Windows 8 Wacom tablet press and hold FIX

Worth a try possible easy fix for the Windows 8 Wacom tablet Windows Ink ring around stylus point and drag problem.

Tedious story follows, if you want the fix quick skip the next couple of paragraphs.

I’m writing this as a reminder to myself. I just spent a frustrating day hard up against a deadline, struggling with a sudden loss of pen pressure sensitivity on my Wacom tablet. It brought home to me how much I rely on computer technology to do my work. I’d love to return totally to brushes and paint but these days it’s just isn’t practical. Normally my Wacom cintiqu WX13 performs perfectly but for reasons I won’t go into now I had to uninstall and reinstall it. There has been a longstanding problem revolving around a conflict between Windows 7 and 8 ink pen feature and using the Wacom stylus to paint and draw. The problem is that Windows by default installs this annoying feature that causes a ring to appear round the stylus or a dipping effect as though you are breaking the surface of water, and a dragging or delay when you attempt to draw a stroke. It is fantastically irritating and at it’s worst can seriously impact on the speed of drawing, productivity and ultimately income.

Anyway, I’d forgotten about this hassle which I’d solved a while ago until today when it reared it’s foul suppurating pustule infested bonce again after I’d reinstalled the Wacom. No worries, I thought, as Wacom, had finally released a driver fix with a neat little check box that turned off the dreaded effect. However, for some reason this time it also turned off the pressure sensitiveness of my pen. Argg! After several restarts and re-installs attempting to solve it I was on the verge of admitting failure to complete my deadline, with all the resulting loss of work and income. A hunt around the web revealed various solutions most which I didn’t like the sound of such as rootling around in the registry or installing some suspect homebrew .exe file made 5 years ago. After a while it dawned on me that you had to be able to turn it off in Windows and I found it all where one would expect in the Pen and Touch settings. With these features unchecked my tablet worked again as it should though I cannot say that it will work for you, but it’s certainly worth a try. If I were to have a little rant, which I won’t, but if I did I would say, “Wacom and Microsoft can you get your heads together to *&^$£*^! sort this thing out once and for all! Particularly Microsoft for adding completely *&^$£*^! useless features instead of concentrating wholly on reliability!” (Having said that Windows 7 onwards has been remarkably reliable and I virtually never have the grey hair inducing days lost to frustrating technical problems I remember with previous Windows.) On to the fix… (Usual disclaimers that it may not be a fix for your set up.. but it’s worth a try and easy to put back if it doesn’t work.)

Windows 8 Wacom tablet pen press and hold, ring around stylus, Windows Ink, problem FIX.

If you haven’t already try unchecking the Use Windows Ink box in the Wacom Tablet Properties window. This should work. If it does but causes other effects such as loss of pressure sensitiveness, which is what happened to me, leave it ON and try the following.

Open your Windows Settings Control Panel and click on Hardware and Sound.

Open Pen and Touch (Obvious really!)

Uncheck the “Use the pen as a right-click equivalent2. I unchecked the “Use the top of the pen to erase ink” too because I never use the eraser on the Wacom pen anyway.

Click Press and Hold in the pen actions list and then settings.

Uncheck Enable press and hold for right-clicking. That should stop those annoying rings and drag.

Go to the Flicks tab in the Pen and Touch dialogue and uncheck Use flicks to perform common actions quickly and easily. Unless you have a big quiff which you want to flick now and again for effect.

I hope it works. 🙂