Any workarounds for highlighting problems?

[Han]

It seems Win10 has added a Scroll With Pen option. It prevents normal highlighting of text, as it functioned before, and replaces it with the need to hold down the barrel button. This is not only annoying, but causes me painful hand strain after only a few minutes.

Yesterday it seems the surface itself updated to enforce this across text documents and all browsers. The problem is, I use my tablet as a work computer and my job requires a lot of highlighting, so the strain of constantly pressing that button (which is at an odd angle for my hand) is starting to hurt more and more.

Buying a whole new computer isn't really an option. I've reverted to a previous build of windows but it causes severe overheating. I can't disable the windows installer service so it's always running and causing the screen to get so hot that it burns to touch it.

Is there any workaround to get rid of the scroll with pen feature? Or at least to stop the overheating issue with windows installer on the surface?

 

[Wayne Orwig]

Can you not 'double tap' a word with the pen, then 'stretch' the selection area?

 

[Han]

No, double tapping doesn't highlight anything. I'm not sure if that only works for specific browsers, or. I've tried Chrome and Fire Fox.

 

[jnjroach]

No, double tapping doesn't highlight anything. I'm not sure if that only works for specific browsers, or. I've tried Chrome and Fire Fox.

You are speaking of selecting text and not using an ink highlight to draw attention to a specific line of text, correct? In Windows 10 1709 and later the finger is the preferred method in most applications for selecting text.

 

[Han]

Yeah, I mean selecting text. For me anyway, the finger selection only works on active text fields where you're typing. It doesn't work if I'm just copying from a PDF/spreadsheet. Double tapping with the pen doesn't work either, and those little bubbles never show up for me.

I did find that I can disable Direct Manipulation Stylus in chrome://flags to get back the old pen functionality there, but it's only one program. It'll do in a pinch. Still open to suggestions for non-editable text fields, since the stylus barrel button has its own set of issues.