Feeling better after the November update

[anon9133023]

Crackberry guy here. Figured I'd come over and share a thought or two on the Surface Book.

Running an i7/256, about 5 days in. I will say "Thank goodness for the November update!" I had a number of problems from regular loss of credentials requiring one to login again, to variability with the screen detach, to problems getting some internal networking set up. After the update however I'm pleased to say most of the issues have disappeared. The screen is working fine on detach, the OS has yet to dump my credentials, and I can stay connected to my internal LAN. The issue with the graphics card resetting has also disappeared. Battery life has improved in that I now see that the prior algorithm of burning both batteries in a balanced fashion has been replaced by a burn-base-first then screen/tablet algo, which makes a lot more sense. Clicking The Pen top now opens OneNote again - this was tremendously disappointing when it stopped working, but after the update it's back.

A couple of things I've noticed that seem to cause ongoing issues... Be careful with Office 365 apps interfering with Windows 10 Apps. An example from above is OneNote. Upon firing up OneNote2016, it wrecked the ability for the Pen to open OneNote mini with the click action. Opening Outlook2016 fools around with Windows LIve Mail.

I highly recommend running through the Display Personalization and Screen alignment/Color alignment tools. It made a huge different for the appearance of my screen. I also noticed that when initially set up File History, while Microsoft claims that Windows will balance working with the backup going on, it will not, and the machine will run very slowly during the initial copy of files. I thought there was something wrong with it, but then noticed the blinking disk drive light on my desktop server and realized it was still doing the first sync.

Overall I'm very happy, and realize this is a 1.0 product that will take some fine tuning. I like the quality feel of the entire unit (especially the keyboard), the tablet and pen are more than a gizmo as it actually works, and the performance is excellent. Can only imagine what's in store for future versions.

Tim Cook taking time out on iPad launch day to talk smack about the Surface launch days earlier is all I needed to see to realize Apple fears Microsoft again.

 

[anon9133023]

Couple things to report back now that the November Update has settled in.

Lockups. Seeing an occasional lockup of the entire unit if you overwhelm it. An example of overwhelming the unit is trying to detach the screen while the unit is still booting and doing housekeeping. Also, if you have Win10 set to prompt you for tablet mode, there are multiple triggers that cause the Surface Book to want to go into tablet mode, and these messages can get 'stacked up' waiting for replies.
This can appear like a lockup.

Another interesting lockup scenario is if you're using a Microsoft account to log in, and you don't have an internet connection. I had Blank Screen of Death for 2 or 3 reboots (and, worse, had to use the UEFI boot because holding the power switch was ineffective). Interestingly, I couldn't add a hot-spot at any part of the startup sequence, and since I got the BLSOD, I couldn't add it anywhere. I had to boot to a local Administrator account I set up, configure the hot spot, and then things worked alright.

And lastly, the screen icons rearranging is perhaps the most annoying thing. I like my screen layout a certain way, and I do not appreciate Windows re-arranging my icons under any circumstance. This 'feature' needs to be removed immediately. When I set the screen, I expect it to stay exactly the way I set it until I change it, and if it's going to change because of 'the system' I expect a prompt, and the ability to dismiss the prompt. This is MY DESKTOP, Satya, and if I want you or your engineers re-arranging stuff I'll give you a call, okay?


Big improvements in the November update, from fixing the screen detach to getting rid of graphics driver resets, to a lot of small annoying problems. I suspect within a few stabilization releases, these remaining issues will be addressed.