Toggle Touch Screen

[ebennetthill]

I am using a ThinkPad x220 Tablet with Windows 7 at my school. It has a touch screen which has some usefulness, but often it is an annoyance when I use the stylus for input. Hand touches just mess up the screen when I'm trying to write with the stylus.

There is a control panel control item to turn it off, but I was wondering if someone might create an AHK script to access that function and turn it into a tray item and a hotkey to toggle the touch screen and make it easy to use it as I want, when I want.

I have a lot of friends who would also find this useful and appreciate it.

[4wd]

This might be a rather silly question, (not having a tablet I'm allowed at least one though), but if you turn off the touch screen how is the stylus going to work?

Doesn't it rely on the touch screen for positioning?

Otherwise, if you want a suggestion: Use Ath' WinButton program and devcon.  Create one button to disable the touch screen device and another to re-enable it.

[ebennetthill]

What a silly question!!
Just kidding. You couldn't know unless you've had one to mess with.
The laptop must have different drivers to control the inputs, because the stylus touch and inking is totally separate from the finger touch. Finger touch can be turned on or off, but the stylus always is working.
I'll check out the programs you suggested.
Thanks

[mouser]

This sounds like a really good idea to me.  Maybe you can try to find if the control panel item has any documentation somewhere that would explain WHAT it actually does when it disables touch screen interaction.

[skwire]

Mouser: http://stackoverflow...dow-or-control-level

[MilesAhead]

This sounds like a really good idea to me.  Maybe you can try to find if the control panel item has any documentation somewhere that would explain WHAT it actually does when it disables touch screen interaction.

-mouser (September 22, 2011, 01:28 PM)

I looked in the usual lists of control panel applet names.  Nothing for touch screen.  I see skwire found the registry setting though.

I did see on one board somebody setting the touch screen service to manual.  Supposedly then it could be stopped and started.  In that case sc.exe service control may be all that's needed to toggle it.  Of course the machine is needed to try it.  Still may need to send the notification msg if the system doesn't do it for you.

[skwire]

Good find, MilesAhead.  If it turns out to be as simple as starting and stopping a service, that would be a piece of cake to code.

@ebennetthill: Could you please check your services control panel (Start, Run box, services.msc) list for a Touch Input service of some sort?  I don't have a Win7 tablet so I'm not sure of the exact name you'll be looking for.  Once you've found that, stop the service and check your functionality.  Then start the service again and see if the functionality returns.  Let us know what you find.  Thanks.

[MilesAhead]

Good find, MilesAhead.  If it turns out to be as simple as starting and stopping a service, that would be a piece of cake to code.

@ebennetthill: Could you please check your services control panel (Start, Run box, services.msc) list for a Touch Input service of some sort?  I don't have a Win7 tablet so I'm not sure of the exact name you'll be looking for.  Once you've found that, stop the service and check your functionality.  Then start the service again and see if the functionality returns.  Let us know what you find.  Thanks.

-skwire (September 22, 2011, 04:55 PM)

I should have saved the url, but I was looking for the applet name.  Iirc the person said he had to first set the service to Manual before he could toggle it off and on. Don't know why that would be.  I don't have one to try it myself.

[ebennetthill]

Skwire

I found a service called Wacom ISD Touch Service. Checking the service was a little weirder than I expected.

1. Service started and Touch enabled in Control Panel (Pen and Touch Applet): Touch is like a mouse cursor and I can drag the screen to scroll
2. Service stopped and Touch enabled in Control Panel: Touch is like a mouse cursor (open/close program, move scroll bar, etc.), no drag to scroll
3. Service stopped and Touch disabled in Control Panel: Touch is like a mouse cursor, no drag to scroll
4. Service started and Touch disabled in Control Panel: No Touch

So...
No service: touch works, but just like a mouse cursor
Service enabled: touch is turned on or off by control panel

[ebennetthill]

I just read what MilesAhead was saying about setting the service to manual. (type first, read later)

I just changed mine from automatic to manual, and for my machine, it made no difference. I saw the same patterns as before.

[MilesAhead]

This page has some stuff about pen and touch tablet settings.  I don't know how useful it is:

http://www.webtlk.co...ws-7-commands-guide/

[ebennetthill]

Thanks. Always good to see these kind of pages. I've got it bookmarked now.
That would allow me to make a macro with AutoHotKey to start the Control Panel applet and toggle the touch screen.
I'm still interested in an application that might work "behind th scenes" to do this. I'll let you know if I come across anything.

[skwire]

I'm still interested in an application that might work "behind th scenes" to do this. I'll let you know if I come across anything.

-ebennetthill (October 03, 2011, 10:14 AM)

Part of the issue here is that I don't think any of us coders have a tablet to work/test with.  That makes it very difficult to provide you with a solution.   

[MilesAhead]

I'm still interested in an application that might work "behind th scenes" to do this. I'll let you know if I come across anything.

-ebennetthill (October 03, 2011, 10:14 AM)

Part of the issue here is that I don't think any of us coders have a tablet to work/test with.  That makes it very difficult to provide you with a solution.  

-skwire (October 03, 2011, 10:32 AM)

Also there used to be quite a bit of IBM "user written software" floating around on the web.  If you could find a ThinkPad forum or just search there may be some utility written by an IBM employee as a hobby, that might be a utility for it.  I remember there was lots of stuff like multiple virtual desktops and that type of thing.  Esp. stuff written in Rexx.

[ebennetthill]

Part of the issue here is that I don't think any of us coders have a tablet to work/test with.  That makes it very difficult to provide you with a solution.   Sad

Yes. I appreciate now that it is a very specialized request. Thanks for all you do around here.

Also there used to be quite a bit of IBM "user written software" floating around on the web.  If you could find a ThinkPad forum or just search there may be some utility written by an IBM employee as a hobby, that might be a utility for it.  I remember there was lots of stuff like multiple virtual desktops and that type of thing.  Esp. stuff written in Rexx.

Thanks. I'll keep my eyes open for something like this.
I will report if I come across something useful.

[Ath]

@ebennetthill, have you researched the ThinkVantage software, available with that tablet? It appears to have several configurable tools/options, that might provide you with what you need to achieve what you want. (I read this tip when searching for solutions for this issue, though I don't know anything about that ThinkVantage software.)

[iocus]

I use a Fujitsu tablet with both the Pen and touch feature much like the Thinkpad discussed on this thread. I too would be interested in a tray icon that would allow me to switch the touch input off and on with a single click or hotkey. Fujitsu software supplied just opens the tablet PC.cpl to the touch settings tab.

I am currently using Windows 7 x64 and it is my understanding that the touch devices run with windows generic drivers . I did a little investigating and found that the registry value that enables/ disables the touch input is: TouchGate @key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Wisp\Touch . Also, the process that controls the input devices is wisptis.exe . On my system, this process appears twice, running under the system and again under current user. I killed the process and it came back on its own.

I developed a primitive vb script with the little knowledge I have of logic, a little research, and previous experience developing bat files for win98 as a kid. its pretty straight forward. first, it reads the registry setting for TouchGate then it toggles it between on and off. After it is killed, wisptis.exe restarts on its own. Use it at your own risk. I would like to find more elegant way to accomplish this task. However, I am out of time and need to put this aside as it accomplishes, at least temporarily, what I need.

Please note, I have not found any side effects by terminating the process. However, I would use caution on your system.

Code: Visual Basic [Select]

1. Dim WshShell, dKey
2. Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
3.  
4. '::reads registry setting::'
5. dkey = WshShell.RegRead("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Wisp\Touch\TouchGate")
6.  
7. '::toggles registry key setting between 0(off) and 1(On)'
8.  
9. If dkey = 1 Then
10.         WshShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Wisp\Touch\TouchGate", 0, "REG_DWORD"
11.  
12. Else
13.         WshShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Wisp\Touch\TouchGate", 1, "REG_DWORD"
14. End If
15.  
16. '::Kills wisptis.exe process::'
17.  
18. strComputer = "."
19. Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
20.     & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" _
21.     & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
22. Set colProcessList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
23.     ("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = 'wisptis.exe'")
24. For Each objProcess in colProcessList
25.     objProcess.Terminate()
26. Next

these links were a lot of help:
http://msdn.microsof...394599(v=vs.85).aspx (learned to terminate a service using vb)

http://msdn.microsof...ibrary/yfdfhz1b.aspx (learned how to make registry tweaks using vb, way easier than cml)

ttfn
iOCUS