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Surface pen and One Note destop with Windows 1-

kstuebing

New Member
Is there any way to use the top button of the Surface pen to open the desktop version of One Note and not the installed app? This is also the default behavior for the note icon too. I'm not always signed in to my Microsoft account nor do I want to be. I've set One Note desktop as the default app. I've unpaired the pen and repaired it hoping to get an option to choose. That didn't happen. The Surface app just has settings for adjusting the pen sensitivity. I did a search on this and saw a lot of posts from 2015. Most people were waiting for an update. I guess that never happened. So is there any kind of workaround? Thanks for any help.
 

ScottyS

Active Member
If I recall correctly, with Office 2013 when you first open One Note with the pen button it asks if you want to keep One Note MUI as the default. Check in One Note 2013 options if there is an option to set it as the default version of One Note and see if that does it.
 
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kstuebing

New Member
If I recall correctly, with Office 2013 when you first open One Note with the pen button it asks if you want to keep One Note MUI as the default. Check in One Note 2013 options if there is an option to set it as the default version of One Note and see if that does it.

Thanks for your reply. You would think that would work but I did that. The app takes over. I can't even uninstall it. I think this happened when I upgraded to Windows 10. I never had this other app before. I have set the desktop version to default in every way I can. It's just really annoying that I can't click the top of the pen like I did before and get the version of One Note that I want. Of course, I can just open the version on the taskbar which is the desktop version but it defeats the whole purpose of the top button on the pen.
 

ScottyS

Active Member
Yeah, I guess the only way is to run Office 2013 in Windows 8.
The 2016 version on One Note also removed the ability to insert a phot taken with the camera. I thought upgrades were supposed to add features, not take them away.

I use the pen button to open One Note just to use it as a white board while teaching, and if I intend to use One Note desktop version to take notes, I launch it the usual way.
 
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kstuebing

New Member
Yeah, I guess the only way is to run Office 2013 in Windows 8.
The 2016 version on One Note also removed the ability to insert a phot taken with the camera. I thought upgrades were supposed to add features, not take them away.

I use the pen button to open One Note just to use it as a white board while teaching, and if I intend to use One Note desktop version to take notes, I launch it the usual way.

I think it's totally retarded to not be able to launch the Office version. Maybe there will be a fix but I doubt it when I see people complaining about this a year ago. There is some kind of hack where you install the drivers for the Surface Pro 4 pen but I'm always afraid of messing with drivers.
 
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kstuebing

New Member
Here's a possible solution:

Thanks for the video. I already tried deleting the Surface app and reinstalling it. It just replaced it with the same one I had. It only has options to change the pen sensitivity. However, I suspect this might work for some people.
 

ScottyS

Active Member
I've uninstalled and re-installed the Surface app, checked for updates, etc. And I don't have those extra settings.

upload_2016-6-12_12-41-1.png
 

leeshor

Well-Known Member
I can't vouch for what the SP3 Surface app lo0oks like but this is from my SP4 Surface app and is just below the sensitivity section.
pen options.JPG
 

ScottyS

Active Member
I have the SP3. I bought the SP4 pen and uninstalled all the pen related drivers and installed all the SP4 pen drivers ( SurfacePen, SurfacePenPairing, SurfacePenSettingsDriver).
I did see those pen button customizations once, but the pen didn't work right, the eraser didn't erase so after several removal and reinstall of the pen drivers, and roll back drivers I eventually got the pen to work right but have never seen those pen button customizations even with several uninstall and re-download of the Surface app.

Maybe I should try rolling back the SurfacePenSettingsDriver, but you know once you got something working right (the pen) you're reluctant to try to tweak something else further for fear that will screw something else up.
 
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