PLEASE - Help make disabling touch in Windows 8 easier!

[chapmattman]

Hey everyone-
We all know Windows 8 would be better if you could toggle touch on and off so drawing in programs like Sketchbook would be better.... no accidental hand strokes.

In Win 8, unlike Windows 7, MS has removed the easy ability to disable touch. BOOOOOOO! This is not a satisfying tablet experience, because in programs like Autodesk Sketchpad, or ArtRage, you cannot work with your hand on the screen.*

Sign into this forum and vote helpful on my post to see if we can bump this issue into their heads. It is crap to have to go to device manager and disable HID devices manually to achieve a simple, and necessary part of Windows on a tablet.

vote up here

In Win 7 you could disable it using devices, and it was also present in the Win 8 Developer Preview. To remove it completely is asinine.

Please help this cause!

Matt

*it should be noted that both of these programs could have better support for the capabilities of Windows to distinguish between pen and hand. I have also emailed them, but in Win 7 it was a simple solution, in Win 8 it is GONE.

[jnjroach]

I would rather the ISVs correctly use the APIs and allow for both, in OneNote and other programs that use the API correctly I like being able to use both pen and touch....

[chapmattman]

i of course agree as noted above, but sometimes the program makers just don't. So it wouldn't hurt to ask MS to keep disabling touch easier.

[jnjroach]

But again if Microsoft does that there is little motivation for the ISVs to program correctly for the hardware. I believe we will experience some pain in this transition but in the long run it will be worth it...

[dceggert]

Chapmattman,
You are missing the point of Win 8. Microsoft is busy demonstrating what this new OS is capable of with touch. They have updated the 'touch keyboard' to do all the things iOS does but is trying to be better. They don't want you to use the pen. Disabling touch would be counterproductive to what they are trying to achieve! In all the public demonstrations I have watched so far the pen is not demonstrated at all and only passingly mentioned as 'optional but not needed.'

My son's quad-core, dual screen, dual video card terror of a gaming platform desktop is about to become a huge blazingly fast iPad with direct access to the new Microsoft 'app store.' The funny thing is he does not have 'touch' on that nor a pen but he will be forced to use the Metro start menu just the same.

I recommended he just stay with Win 7 until MS 'fixes' Win 8 with a Service Pack and he is okay with that.... It will be a wonderful OS for the new ARM platform, but forcing this on the PC market is a huge mistake but apparently one that MS needs to learn once again.

[Seketh]

Windows 8 is not finished, same with all the applications. I'm sure we're going to see many improvements in the final versions.

[llazyad]

hey guys, i've been trying to find out for myself if there's any way to quickly turn touch in win 8 on and off faster, as it turns out, you can do that by disabling the touch hardware from windows control panel /device manager

but that is tedious and let's face it.. it sux having to do that every time...

so then i browsed some more... and discovered that windows has a device manager command console called devcon.exe as a backup access point from a command line which was great.. thought i could just do a shortcut for turning on and off a device just by it's device id... the first issue was finding the devcon.exe version that works for my processor, i have a S7S btw...

the devcon.exe provided by microsoft if you just google it doesn't work for win8 x64 or for my processor type i guess... so then i found out from some other forums that i could find different versions of the devcon in windows tool kit something.. i don't really remember..but i know i had to use universal Extractor and get into some deep files...

but here's the one that worked for me https://www.dropbox.com/s/h50gnq358vy2wpq/devcon.exe

i managed to get into the console and found the device id which describes the touch just by disabling and enabling stuff after figuring out how to use devcon.exe but i still had no hope in making a quick shortcut... so then i looked at some different compiling programs and found out that my best bet of making a shortcut would be with powerShell ... so i found some script that would disable and enable by using the same exe...

but then it didn't work cause i had to enable the administrator mode for powershell cause apparently windows 8 has some really tight-ass security protocols... but luckily i found out how to do that 2 so here's the link that helped me : Running Windows PowerShell Scripts

this is the script i used :



$devid = "*USB\VID_03EB&PID_211C&MI_00"

$status = devcon status $devid | Select-String "running"

if($status -eq $null)
{
write-host "Enabling wireless"
devcon enable $devid
}
else
{
write-host "Disabling wireless"
devcon disable $devid
}




where &devid is the device id of my touch, it could vary i think , so you have to experiment a bit... and u just use this in a txt and save it with the extension .ps1 and make a shortcut of it on your desktop or something... if you follow these steps you should be good

and if u want to thank me, just send me your email so i can invite you to dropbox cause im running out of space )

[Scud]

My AsusEP121 script:

$devid = "*HID\VID_0EEF&PID_A001&REV_1213&Col01"
$status = devcon status $devid | Select-String "running"

if($status -eq $null)
{
write-host "Enabling touch"
devcon enable $devid
}
else
{
write-host "Disabling touch"
devcon disable $devid
}

Run as admin by making PowerShell shortcut with Properties -> Shortcut -> Advanced -> Run as Administrator
and give my script to powershell as "C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powers hell.exe C:\scripts\buttontouch.ps1" in path.
Still bothered by UAC every time.

[waspinator]

My AsusEP121 script:

$devid = "*HID\VID_0EEF&PID_A001&REV_1213&Col01"
$status = devcon status $devid | Select-String "running"

if($status -eq $null)
{
write-host "Enabling touch"
devcon enable $devid
}
else
{
write-host "Disabling touch"
devcon disable $devid
}

Run as admin by making PowerShell shortcut with Properties -> Shortcut -> Advanced -> Run as Administrator
and give my script to powershell as "C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powers hell.exe C:\scripts\buttontouch.ps1" in path.
Still bothered by UAC every time.

is there a way to map this script to a button on the device?

[ben74]

There was a program, TouchToggle which was working on windows 7 ..
I'm looking for a shell or taskbar button or whatever to get this function back on windows 8 ..