Pen behavior in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

Anonymous
2018-01-10T12:59:32+00:00

Ever since installing the Fall Creators Update, using a pen on a tablet or laptop screen doesn’t behave as it did before.  Instead of selecting text or files, the pen now scrolls.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows ink and touch

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2018-01-10T13:03:40+00:00

The Fall Creators Update implements a new interaction design to better utilize the features available to most pens in the marketplace. No pen behaviors were removed, but some actions have been reassigned to make pen behave more consistently across Windows. Previously, pen tip performed a wide variety of actions, from selection to drag-n-drop to content manipulation, while barrel button function was underutilized in the system. In the Fall Creators Update, we are making the barrel button more useful by assigning it selection and drag-n-drop functionality, while making the pen tip more useful for content manipulation, like scrolling. While these changes might seem uncomfortable at first, they make pen a more versatile tool that enhances current user experience and will enable future exciting experiences. 

Although pen is most useful for inking, in places where inking does not make sense or is not yet available, pen can now directly manipulate content the way your finger does. This functionality is available to most applications, such as File Explorer, Edge, or Start Menu, where you can now scroll without the help of a scrollbar and manipulate text selection through grippers. This change eliminates the need to hunt-and-peck for UI elements and prevents users from constantly switching between pen and other input modalities.

Barrel button also gained meaning in the Fall Creators update. Now, no matter what you want to select within the system, whether it is text in Edge, ink in OneNote, or files in File Explorer, you can do it by pressing the barrel button and dragging. Drag-n-drop with the pen is just as easy – press the barrel button, grab an object with the pen tip, and drag it to a new location. 

Making behavioral changes is always difficult. To avoid confusion and bad user experience, we worked with software developers, both internal and external, to properly react to the pen changes. While we reached out to most developers that see considerable pen usage in their applications, we did not hear back from all. If your favorite application is behaving incorrectly since the latest update, please report it by emailing WindowsInk@microsoft.com and we will work with the developer to correct any issues.

Was this answer helpful?

9 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

41 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2018-06-14T00:40:21+00:00

    Wish I had the same positive results.  Cant get the right mouse click to work in Wilcom Hatch with a two button pen on Surface Pro 3.  Applied the registry key, but no luck.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2018-06-11T16:09:55+00:00

    I’m having the same problem. Used the legacy hack to get flicks back, but now I am stuck with the default Microsoft ones, which are not the ones I want. There’s no longer any option in Pen &Touch settings to customise flicks. Very annoying

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2018-06-11T15:27:36+00:00

    Only problem that remains, is that I can no longer find where to customize the flicks!  If anyone knows how to do this, please share (or where I can find the settings file to re-introduce it to my win10 machine from my old win7 installation).  I do a lot of editing, with the help of flicks that makes it much more efficient to do my work that way, traditional mouse and keyboard strokes cause pain (I've developed RSI over the years)!

    So, Mars S Malo, did you find out where to customize flicks? I'm hesitant to revert to the legacy option if I can't make it do what I want. Thanks in advance for your answer.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2018-05-29T19:28:14+00:00

    This new behaviour is an utter disaster for multiple apps used in a professional production environment. For years I've been promoting pen enabled windows machines for ArcGIS digitising and similar work. This new behaviour renders all of this software unusable with a pen. Photoshop and all the other Adobe suite software as well as multiple other applications like sketchup are similarly affected. This has an immense impact on my ability to use a pen for work.

    I DON"T WANT TO SCROLL OR PAN WITH A BLOODY PEN unless I actually touch and drag the scroll button. Default pen behaviour MUST be exactly the same as mouse + left click for the vast majority of practical use cases. What blithering idiot changed this behaviour without any way to disable it system wide or on a per-application basis. Yes I found the reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pen /v LegacyPenInteractionModel /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f  fix buried deep in a bloody reddit thread, but this doesn't actually work very well, and still doesn't fix the broken pressure sensitivity in Photoshop. What the hell Microsoft?! I get that you are trying to entice new users with new functionality but I don't actually think it makes sense anywhere - pen touch screen = left click + mouse will always reduce overall button presses and enable work flow with most natural behaviour.

    I'm actually quite open to new interaction methods, I'm one of the few that loved the radical new touch interface on Windows 8, but this pen behaviour fundamentally breaks production users ability to use pens for real work in professional software. And that is a bugger up of the highest order.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments