StrokeIt work on Windows Vista?

Have you tried turning off UAC? That seems to be interfering with StrokeIt...

Okay, here's how to get it working in IE:

If you have UAC on AND IE Protected Mode on, it won't work.

You have to turn off either UAC or Protected Mode.

A right click in my 64-bit apps shuts them down. Any suggestions?

Here my solution:

just install stroke-it, then disable the lines (Edit -> Preferences -> Draw Colored Lines When Entering gestures).

Stroke-it works fine as long as you don't try to use it over Microsoft software (like IE or MSN). As soon as you use it on one of those it crashes, often making the whole system crash (yes, thanks Microsoft for the excellent robustness of Windows!!). My solution: just avoid to use stroke-it on those programs (even better: avoid those programs).

I'm using Vista Ultimate x64.

Rei,

The solution you posted worked for me. Thank you very much. I imagine anyone else who has poseted the same limitations should be able to turn off protected mode in IE and get back to working again.

Instructions:
[Tools]
[Internet Options]
[Security] Tab
Uncheck [Enable Protected Mode]

Works great. Thanks again Rei!

:)

You lose the Vista specific IE7 security features that way, but then again, IE7 on XP is pretty safe too so long as you're not behind on your Windows Updates.

Well, I've taken the Vista plunge, and it's not so bad...

StrokeIt basically works for me, without the gesture line, and with relatively frequent crashes. I sort of miss the line, because I used it to guide my gesturing and increase my accuracy thereby. The crashes are a minor annoyance.

I'm running 32-bit Vista, which means (if I understand the above posts) I'm don't have to turn off UAC, and I don't have any problem gesturing over Windows or Internet Explorer windows.

However, like the rest of the Vista users here, I sincerely hope that Jeff is well and active and intending someday to touch up the Vista version of StrokeIt. I note also that if it were a matter of buying him a license for Vista, or even a machine to run it on, we could probably pass the hat and hook him up forthwith...

@Sam: I won't blame MS. This is why it crashes with MS's applications:

1. StrokeIt hook is a win32 DLL
2. MS's software on vista 64 are 64 bit (and that's natural)
3. By Vista's OS design you may not load 32bit DLLs inside 64bit processes.

It naturally crashes and this is documented!

Regards,
lallous

running strokeit under windows 98 compatibility mode fixed all problems for me.

All problems?? I tried that and it fixed neither the problem of drawing the colored line too slowly and the problem of gestures not recognized in IE7.

MKairys Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All problems?? I tried that and it fixed neither
> the problem of drawing the colored line too slowly
> and the problem of gestures not recognized in IE7.

Before I installed the correct chipset this happened to me too - the coloured line was drawn very slowly. Installing the correct chipset solved this for me. Mind you, it still crashed. Following the recommendations given above solved the problems for me.

i figured out why strokeit only works for some applications and not others. i read in a blog somewhere that i should be running visual studio as admin. so i did just that, but then i realized strokeit no longer worked.

i put 2 and 2 together, and it appears that strokeit will only work on applications with the same privilege level. this explains why it doesn't work when you go into the admin windows like services.

so i suspect if we disable UAC altogether, strokeit should work. for now, i'm leaving it on because of security features (you can get rid of the annoying popup through the local security policy and auto-elevate your privileges)

just a heads up on the slow line formation with gestures: right-click on My Computer>Properties>Advanced System Settings>Performance Settings...

third one down (for me) is Enable desktop composition. unchecking this setting drastically improved the performance for StrokeIt overall. the only downfall to this is that you won't be able to use the Win+Tab to flip through windows, nor will you be able to Alt+Tab and see the different windows in realtime anymore. a small price to pay for getting StrokeIt to work on my machine once more, IMO.

-Lynx

Anyone have a problem with the strokeit run program/browser not working? I swear it use to work fine, but now strokeit can't open the program unless it is already open.

Hey guys,

I have been an avid StrokeIt user for a while now, and I can't live without this program. I am also running Windows Vista RTM, and have experienced almost all of the same issues that has plagued this thread. I have been experimenting and I believe I have found the most-stable way to run this program in Vista.

First, I enabled Windows 98/Millenium Compatibility Mode (don't ask why old Win98, but it wasn't crashing at a certain point where all others would during my testing).

After you've done this, open StrokeIt, and for every application that you use, make sure that StrokeIt calls that application by the WINDOW CLASS name. I had a few in there with just the .exe name, and StrokeIt would either kill itself, or crash hard when trying to use it in applications I added using only the .exe name.

I therefore recommend that you at least try this on your machines, and see if it does make a difference. I believe that it's good for me so far, but I'd like to hear if others can backup my claim that this little method will help reduce/eliminate crashes.

Otherwise, I can only pray that Jeff/someone updates this insanely addictive program to be fully compatible with Vista. I can't live without it!!

Thanks guys,

-G

Hello, I have Windows Vista Ultimate, but I even can't save my own applications. StrokeIT crahs, and if I restart, there are again the standard applications. I also tried the Win 98-Compatibility Mode, same problem. Do anybody of you know what I'm doing wrong?

(and sorry for my bad english, Im a german guy :P)

After months of use in Vista, my advices:

- Long gestures seems to crash the program, so put a small interval in the configuration, no more than 4000 milliseconds. And avoid complicated gestures of course, if you try a 20 seconds gesture it is going to crash.
- Don't launch a external program/URL using StrokeIt. If you want that function use some launcher that can associate key combinations, and then in StrokeIt use the command "send keystrokes".
You can deactivate the plugins that launch external programs and so on.
- Deactivate the colored line.

I don't run strokeit in compatibility mode, following this rules StrokeIt has not crashed months ago for me.
Anyway, I really miss the colored line... but yeah, StrokeIt to the 60% of its potential is better than no StrokeIt at all :)

Lynx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> just a heads up on the slow line formation with
> gestures: right-click on My
> Computer>Properties>Advanced System
> Settings>Performance Settings...
>
> third one down (for me) is Enable desktop
> composition. unchecking this setting drastically
> improved the performance for StrokeIt overall. the
> only downfall to this is that you won't be able to
> use the Win+Tab to flip through windows, nor will
> you be able to Alt+Tab and see the different
> windows in realtime anymore. a small price to pay
> for getting StrokeIt to work on my machine once
> more, IMO.
>
> -Lynx

This did the trick - thanks for the tip

I'd suggest instead disabling the visual line in StrokeIt -- you don't see the blue lines that way, but you can have DWM and Flip3D.

1. Anything news on this front?

2. How to find the official list of system reqirements?

Is the gesture line drawing problem on Vista fixable by asking Micosoft to improve compatibility with StrokeIt? Or will StrokeIt have to be updated to work?

Having Microsoft "fix" Vista for StrokeIt would entail killing UAC, Protected Mode and DWM. That would be out of the question.

Earlier this year I tried emailing the StrokeIt guy regarding updating or possibly giving the source away since he's no longer maintaining it, but I got no response.

Sorry guys, this program is abandonware.

I am VERY, VERY disappointed. I just tried running StrokeIt on my office PC (Windows Business) in AutoCAD 2008 and the performance is A-W-F-U-L! And no, turning off the colored strokes has absolutely NO effect because my cursor doesn't move at all, so I can't really see if I'm drawing the gesture right!
Please fix this!!!

MESSAGE TO THE WEBMASTER OF STROKEIT:
why you don't release the source of stroke it ? anyone can develop this excellent soft to work with vista. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE .................

If you turn off "Protection mode" in Option-Security, it works in IE7.

Trying a different direction here, anyone has tested a similar app with better results under Vista? Preferably an open source one, as insurance for the risk of turning into abandonware ...

IMO, the ideal solution to this problem is to ditch Vista completely and somehow figure out how to patch Linux to be "StrokeIt compatible".

I for one would be extremely happy to return to Linux and send my Vista DVDs to the recycle bin (where they belong). For now I'm sticking to XP and hope that it remains usable till I die. I simply cannot imagine living life without StrokeIt.

A good reason to abandon Vista is because of the extensive "content protection mechanism", designed to hog as many computing resources as possible.
A nice (but slightly outdated) article on the same can be found at
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

I love StrokeIt, but I'm really sad about the lack of drawing trails under Vista. I know some don't like the trails, but I find it useful to be able to see what I've drawn.

For those looking around, I checked out the Wikipedia article to see if it had good suggestions for other Windows gesture programs and all the ones I tried have even bigger problems than StrokeIt.

Gesture Magic makes your desktop into a video game, doesn't support anything but opening programs and is completely non-customizable. It's not worth your time downloading it.

gMote was a little better and seems almost usable at first. The gesture trails in gMote do work correctly, but it has other problems: The gestures do not time out after a certain period (so if you want to use your right button to right-drag, which gives you the "move/copy" menu choice, then you're out of luck). It activates slightly when you click (rather than requiring some movement to activate a gesture). It doesn't always disable the underlying mouse function while making the gesture, so if you're using your middle mouse button you might end up with that annoying 4-way scrolling junk when trying to make a gesture. Even worse, it doesn't reliably activate the browser forward/back actions, even in Firefox.

So it seems that StrokeIt is still the best choice for Windows, as broken and abandoned as it is when trying to use it under Vista (it doesn't do trails or control IE properly for me).

I'd be happy if the developer fixed these issues, even if he made StrokeIt entirely commercial. I'd happily pay a reasonable fee ($10-$20) for a license of an updated version that works correctly with Vista.

im using vista business sp1 32bit, with the "classic windows" theme (u also spare 200mb of ram), and i set to strokeit.exe "winxp compatibility"

it didnt crash till now, and it draws the trails without problem.

Robert:
I think that's a bit unfair, especially as you've not stated what is not customisable in Gesture Magic.
Gesture Magic is at version 1.0, if you read the numerous blog posts you'll find it's open source as well as free and can be improved by you if you so wish. It has fully customisable graphical options, and its intended audience is people who are not technically literate for whom strokeit may be better.

Why not put effort into constructive criticism for it on the site instead of complaining about lack of features in a free product if you can't spend time to add the features you want yourself?
If you have problems with the software or features you'd like to see (remember intended audience) please leave a message on the Gesture Magic description page http://silentdevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/03/gesture-magic-to-be-released-for-free.html

FWIW the intention is to update it a little in the next few months to have features like "close window" (to close apps), better modifier keys (not just ctrl/alt/shift) and improve application launching options, bear in mind it is just intended to be a "fun" application launcher. These changes won't be soon - my time is currently spent working on other free software I'm giving away on the site.