I’ve observed that Direct Interaction defaults to zoom mode on objects it doesn’t recognize large objects, like Erland said. When there are no objects identified by the program, it assumes that they’re all small objects and zooms. In my case, I use it to try out functions in Guild Wars 2, which probably doesn’t have any specified objects out of the box, so no matter what I look at, it will always zoom.
That being said, I know direct click is working in the w8 start screen. Never zooms there!