Windows 8 tip: enabling demo-like touch feedback

If you’ve tuned into any of the keynotes or sessions at Microsoft’s BUILD 2011 conference you might have noticed the black dots that appear on screen to indicate where the presenter’s fingers are. Previously thought to be a secret registry key, it turns out it’s actually an option that anyone enable.

Thanks to a heads up from Paul Thurrott, the setting to enable this is under the classic “Control Panel”, in Touch settings, Touch tab and the option “Optimize visual feedback for projection to an external monitor”.

Personally I actually prefer these black dots over the default and much more subtle touch dots and trails. The fact that they’re still transparent means content is still visible underneath, but it provides a much stronger indication of which fingers are sensed and how accurate it is. When I get a Windows 8 slate, I’d love to try to see if I can use this always on.

3 insightful thoughts

  1. The touch features in Windows 7 weren’t enough to justify buying a touch capable computer in my opinion, but after reading the articles like this about the touch features in Windows 8, it now means that it is very likely that the next laptop I buy will be a touch capable laptop! =D

    After all, Windows 8 seems amazing with any type of computer, but not as fun if you don’t have a touch capable computer. 🙁

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