Patch Tuesday Wasted My Evening

[hopmedic]

Ok, so I should be doing homework to catch up, but Patch Tuesday ruined that for the evening. Now I'm too tired to get anything constructive done.

It all started while typing something for class. All of a sudden the K key on my Type Cover 2 stopped working. Just the K. So I went in the other room and grabbed the other Type Cover 2. The purple one. Yeah. The K key on it didn't work, either. GRRR.... Can't be the keyboard, given both of them are acting up the same way.

I restart the computer, connect/disconnect the Type Covers several times, to no avail. Then, all of a sudden, the whole thing stops working. I go to the Device Manager and uninstall all of the references to keyboards, mice, and touch covers. Then I reboot. Still dead keyboards. Then I notice that I need to install updates, including a firmware update. I do this. Still no keyboard action.

I find a thread on answers.microsoft.com for the same issue, follow those steps, to no avail. I follow a suggested link to support. When I put in my serial number, I cannot click on the "call me" button, because when I select my Surface, the combobox for the topic is blank, and you can't click the button without selecting a topic. I remember that I'd sent my wife a phone number the other night, so she could call support and have them do a replacement on her Arc Touch Mouse - it eats batteries at a rate of every 7-10 days. The other three Arc Touch Mice in the house last months. I call the number, and BINGO, I get put into the queue, but it's the right queue, surprisingly!

After doing the troubleshooting with the guy, he wants to do a refresh. Grudgingly, I do so. Too late, I start to realize that I know more than this poor kid on the other end of the phone. But I follow his lead, since I've already clicked the refresh button. The PC refreshes and the keyboard works. I should have spent more time in Device Manager, I think. But oh well. He tells me he wants to do updates to make sure it still works, since there seems the possibility of a link. Ok. I do updates. Takes half an hour... Keyboard still works. Yay. But wait - no network connections. There is no driver for the WiFi adapter. GRRR!!!

He sets me up for a warranty replacement. Why does that always happen right after you get a screen protector PERFECTLY applied???? After I get off the phone, I figure it can't hurt to try another refresh, since I really don't want to send in my Surface. I Re-refresh, and everything works. I set a restore point, this time (protection had been turned off, apparently by default). Then I install updates. No WiFi. Back up to the restore point - WiFi works. GRRR!! But ok, since it can be undone, it is not a hardware problem. Now to figure out how to make it work.....

I figure it had to be the firmware update. So I install everything except the firmware update. It works so far. Restore point saved. More updates show up, so several times I updated everything except firmware, saving a new restore point in between each step. Finally there are no updates other than the firmware update left to install. I set one last restore point, and go for it. Firmware installed. No WiFi. Reboot. WiFi!!!!

But this is all after nearly two hours on the phone, and after this is all done, I spent another hour on all that, and now I have to reinstall all of my desktop applications. It's a pain, and a wasted evening, but at least my beloved Surface is working again.

I figured I needed to put this up for anyone else who may end up in a similar situation. Hopefully they will find this.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Ugh! I'm sorry to hear you had so many problems with the Patch Tuesday updates.

 

[MBytes]

Sorry to hear that.
When you have a hardware problem, you want to restart the system. For some reason, a restart doesn't do a full restart. And the Power + Vol Up combo key seams to do the trick.
Next time you have a problem with the WiFi or keyboard, try that. You may also want to try the troubleshoot tool of Windows for the the wireless. Sometimes it helps.

On my laptop, I had similar problem with my wireless card. A restart would normally fix it, but sometimes it would not. I had 3 choices: Either cut the power and pull the battery while the system is operating (not recommended), or Press and hold the power button for 4 sec to turn off. Or turn off the wireless via the physical switch, and Shutdown (just a shutdown, doesn't solve the problem due to the hibernate thing that Windows 8 does. Restart doesn't work.. I think because the wireless card still has power, and we need to cut it's power). Choice 4, and that is the one from Dell... re-install Windows.




The worst thing you can do, is apply a firmware on something not operating at 100%. Also, I have noticed that the only way to install firmware updates successfully (at least from personal experience and from what I can see with the few people with trouble), is that the battery must be 100%, and the system plugged in. This seams to end up with great success every time.

 

[hopmedic]

Thanks, but the volume-up + power key reset was performed before the phone call to Microsoft. The troubleshooter found problems but failed to fix them. What I should have tried that would have been less invasive would have been to uninstall drivers from the Device Manager (for the keyboard problem, before the refresh and subsequent loss of WiFi) and ALSO delete the software that went with it, and let it reinstall fresh drivers. That's just one less-invasive step that comes to mind. I was writing software before the kid on the phone was born - literally - we discussed that among many other things during the phone call. He was born the year that I interfaced a broken NC milling machine to a Commodore 64 through the parallel port.

And as demonstrated, I knew better than he that this was not a hardware problem, because he sent me a shipping label to send my Surface back, but I knew that if I could back out of it, and the WiFi (and keyboard) worked, that it couldn't be a hardware problem, and there must be a way around it. Worst case scenario was that I'd do all of the updates and leave off the firmware update until next month and give it a go again.

Sometimes you have to be able to think outside the step-by-step list that you're provided.

 

[hagjohn]

Can you roll back the wifi driver? Go into desktop -> control panel -> hardware and sound -> device manager -> Network Adapters -> WiFi adapter (whatever it is) -> Driver (tab) and roll back the driver. Not sure it will be available to roll back but it's an option you might be able to use.

 

[hopmedic]

Can you roll back the wifi driver? Go into desktop -> control panel -> hardware and sound -> device manager -> Network Adapters -> WiFi adapter (whatever it is) -> Driver (tab) and roll back the driver. Not sure it will be available to roll back but it's an option you might be able to use.

Everything is working now, as I said in the original post. But at the time, no. There was no WiFi driver installed after the firmware update, when installing the firmware update along with all of the other updates that came out that day. No WiFi driver means no communications, since there is no RJ-45 connector to plug into a network, unless you go out and buy that adapter. Fortunately, everything worked out once I separated the different updates from the firmware update, and updated the firmware last, and by itself.