Help please. We just got a Surface Pro 4 for our Company and I have 2 ridiculous issues

[jfarkas]

Hello everyone. My manager bought a Surface Pro 4 for our President and I am having 2 stupid issues.

1. We cannot CTRL ALT DELETE without the keyboard attached. If the Pro 4 is locked and the keyboard is not attached we have no way of getting to the login screen to type in Password. We have no icon to bring up a keyboard. The screen says "Press and Hold the Windows button and press the power button" Well there isn't a Windows button on the Pro 4.

2. If the Surface Pro 4 is docked and the computers boots up it works fine. If you undock the Pro 4 the Icons and size etc.. on the Pro 4 is extremely small. If I reboot the Pro 4 off the dock it works fine. If I reboot the Pro 4, it looks fine and when I dock it again it comes back on the 24 inch monitor as huge icons etc..... I even just ought a 4k monitor based off a "solution" and I still have the same issue.

Microsoft is telling us to wipe the Surface Pro 4 and start again but I highly doubt that's the issue.

Does anyone know if this is a known issue or the Pro 4 not designed for the Business world?

Thank you.

 

[eran says]

What operating system are you running?

 

[TheCudder]

Option 1
On-screen keyboard via Ease of Access.

Option 2
Push the power button and then hit the volume up button while holding the power button.

Not sure what could be causing the dock issue, do you have the latest firmware installed (11/18 Firmware)? Windows has always had issues with scaling when undocking on certain hardware.

What operating system are you running?

You can't be serious.

 

[boltman2013]

Win+U...start ON-screen Keyboard..Press one at a time CTRL then ALT then DEL then Enter

 

[eran says]

Option 1
On-screen keyboard via Ease of Access.

Option 2
Push the power button and then hit the volume up button while holding the power button.

Not sure what could be causing the dock issue, do you have the latest firmware installed (11/18 Firmware)? Windows has always had issues with scaling when undocking on certain hardware.



You can't be serious.

Or maybe I can. A lot of companies still use XP and Windows 7. The original post talks about having to use CTL ALT DEL to login. I could be wrong, but I don't think that exists in Windows 10.

 

[boltman2013]

Or maybe I can. A lot of companies still use XP and Windows 7. The original post talks about having to use CTL ALT DEL to login. I could be wrong, but I don't think that exists in Windows 10.

Ctrl alt delete is necessary "usually" in a domain environment (even in 10). Or just log off

History lesson break time... blame IBM

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/26/4772680/bill-gates-admits-ctrl-alt-del-was-a-mistake
"It was a mistake," Gates admits to an audience left laughing at his honesty. "We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't wanna give us our single button." David Bradley, an engineer who worked on the original IBM PC, invented the combination which was originally designed to reboot a PC. "I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous," Bradley said in an interview previously, leaving Bill Gates looking rather awkward. To this day the combination still exists in Windows 8, allowing users to lock a machine or access the task manager. While Windows 8 defaults to a new login screen, it's still possible to use the traditional Control-Alt-Delete requirement and a number of businesses running on Windows XP and Windows 7 will still use it every day.

 

[eran says]

Ctrl alt delete is necessary "usually" in a domain environment (even in 10). Or just log off

History lesson break time... blame IBM

"It was a mistake," Gates admits to an audience left laughing at his honesty. "We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't wanna give us our single button." David Bradley, an engineer who worked on the original IBM PC, invented the combination which was originally designed to reboot a PC. "I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous," Bradley said in an interview previously, leaving Bill Gates looking rather awkward. To this day the combination still exists in Windows 8, allowing users to lock a machine or access the task manager. While Windows 8 defaults to a new login screen, it's still possible to use the traditional Control-Alt-Delete requirement and a number of businesses running on Windows XP and Windows 7 will still use it every day.

Well there you go then. Always nice to learn something new.

 

[jfarkas]

It is Windows 10.
It is a domain environment.
There is no way of pulling up the onscreen keyboard. That icon is not available
There is no button combination that we can do to get to the login screen and type a username and password
I will try the latest firmware which I saw on a post that a new one is coming.

I am amazed that I have those two issues. Its basically sums it up to me that MS did not build of test this in a business environment.

Thank you.

 

[jfarkas]

So I just installed SurfacePro4_Win10_151118_0.msi and it fixed 2 out of 3 issues

We can now get to the logon with the power up volume and pull up an onscreen keyboard
Docking the Surface Pro 4 will show the correct res and icon size on the monitor

Whats still broke is undocking the Surface Pro 4 will still show very small icons and screen res.

At least they fixed 2 out of the 3 issues

 

[boltman2013]

So I just installed SurfacePro4_Win10_151118_0.msi and it fixed 2 out of 3 issues

We can now get to the logon with the power up volume and pull up an onscreen keyboard
Docking the Surface Pro 4 will show the correct res and icon size on the monitor

Whats still broke is undocking the Surface Pro 4 will still show very small icons and screen res.

At least they fixed 2 out of the 3 issues

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display think that should help you get the text/icons etc (use drop down list) back to a larger size.

 

[onlysublime]

The issue is the resolution of the Surface Pro 4 is 2736x1824 on a 12.3" screen which means really tiny pixels which is why there is scaling enabled by default. If you set your Surface Pro 4 to 100% scaling (meaning no scaling at all), your icons at text would be extremely tiny.

At the 150% scaling, the icons are reasonable size for the SP4 screen. But then if you hook up an external monitor that doesn't have a similar resolution and size, the icons will look enormous.

So the solution is to set up custom scaling for different displays. Are you mirroring or extending? If when docked, you are merely extending, then set different scaling for each display. Set the SP4 to 150%, set your external monitor to 100%.

 

[snakebitten]

Onlysublime, exactly what we face these days deploying multimonitor workstations with the primary device being a high resolution modern laptop or tablet. It's not just the SP4.

Resolutions on mobile devices are becoming extreme. Awesome technologically speaking, but pushing the limits of practicability.

 

[onysi]

It is Windows 10.
It is a domain environment.
There is no way of pulling up the onscreen keyboard. That icon is not available
There is no button combination that we can do to get to the login screen and type a username and password
I will try the latest firmware which I saw on a post that a new one is coming.

I am amazed that I have those two issues. Its basically sums it up to me that MS did not build of test this in a business environment.

Thank you.

consumer version happens too. The stupid keyboard icon disappears or it wont show when I touch the screen to unlock the device.