So talk to me, people: with TH2, is the W10 finally worth upgrading to for the S3?

[mfgillia]

I don't know if I'd count on them bringing back all tablet friendliness of 8.1. People seem to be liking 10 a lot better.

I wouldn't call it a "poor" tablet experience, it's just not as good as 8.1 was and I do miss the gestures. There is a popular app out there that allows customizable gestures that people seem to like but I can't remember what it is called offhand.

If you do upgrade, you can always revert back if you don't like it within 30 days.

Of course, after I wrote that this afternoon, tonight I had to reboot because my keyboard stopped working. So 10 doesn't appear to be all the way there yet. It's too early for me to really say if it's "good enough" yet, but again it does seem to be much improved so far.

That app is called Touchme Gestures - one of the highest rated apps in the Window store.

At this point with both Threshold 2 and that app there really isn't anything in Windows 8.1 that you can't now do in Windows 10. It does take some time to figure out how to setup the Touchme Gesture app optimally but for those of us that use the Surface 3 often in tablet mode it is quite worth it.

 

[GizmoEV]

At this point with both Threshold 2 and that app there really isn't anything in Windows 8.1 that you can't now do in Windows 10.

Except filename place holders on OneDrive. That is the deal breaker for me on upgrading to W10.

 

[Steve Adams]

That app is called Touchme Gestures - one of the highest rated apps in the Window store.

At this point with both Threshold 2 and that app there really isn't anything in Windows 8.1 that you can't now do in Windows 10. It does take some time to figure out how to setup the Touchme Gesture app optimally but for those of us that use the Surface 3 often in tablet mode it is quite worth it.

I have to bite the bullet and download this and get it up and running. If this is the real deal, and not a resource hog, It will be the ole' icing on the cake deal.

 

[DLCPhototography]

For those that had 8.1 to begin with, and for whom it was working well, could you please itemize the advantages you now see with Windows 10?

I have 8.1 on my Surface 3, and it works extremely well in almost every regard (including its use as a Tablet). I have no active complaints about it. It seems that too many who have, or move up, to Windows 10, report a variety of problems, some or all of which may or may not have been addressed with TH2.

But the question for me remains, even assuming I don't encounter any glitches with Windows 10, what, if anything, am I missing out on by remaining with 8.1?

Thanks.

 

[BluetoothFairy1]

For starters, having a proper desktop and not the odd hybrid as in W8 is a plus. Cortana is very helpful, settings have been reworked and made much easier to navigate. Even a seemingly inconspicuous thing such as Photos app removing duplicates and me not having to manage separate camera rolls on OneDrive and locally, because they now properly sync, is huge. And it is stable for me, no crashes on my laptop. There still are minor bugs in new features, but no deal breakers

 

[DLCPhototography]

For starters, having a proper desktop and not the odd hybrid as in W8 is a plus. Cortana is very helpful, settings have been reworked and made much easier to navigate. Even a seemingly inconspicuous thing such as Photos app removing duplicates and me not having to manage separate camera rolls on OneDrive and locally, because they now properly sync, is huge. And it is stable for me, no crashes on my laptop. There still are minor bugs in new features, but no deal breakers

Thanks for the reply.

I agree, that the overall desktop interface on 8.1 is a bit of an odd hybrid, although I've gotten used to it, and it really doesn't cause problems, or slow me down. I don't use OneDrive, so haven't been aware of limitations there, but am glad it's been improved for those who do.

You refer to "my laptop" - does this mean you're referring to Windows 10 on a traditional laptop, or on the Surface 3? I ask because that's the device I have, and based on other threads, it seems that the Windows 10 implementation on the Surface 3 had more than its share of unique problems.

Thanks again.

 

[scrumperman]

Took the plunge and dove back into Windows 10 on my Surface 3. The upgrade went very smoothly, it even rolled in TH2 into the upgrade without having to go through all the updates to get to it. With that said, here are my thoughts.

1. The mail app is still horrible. No way to delete multiple items in the deleted folder. Loved the check box in Windows 8/8.1 one click and gone.....

2. Miss the touch features that were integrated into Windows 8/8.1, yes they can be added with 3rd party apps, but why do I need to have a 3rd party app to do that? Why can't Microsoft do it for touch devices?

3. Continuum works very well with a Surface 3 touch cover, does not work with earlier model touch covers.

So with that being said, and with my primary use of the "TABLET" for web surfing and email reading.......I've rolled back yet again to Windows 8.1.

My thoughts are this.... It's a tablet first, and the need for touch support/gestures should be baked in as it was in 8/8.1. What harm would it be to re-enable this? If the device doesn't have touch capabilities, have the OS turn it off. Now do not get me wrong, I have Windows 10 installed and running on my home PC and LOVE it!!!! But on touch devices Windows 10 in my opinion is a step backwards. If i were living in the Desktop mode only, then Windows 10 would be fine, as it is on my home PC. My opinion is that Windows 10 has taken MANY strides forward as an OS, but it lacks in "Tablet Mode" what Windows 8/8.1 lacked in Desktop mode!

 

[Steve Adams]

For me, my surface 3 is a desktop/notebook first. Not a tablet. I like the fact that its the size of a tablet when closed. Perfect form factor. Use it as a tablet on airplanes or traveling and it works great.

 

[eckl]

After installing Windows 10 TH2, the standby battery life became worse. I found the surface 3 Nov firmware update. This update has improved the standby time tremendously. If you haven't, do download it.

 

[prlundberg]

After installing Windows 10 TH2, the standby battery life became worse. I found the surface 3 Nov firmware update. This update has improved the standby time tremendously. If you haven't, do download it.

Thanks for that. I found the update here: Download Surface 3 Wi-Fi from Official Microsoft Download Center

We'll see what it does. In the meantime, how the heck were we supposed to know about that? It's not a part of Windows Update. There was no notification whatsoever and if not for this site I would have never known it was there. I guess we just need to keep checking manually? That's not really acceptable in 2015.

One more note, there is updated firmware for 8.1 there as well.

 

[prlundberg]

OK, after the Nov firmware update I have noticed my mail tile has stopped working and my Surface has gotten stuck in sleep mode, failing to wake up and requiring force restarts, 3 times in the past 2 days.

My conclusion is that this is just a buggy POS. At this stage there are no excuses for such poor software. Maybe they will eventually fix it, or maybe if I spent an entire day rebuilding it AGAIN that would help, but combined with my original RT experience, I'd bet against it.

 

[eckl]

It works wonderfully on my unit. Maybe some softwares or apps that are causing that.

 

[Brian282]

I may be the only one but Windows 10 has got to be the worst experience that I've ever had with any Windows OS.

Note: I don't have a keyboard so every con is in regards to touch.

Internet Explorer
1. I click on a link and the PC won't recognize it.
2. If you try to scroll down on some web pages, the entire thing locks up.
3. Every so often the thing wigs out when your typing in a response window.
4.sometimes explorer will load a web page but won't let me scroll down for a minute or two...

Every Day experiences
1. The thing just locks up for some odd reason. I have to hold the power button down for the entire system to reboot.
2. I watch tons of anime and I use CCCP to decode my shows. Every other day my audio just cuts out and requires me to reinstall my audio codec. Its a pain in the pass.
3. Here is one function Microsoft screwed up. When you enable the keyboard in 8.1 the OS would automatically resize the window. This makes it so much easier to use tabs in EXCEL and other programs. In 10 you have to manually move the keyboard, or resize the stupid window... its really frustrating.

When windows 8 came out it was amazingly stable right out of the box and Microsoft polished it up with 8.1. It did what I needed regardless of what form factor you had. 10 on the other hand has been buggy as hell since day one. Microsoft has lost its current vision. While they keep adding features to make the tablet side better. They can't seem to focus on one important area fixing the bugs like power draining on standby and all the weird crashing that keeps occurring one daily basis.

 

[GizmoEV]

I followed the steps in How To Update Surface Battery Drivers ? Love My Surface and updated the battery driver manually on my Surface 3 with Win 8.1 Pro and battery life has improved drastically.

I have seen similar issues you describe with Internet Explorer on my Lumia 2520 WinRT device and some of the same on my Surface 3. Installing AdBlock Plus helped some of the delays. I've found that some patients after tapping a link generally results in the link finally being followed.

On the locking up, try plugging in a keyboard or mouse. I find that the touch screen and stylus sometimes stops working. I've found that the touch pad on the keyboard still works so I can still work as if there were no touch screen. I also discovered that closing the keyboard so that the tablet goes into sleep mode, waiting a moment, then waking up the tablet and waiting a few seconds that touch and stylus starts working again.

I'm with you, I wish MS hadn't lost its vision with respect to the touch UI of Win 8.1. I also wish they would fix OneDrive so that we place holders for all files and folders again.

 

[Steve Adams]

I followed the steps in How To Update Surface Battery Drivers ? Love My Surface and updated the battery driver manually on my Surface 3 with Win 8.1 Pro and battery life has improved drastically.

I have seen similar issues you describe with Internet Explorer on my Lumia 2520 WinRT device and some of the same on my Surface 3. Installing AdBlock Plus helped some of the delays. I've found that some patients after tapping a link generally results in the link finally being followed.

On the locking up, try plugging in a keyboard or mouse. I find that the touch screen and stylus sometimes stops working. I've found that the touch pad on the keyboard still works so I can still work as if there were no touch screen. I also discovered that closing the keyboard so that the tablet goes into sleep mode, waiting a moment, then waking up the tablet and waiting a few seconds that touch and stylus starts working again.

I'm with you, I wish MS hadn't lost its vision with respect to the touch UI of Win 8.1. I also wish they would fix OneDrive so that we place holders for all files and folders again.

I tried the battery driver update because my drivers are the 2006 battery drivers. It could not find the updated drivers. Any ideas how to update the driver? My battery last pretty good, but better is always........better!

 

[GizmoEV]

You have to unzip the files in a folder and then tell Windows to look in that folder when you update. Just like the blog post says for method 2.

 

[Steve Adams]

Missed your link to the blog post. I have them downloaded and unzipped now. Thanks!