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)
Hi, you saved me from returning my bamboo create tablet. Luckily I found your post and the automatic option is blazing fast and efficient. I do edits on big sheet size PDF plans and with this I proudly admit I save lots of trees. Somebody mentioned here to implement this on manufacturer website; it will save them from many returns.
Thanks a million,
L.
Wow! Thankyou.
Your solution is the only one that works! Honestly - what are Microsoft thinking? Surely a multi billion dollar company would be able to test this in their software release? I find it hard to believe that any professional in the industry who uses a tablet would actually want a flashing 'radar' cursor every time they clicked. And there is no ability to turn it off? Seriously, Microsoft! its reasons such as this that make people gravitate towards the mac. such a tiny pointless feature that ultimately ruins an otherwise adequate OS.
The link to drivers page on the Wacom website is currently:
http://us.wacom.com/en/support/drivers
and by all means thank you Saveen Reddy
@boxitron - thanks for letting me know. I've updated the link
Is there any way to shut off the stylus controlling the windows mouse pointer? I cannot seem to find any way to separate the stylus from the physical mouse on the PC. Any help is appreciated.
thank you so much!!
@m - as far as I know there is now way to accomplish that.
Thank you so much! You are a terrific teacher. I desperately needed this info, that Tablet PC Input Panel was driving me crazy, I felt like my whole virtual environment was invaded by a creepy-crawly germ, but thanks to your precious input, my life can go on normally, at least for a while. Thanks again and I will probably follow as much as I can. Your info is now a pearl in my Pearltrees.
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing.
By Celestia's Beard! Thank you for this :D
On my Graphire 2, windows 7 64-bit I used the pro602-1_int.exe
Might have come from here
http://download.driverscollection.com/drivers/dc9d1ad4db157aa6e31cf673c544b093/49328f82/W/Wacom/Tablet/pro602-1_int.exe
the plastic pen tip seems to get 'stuck' on pressing on it, I just pull it out and it works.
I replaced the nib with a toothpick ,round, used a grinding wheel, sandpaper also works.
Oh, how irresponsible MS is with this things, as if they did not give a damn about Window users in the end at all, hey, maybe it's just the case in this case...
I'm saying nothing new - but a hearty, heartfelt "thank you". Really appreciated.
Thank you very much for the great share.
Pc Help
This is really helpful, but I'd like to point out an additional step that helped me. For whatever reason, when I got the latest drivers, my tablet stopped registering, and rolling them back, something went screwy with my input. When painting in GIMP or Photoshop, my brush cursor would be off/miscalibrated from my pen cursor, to the point where painting was useless.
I had to uninstall the old Wacom driver listed in the control-panel, then double-checked that it was deleted in System 32 (listed as any of the following:
pentablet.cpl
pentablet.znc
wintab32.dll
pen_tablet.dll
tablet.exe
pentablet.exe
pen_tablet.exe
pen_tabletuser.exe
tabuserw.exe)
Then I restarted my system, installed the correct driver, and restarted again.
For Windows 7, I specifically had to roll back to the driver 5.24-5 RC, which I download from here: http://www.helpdrivers.com/english/download/
Now everything's up and working smoothly again.
Thank you over and over again! I was totally frustrated with the Wacom and I did not know how to fix it.
Now, with your help....I FIXED IT....and I have the joy of creating what I want to create on my tablet without
all that terrible nuisance stuff. Thank you again and again!
You are a gentleman and a scholar, you've saved my day
Thanx alot.. the biggest problem is solved. very useful tutorial :)
Hey. I've been trying everything to turn off the feedback for my pen. Like you said, there was an option for it in Vista and XP, but WIN7 doesn't have it. I use a website to draw with friends(iscribble.net), and the feature lags and disrupts the ability to draw or write fluently(Especially when you write the lowercase letters: i and t) . Turning the feature off in Win Vista/XP took that away.
I've downloaded the file, and it works to remove the animation, but the fidgety behavior is still there. So yes, the feedback animation is gone, but it's behavior is still there.
I'd like to again say, when you turned it off on vista/xp, it no longer lagged. It still does on Win7 even with the animation off. The animation is gone but the feature is still being used in the background. I need it totally 100% gone, feature and animation together. ...This sort of only solves half the problem.. I could care less if the animation is there or not so long as I don't get that lag. On XP/Vista the lag was present only until you turned the feature off so I KNOW it's still working in the background.
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