Wacom Intuos 3 Tablet on Vista Problem (with Solution)
Windows Device Manager Screenshot
Wacom makes the best graphics tablets there are, no question about it. Recently however I started experiencing a weird issue where the tablet work work just fine in Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, but not outside of these programs. After trying several different driver revisions it was clear that the problem was somehow related to Windows itself and not with the tabler or drivers - switching the pen from "pen mode" to "mouse mode" would actually make it work everywhere. However this has the downside of changing the tabled pointing mode from absolute coordinates to relative - so it works more like a touchpad than a tablet; this is undesirable as it completely mostly defeats the point of having a tablet whose surface is mapped directly to the screen.
The winning answer came courtesy of Mr Benedikt Schmitt of Wacom Europe, who offered the following solution: from the Windows Device Manager, disable the "Wacom Virtual Hid Driver" device. (Go to Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Device Manager, find the driver, right-click it and choose "Disable".) One reboot later (welcome to Windows-land, circa 2008?), everything works as desired. Pressure and tilt sensitivity inside Photoshop still work, and the pen functions just fine in the rest of the Windows desktop. The absolute mapping makes it an absolute pleasure to point quickly and precisely. It makes my laser mouse feel rather clumsy navigating a large 24" screen!