to not be working. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

I was having this EXACT problem. I hunted around for a couple of days and finally found the update that fixes it. Here is the info that fixed me up:

Update Info

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2968599/en-us

Actual Update File

http://download.windowsupdate.com/d/msdownload/update/software/crup/2014/06/windows8.1-kb2968599-x64_de4ca043bf6ba84330fd96cb374e801071c4b8aa.msu

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Anonymous

Hi jm2247,

Welcome to the community and thank you for bringing this question to us. I understand that your Pro 3 pen button is not functioning on Windows 8.1 Enterprise.

I understand this is may be not the most convenient way for you but I recommend contacting our Enterprise Support here. They will guide you toward the right direction.

Let us know if you have other question or concerns in the future.

Best Regards,

Clare

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51 additional answers

Anonymous

2014-06-22T07:27:27+00:00

I think that your may have to refresh the SP3 to how it came from factory. [...] 😐

Thanks -- I really appreciate you taking the time to help me troubleshoot.

If I had to choose between DirectAccess (not available in Pro) and the OneNote button working, I'd unfortunately choose the DirectAccess. I'd certainly prefer not to choose, though, as that was one of the really cool features that made me want SP3. The drivers explicitly support 8.1 Enterprise so I'd be surprised if there's not a way to get it to work...still, that's a perfectly reasonable interpretation.

I'll try the phone support on Monday and report back, assuming there aren't any resolutions to this before then.

Ok, I got your same problem. After installing Enterprise, the Top button click stopped. I went over to surface.com/support and they wanted to replace the pen. The pen isn't the issue. To confirm, I factory reset, and immediately the Top button opened One Note. I then installed enterprise, and the button stopped. Reinstalling OneNote did not help.

This leads me to believe there is a button event somewhere controlling this

Now, on Enterprise, pressing the top button, will activate the screen, if its sleeping it will wake. A second click will go to the next screen. At no tine does One Note open.

I factory reset a 2d time, and OneNote and the Top Button works fine.

I don't think this has anything to do with One Note, office, direct access. I think its missing a button event. So far, can't find it....
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Anonymous

2014-06-22T03:45:36+00:00
There is a software called EventGhost, I have seen a video of somebody that tweaked the top button to lunch other applications. You may have a chance of using it to lunch OneNote.

Here is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn-pqWIQKpk

That's a neat find!

I tried this out and it does work, but it's very limited relative to what the button is supposed to do (though it's cool to have extra flexibility). For people who live in the desktop and don't need the lock screen note-taking functionality this could be a good option.

The main advantage is that you can configure it to do pretty much anything -- open 5 programs, run arbitrary commands, etc.

It may be possible to use command line trickery to get it to do better than this, but if you just use the straightforward EventGhost functionality it's not too hard to get it to open OneNote (desktop). However, it just opens it on the desktop and doesn't bring it into focus, so it won't bring it up if you're in a metro app or on the start screen. It definitely won't work if the machine is asleep. You have to leave the app up (it has an auto-start on boot option) in order for it to work.

My main use of interest is the lock screen note-taking thing, so that won't work but this is an interesting possibility I'll keep in mind in case I find a use for it.

For anyone else who may look at this thread and want to do something arbitrary (e.g. open IE) or get this level of functionality out of it if you're in the same spot as me, here is a brief set of steps that should work:

Download, install, and launch EventGhost

File -> New

Right click on "Configuration Tree" in the right pane, select "Add Macro"

Select "System" -> "Start Application" -> OK

Select the location of the executable (for me OneNote was "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\Onenote.exe")

note that variables don't seem to work in EventGhost, so "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office\Office15\ONENOTE.EXE" works on a command line for me but doesn't work in this program - I had to give the exact path.

Choose the working directory (I chose "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15" and it worked fine but not sure if this is where it usually runs from)

Assuming you have your pen paired as a bluetooth device (should be for most people or help is here for people with trouble like me), press the OneNote pen button.

This will show an event in the left, and most likely two. First there's a System.DeviceAttached event and then a System.DeviceRemoved event.

You'll see something longer and more complicated than that; for me the System.DeviceAttached event looked like this: "System.DeviceAttached [u'\\?\HID#{00001812-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb}_Dev_VID&02045e_PID&07c5_REV&0001_e029d76d4221#9&3389d640&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}']"

Drag the System.DeviceAttached event from the left pane to the macro you added. This will set it up as the event trigger that causes the app you selected to open

Right click the macro (on the right side, the thing you first added, for me it's "Start Program: ONENOTE.EXE") and select "Execute Item" to test it and make sure it works.

File -> Save As -> [file] -- save the EventGhost tree for future reference

File -> Options -> check "Autostart EventGhost on system startup" -> OK (this is so it will be usable after a restart and the program is closed)

It's actually pretty straightforward. The hardest parts were just realizing pressing the button would cause an event to show up on the left side as a template to use as a trigger, and finding onenote's file location. It's pretty much all just a bunch of clicks, though.
I'm glad that it helped you.
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