The Ultimate Guide to Making Your Wacom Tablet Work on Windows 7
Sunday, August 14, 2011 at 4:17PM PLEASE READ: The Windows and Wacom Tablet Nightmare is Over
[Update on 2012/08/18] for Windows 8 information go here: http://viziblr.com/news/2012/8/18/windows-8-rtm-and-wacom-tablets-better-but-flawed.html
When Windows 7 sees that your DESKTOP PC has a Wacom tablet attached, it activates a bunch of Tablet PC – based features that annoy most users. This post will explain what these problems are and how to disable them.
NOTE: I’ve covered these topics before, but separately and went into a lot of technical detail – this post is the comprehensive guide that just tells you what you need to know.
YOU HAVE TWO OPTIONS. PICK ONE.
The AUTOMATIC option: use the Fix My Pen! tool.
The MANUAL option: follow the steps below in the order given.
MANUALLY CONFIGURING YOUR SETTINGS
PREFER TO WATCH THE SCREENCAST?
In case you prefer watching me do the steps, you can see this screencast.
STEP 1: DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE LATEST DRIVERS
Don’t argue with me on this. Just do it.
You can get the drivers here:
http://us.wacom.com/en/support/drivers
NOTE: When the drivers are first installed is when Windows 7 starts to enable all the unwanted Tablet PC features.
STEP 2: DISABLE THE TABLET PC INPUT PANEL
The first annoying Tablet PC feature is the Tablet PC Input Panel
You’ll typically see it as a little bar on the side of your desktop.
And when your cursor gets close it starts to flaunt itself…
Clicking it will reveal its full monstrosity ….
And there’s more. You’ll often also see a small input panel icon hovering hear any text input boxes
We want to disable this entirely.
Go to Control Panel > Tablet PC Settings
Click on the Other tab
On the Other tab, under Tablet PC Input Panel options, click on Go to Input Panel Settings
Disable all the checkboxes and select OK.
STEP 3: DISABLE FLICKS
The Flicks icon shows up on the notification area.
If you click on the Icon you’ll see some for of the Flick UI
The effect of flicks is that normal gesturing with the pen causes Windows to think you are giving it a command. For example, drawing a short down stroke will cause the following flick notifcation
Of course, we hate this and want to disable it.
Open the Pen and Touch control panel
Click on the Flicks tab
Uncheck the two checkboxes and press OK
STEP 4: DISABLE PRESS-AND-HOLD
Another hated feature. It’s a bit hard to describe in words, so here is an animation of its effect. All I am doing is pressing the pen down and then you’ll see the hated “glowing ring” followed by a property menu when I lift the pen (Press-and-hold things that pressing is an equivalent of a “right click”)
In Control Panel go to Pen and Touch
Under Pen Options, select Press and Hold and click Settings
Uncheck Enable press and hold for right-clicking and press OK
STEP 5: DISABLE DYNAMIC FEEDBACK
This is all the little rings that display whenever you press down with the pen
The is the hardest one to disable because there’s no place in the control panel that lets you disable it.
You are just going to have modify the registry and take care of it that way.I have provided a REG file that will help you do this
Download the ZIP here: http://goo.gl/kgZHv
The file is called disable-pen-feedback-regedit.zip
Extract the contents of the file
Inside are two REG files. One to disable dynamic feedback (this is the one you want) and other file to re-enable it (some people wanted this so I made it for them)
Right-click on disable-pen –feedback.reg and select Merge
Windows will warn you, but just click Run
And Windows will warn you again, just press Yes.
And finally it will tell you that it has merged the settings
In case, you are wondering here are the contents of the file.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\TabletPC]
"TurnOffPenFeedback"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\TabletPC]
"TurnOffPenFeedback"=dword:00000001
ONE LAST STEP
Sometimes all these changes will take place immediately, sometimes it takes a little longer. Usually the easiest way to force the changes is to simply log-off and then log back on. If that doesn’t work just try restarting your machine. (Those who are more technical may choose to simply restart the “Tablet PC Input Service”)
Reader Comments (125)
Thank you so much man! It was killing me inside! Its crazy that they've made it so hard to change on Windows 7 Home premium!
Thanks so much for the help! =]
This is a great tutorial! You have no idea how iritating is was working in Adobe Premiere Pro with everytime a ring apearing when touching the tablet!
I'd fixed most of the wacom tablet problems created by Windows 7 six months ago, but most of them reappeared after an operating system update. Your automated fix tool worked perfectly. Thank you!
Thanks for the help. Like Dave, I was able to fix all of the tablet problems several months ago, but after an update (service pack 1 I think) the problems returned and I couldn't fix them again. The stupid ripple effect would go away temporarily, then a few minutes later it would return. But your "Fix My Pen" download did the trick. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!
Works like a charm..Very nice..Thanks
Thank you very, very much. I was afraid I would have to hunt for these obscure options forever! They work great and solved everything. Thanks again!
worked great at first, but now when i logged on for the second time, the right click isnt working on the pen, and the pen stalls on some apps while opening up. mouse has no problems. any ideas?
i think i fixed it. in addition to running the above exe fix, or control panels i had to to do this:
Control Panel ->System and Security-> Administrative Tools -> Services
-> Scroll down to "Tablet PC Input Service" (Not TabletServiceWacom) ->
Stop Service
disbale Tablet PC Input Service" for good:
RIGHT CLICK "Tablet PC Input Service" ->choose "Propreties"
General TAB:
Startup type: "Disabled"
Recovery TAB:
First/second/sub failures ->"Take no action"
Reset fail count /service to "0" days/min
Click "OK"
Many thanks to you man, I disabled once this ring on vista and on win7 I didnt knew what to do. 3ds Max viewports on direct x are lagging insanely with tablet input
Well documented, thank you so much!!!
Thanks for this guide.
To DISABLE DYNAMIC FEEDBACK i had to follow this guide:
1.Open Local Group Policy Editor: Run... gpedit.msc
2.Navigate to User Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Components - Tablet PC - Cursor
3.Enable the Turn off pen feedback setting.
Win7 Enterprise sp1
Thank you - thank you - thank you
Thank you sooo much! I spent a lot of time searching for a solution, I'm so happy I found your page. You did a great job explaining the steps and it worked perfectly! Thanks!!!
I can't even start to thank you enough for this. That damned 'splash' has been annoying the heck out of me for weeks!
THANK YOU!!! I was losing my mind over this! Thankyouthankyouthankyou
Tks very much!
BY THE BEARD OF ZEUS. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. SO SO SO SO MUCH.
Thank you SO much for posting this! I nearly broke my computer trying to disable those obscenely annoying cursor rings until I found this page. What kind of idiot wouldn't include an option in the control panel to disable something so visually assaulting? Yes, dynamic feedback looks cool -- the first two dozen times you click. But when you're working on a serious project and need to focus, those rings become extremely distracting! Can't thank you enough for this solution.
Thanks for the fix. Everything work, until I unzipped the two files. I get this Registry Editor Error message: Cannot import C:\Users\MarkGooch\AppData\Local\Temp\wz7f21\disable-pen-feedback-regedit\disable-pen-feedback.r...
Error accesing the registry.