Month: February 2011

Windows 7 SP1

Microsoft have today released Service Pack 1 for Windows 7.
This is a mixture of all previous updates and bug fixes together with some new ones.
I will be testing the update this week to see if it has any impact on Photoshop/Lightroom/Exiftool etc use. If your PC is mission critical then you may wish to accept just normal updates and hold back on SP1 till I have tested here.
UPDATE:
Well its been a week now and there is nothing bad to report from my experiences of the SP1 update. I have noticed a few small improvements in responsiveness so I would suggest that if you run Windows 7 you give the service patch a go.
Stephen

Pen click animations in Windows 7

If you are getting the annoying “bloop” animations in Windows 7 when using a Wacom tablet pen then the following may be of use.

To turn these animations off:

1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor (Start:Run:gpedit.msc)
2. Navigate to User Configuration: Administrative Templates: Windows Components: Tablet PC: Cursor
3. Enable the Turn off pen feedback setting.

Retouching in Photoshop is much smoother without these animated cursors, I had got rid of them some time ago but they came back recently (possible after a service patch). I confirmed that the Microsoft tablet controls service had been switched off but obviously this associated setting was still in place.