Manny,
If you can't read any text in Windows 8 with the mouse than it sounds
like you have hit the Microsoft Windows 8 bug. Let me try to explain
the bad news and then talk about the good news.
First the bad. While we were developing Window-Eyes for Windows 8 we
were getting reports from some of our private beta testers that they
couldn't review the text with the mouse. Basically meaning there was no
off screen model (OSM). The OSM is the Window-Eyes version of what is
on the screen. Yet most people had no problem and all of our developers
and testers here at GW Micro had no problem.
We went to Microsoft about this and they had no clue...until one day
they asked if the people having the problem were using the Windows WDDM
1.0 driver. WDDM stands for Windows Display Driver Model. Long story
sort WDDM 1.0 has a bug where our accessibility driver isn't being
called with the screen content and therefore we think the screen is
blank. Version 1.1 or 1.2 of WDDM have no problem. After Microsoft
acknowledged this as a problem they started working on a solution but
unfortunately were not able to resolve the issue before Windows 8
shipped. You can't just updated your WDDM driver to a newer version. I
don't fully understand all that but some video cards would only work
with the 1.0 driver.
To dig this ugly hole even deeper, it turns out Microsoft created
several other updates for Windows 8 and made them live before Windows 8
shipped which made this problem even uglier by causing the dreaded blue
screens or BSOD (blue screen of death).
Okay, now the brighter side to this story. Microsoft has finally
resolved this problem for WDDM 1.0 users and will be putting out a
critical update under Windows Update sometime in December.
Unfortunately, there isn't anything that can be done until Microsoft
releases this critical patch (well, other than getting a different video
card which works with WDDM 1.1 or 1.2). Any application which uses a
Windows accessibility driver, as Window-Eyes does, will have this
problem under the WDDM 1.0 driver until the Microsoft patch is installed.
Doug
On 11/9/2012 2:03 PM, manny wrote:
Aloha to all,
If you are using windows 8 and windows 7 you can not download the
update from windows 7 and use it on windows 8.
You need to use the serial number on your WE8beta2 on the win 8
computer which gives you a different download specific for win 8.
beta 2 still does not read the screen with the numpad.
In thunderbird when writing an email, if I tab out and come back to
continue writing the email, WE8beta2 does not read and only gives a
bing sound.
At this point, I need to control a and control x and then I paste to
notepad to continue writing my email.
Note-this happens both in the subject and in the body of the message.
In window 7 I can use Skype without any problems using the numpad;
however, in win8 the numpad does not read the screen.
Good luck to all,
Manny
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