Microsoft Surface Pro pen issues persist, driver faulty?
updated 07:58 pm EST, Mon February 18, 2013
Newly reported issue involves total loss of pen input
Reports about additional problems with the Microsoft Surface Pro pen are beginning to become apparent. Several Surface Pro users are reporting issues with pen detection completely ceasing after some usage. One forum member of the Microsoft Answer community reports that the company told him to uninstall the pen driver, and reboot forcing automatic pen driver reinstall. The procedure resolved the issue. A second user attempted the same fix, which failed to resolve the issue, but "several" reboots fix pen recognition, but only temporarily.
The newly reported issues, are coupled with a previous report of inconsistent support across applications, including Adobe Photoshop. Regarding the Photoshop issues, Microsoft says that "the Surface pen does work with Photoshop, which runs on Surface Pro, though advanced features such as pressure sensitivity and eraser functionality may not be available at this time. Microsoft is working with the necessary partners to make advanced features of the Surface pen available across a number of applications in the near future."
Electronista spoke with highly-placed Microsoft support personnel who told us that "the fix as it stands won't fix everything, and doesn't address Photoshop. That will need to be fixed by Adobe." Our contact adds that "if application developers fully adhere to the Surface SDK implementation of pen functionality, then proper application support is all but guaranteed."
