[OFFICIAL] questions and answers for Microsoft surface

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dmcin23

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Feb 15, 2013
14
0
Okay so I have an interesting comparative/ upgrading question regarding the surface RT original and my personal HP envy ultrabook.

Here's the scoop:
I recently was gifted a surface RT and around the same time, broke my ultrabook. This break is purely cosmetic however and just effects the hinge when opening and closing the laptop.

I cannot sell my ultrabook the way it is now with a broken hinge because the value is reduced significantly. However the repair itself could end up costing me $200.

My question is this... Can I simply replace my ultrabook with this new surface RT? And in doing so transfer the CPU and RAM of my ultrabook to the RT. My ultrabook has i5 and 4x2 RAM.

I'm not entirely sure what the difference between the tegra 3 ARM and the i5 3rd gen is other than the speed. Should I proceed to take apart my RT and upgrade it?

Any advice or input is greatly appreciated!
 
CrunchyDoodle

CrunchyDoodle

Senior Member
Aug 30, 2010
113
14
Southern California
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
In a word - no.

Many people are confused by the fact that Microsoft makes this Surface RT or Surface 2 tablet that runs a special version of Windows 8.1. These RT tablets do work like a real Windows 8.1 tablet - it sure looks the same. The hardware is completely different and not all compatible. The software is totally not compatible with real Windows 8.1.

Bye. :cool:

dmcin23 said:
Okay so I have an interesting comparative/ upgrading question regarding the surface RT original and my personal HP envy ultrabook.

Here's the scoop:
I recently was gifted a surface RT and around the same time, broke my ultrabook. This break is purely cosmetic however and just effects the hinge when opening and closing the laptop.

I cannot sell my ultrabook the way it is now with a broken hinge because the value is reduced significantly. However the repair itself could end up costing me $200.

My question is this... Can I simply replace my ultrabook with this new surface RT? And in doing so transfer the CPU and RAM of my ultrabook to the RT. My ultrabook has i5 and 4x2 RAM.

I'm not entirely sure what the difference between the tegra 3 ARM and the i5 3rd gen is other than the speed. Should I proceed to take apart my RT and upgrade it?

Any advice or input is greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
 
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dmcin23

Member
Feb 15, 2013
14
0
Crunchy,

Pardon me for belaboring the issue but what about the new surface pro 3. They market that product as a "tablet to replace your laptop" (an idea I rather fancy). In it is the new i5 and it comes equipped with an ssd. The same hardware found in all PCs. You can see where my idea stems from..

So if they are indeed incompatible who manufactures the hardware for the RT, and is that manufacturer different for the pro series?

Your thoughts..
CrunchyDoodle said:
In a word - no.

Many people are confused by the fact that Microsoft makes this Surface RT or Surface 2 tablet that runs a special version of Windows 8.1. These RT tablets do work like a real Windows 8.1 tablet - it sure looks the same. The hardware is completely different and not all compatible. The software is totally not compatible with real Windows 8.1.

Bye. :cool:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
 
G

GoodDayToDie

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 20, 2011
6,066
2,933
Seattle
The Pro and RT lines are completely different products, although both are manufactured by Microsoft. You're basically asking if you can disassemble a MacBook Air and put its CPU and RAM into an iPad. It's not even close to possible; you'd need to replace basically all of the internal components, and then it wouldn't fit in the case anyhow... and you'd need to find some way to interface the external stuff (like the keyboard port) with a motherboard that wasn't made for it. It's just not possible. ARM and x86 processors aren't interchangeable components.

Heck, even Intel and AMD CPUs aren't interchangeable (you have to replace the socket and chipset, which in effect means replace the motherboard), and those are both x86!
 
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jessperry

Member
Sep 19, 2011
7
0
lost

Hi, please forgive me if this question has been asked already. I've been doing a lot of reading and can't find a clear answer. Is there a jailbreak for the surface 2 windows rt 8.1? I tried a jailbreak tool, but with no success. I'm really frustrated bc this was supposed to replace my laptop, and I was misled. I just want to be able to install plug ins so I can stream videos, and it would be great to have more apps to choose from.
Thanks so much. Again I apologize if this has been answered but I'm not finding it.
 
G

GoodDayToDie

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 20, 2011
6,066
2,933
Seattle
I really, honestly, don't believe you. There's exactly one official source for the jailbreak download (but lots of discussion threads as well), and they all say it doesn't work on 8.1. You be trolling?
 
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A

antreas spyrou

Member
Jul 4, 2014
6
0
unity

hello some games need unity to work but on Microsoft surface i can only use IE11 and i cant download it with .exe file what to do? :confused:
 
F

forenuser

Member
May 4, 2009
5
0
I know Microsoft prevents using Modern IE when another browser is set as standard-browser.
The problem is: my workflow is to use Chrome when the Surface is docked (in desktop-mode) and to use Modern-IE when I use my Surface as a tablet. For professional use I NEED to use Chrom as standard-browser.

I can't believe there are no workaroundings or hacks about that problem...
Any ideas?
 
pilotgav

pilotgav

Senior Member
Oct 26, 2007
507
142
Toronto
Looking for a replacement virtual keyboard

i find myself trying to 'Swype' to type on the virtual keyboard with my new Surface Pro 3. im so used to Android tablets.

Are there any replacement keyboards availabe for Surface?
 
F

forenuser

Member
May 4, 2009
5
0
pilotgav said:
i find myself trying to 'Swype' to type on the virtual keyboard with my new Surface Pro 3. im so used to Android tablets.

Are there any replacement keyboards availabe for Surface?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

No but since Windows Phone already supports swiping to type I could imagine that this feature is available in Windows soon.
I found myself trying to swipe aswell... once u get used to it it really is the fastest way and especially makes sense on a tablet that u often hold with one hand and only have one spare hand to type.
 
J

JeffATL

Senior Member
Oct 10, 2009
895
83
Backup Strategy For Surface

I know Microsoft has its built in backup tools such as File History but given that the hard drive of my Surface Pro is 128gb I think its good to make a full drive backup.

There are many free tools notably Paragon and Macrium but afaik they do not have cloud backup, They probably do but after a little searching I came up with nothing.

I have an Office 365 account and they just up'd my storage to 1TB so backing up my entire Surface's drive to OneDrive should be fine in terms of space requirements. The issue of course is getting the backup on OneDrive. I definitely do not want to just put it in the OneDrive folder residing on the Surface because that would be recursive and take up too much space on my Surface. So I was thinking of changing my OneDrive location to an external USB drive. I can put the backup image there and it will automatically sync with OneDrive and not take additional space. The advantage is that if my backup drive ever fails, which at some point I am sure it will, I have a replica in the cloud. Ideally I would want incremental backups because I do not want to upload massive data all the time . Incremental backups are only in paid versions of the backup software I mentioned though Paragon does offer differential, which would be larger successive backups than incremental but much smaller than full.

Not sure if this is the best place to float this idea but figured I'd put it out there to get thoughts... Thanks.
 
D

diofar

Member
Apr 23, 2013
47
4
On-Screen Keyboard Haptic Feedback

Hello,

I have used a demo Surface in a store and it had haptic feedback (vibration) not only on the windows key but also on the on screen keyboard.

After I bought one, before but also even after ALL updates, I still have not any haptic feedback on the on screen keyboard - just on the windows key.

I have looked everywhere, I have made 3 times reset of every kind, but still not found anything.

I even went back to the store just to be sure, and yes, it still has the haptic feedback to the on screen keyboard.

Any ideas?
 
R

RobbieRobski

Senior Member
Sep 21, 2011
117
8
market.android.com
Anyone with an original RT able to use youtube via browser? Every time I try, I get the message via black bar at the bottom that a script has taken too long and I need to stop script or close, and or recover page or close.

I can't recall how long this has been going on, but months to say the least. I mostly use hyper for youtube, but sometimes I want to use IE. I am on 8.1 with the latest updates.

I wonder if it's some ****ty google attempt to block youtube on surface, sorry if I sound like an angry cynic. But honestly I dont see another reason. I never have this issue on any other website, such as other streaming websites for sports broadcasts and tv shows etc.
 
G

GoodDayToDie

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 20, 2011
6,066
2,933
Seattle
Haven't tried recently, but it used to work! Are you on 8.0 or 8.1?

One tip that may help: you can re-write YouTube URLs to go directly to the video (nobody sane wants to read the comments anyhow...). Take a typical YT video URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
Remove the "watch?" part and replace the "=" with "/":
http://www.youtube.com/v/oHg5SJYRHA0
Direct link to video! No scripts or other BS. Let me know if that works for you; if not, I'll dig into it more.
 
D

domboy

Senior Member
Jul 10, 2013
152
27
RobbieRobski said:
Anyone with an original RT able to use youtube via browser? Every time I try, I get the message via black bar at the bottom that a script has taken too long and I need to stop script or close, and or recover page or close.

I can't recall how long this has been going on, but months to say the least. I mostly use hyper for youtube, but sometimes I want to use IE. I am on 8.1 with the latest updates.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I have an original RT but also stayed with RT 8.0. I have only ever used IE for YouTube, and I can't remember ever having a problem (hope I didn't just jinx myself). Checked again today with both versions of IE (desktop and modern) and it works fine.

Maybe another 8.1 user will chime in...
 
Last edited:
R

RobbieRobski

Senior Member
Sep 21, 2011
117
8
market.android.com
I'm on 8.1 with the latest updates. If a video is embedded on a news site there is zero problem. It's just when I try to load youtube directly that fails. Usually when I use the browser it's because I need to search for something specific or want to write/edit a comment I wrote from an app.

I will see if I can load a specific video if I have the url, but if I do a websearch for a video and click on the search result it usually fails to load too.

Haven't tried with desktop IE in a while, I can try everything again when I get home today. I suspect the same though.
 
T

tuoggy

Member
Aug 22, 2012
48
5
Stylus pressure in Gimp and other desktop sketching programs

Before you tell me to use a different program, I understand that there are metro apps where the pen stylus works as intended. I hate the metro interface, the full screen apps that run on the system.

Having said that, here it goes.

I have Surface Pro 1, and I was curious if the pressure sensitivity issue has been solved. I've tried Googling the issue, and tried every potential solution that I could find.

I've installed the Wacom Feel it driver. I've uninstalled Gimp and reinstalled it. I tried changing the brush dynamics in Gimp to pressure opacity.

It seems that there's nothing I can do that makes the "Wacom tablet" appear in my list of input devices.

Am I missing something, or is this still broken over a year and a half after the device started shipping?
 
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    -Falco
    -Falco
    Ask questions for the Microsoft surface and only the Microsoft surface go here. They can range from hardware to software questions. Please try not to repeat questions. And please answer them in a nice way. Don't put people down because they don't know how to create a folder or something simple. and DON'T SAY GOOGLE IT!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Samsung galaxy s2
    Rom: Jedi knight 6
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    GoodDayToDie
    You know, with all due respect to your chronic illnesses and such, the "android on RT" question could have been answered a lot faster by search than by making the post; they've been asked, and answered, so many times it's absurd. The questions about media players and such have at least the virtue of thinking we might know something that all the reviewers online don't, but that's not much of a virtue when it, too, has been discussed to death already.

    Look at it from our perspective: these are questions that we long-time members see over and over again, dozens of times in this forum alone. Often, even in the same thread! So yeah, we get tired of giving the same answers over and over, and to have somebody ask yet again, the assumption that they clearly haven't even tried to save us (not to mention themselves) some time with basic research is very easy to make. Yeah, the forum search feature is a miserable pile of fail, but xda-devs is very well indexed by Google, Bing, etc. and you can easily answer questions by checking there. The Bing search for Android "Surface RT" site:xda-developers.com gives almost 12 thousand results, and I can answer a few of your questions just reading the list without even clicking the links.

    Before you (or any other newbie) post on a site like this, bear in mind that there's basically four types of responses you're likely to get: noobs who don't know anything either, people who know and are willing to take the time away from working with other hackers/developers/experts to write you an answer, people who know that the answer can be found by search (they may be experts or total noobs or anything in between) and will tell you so, and no answer at all (which can be either because nobody knows or nobody can be bothered to tell you something so obvious). Basically, unless you think your question is both unusual enough and intriguing enough that people who know will bother responding to it, don't post it.

    This is not ideal, no. It's not terribly newbie-friendly, and it's not the optimal way to disseminate knowledge. But, this is an imperfect world. People have limited time. People have personal goals. People are not machines, willing to tirelessly spit out the same information day in and day out. At the end of the day, you should remember that XDA-Devs is a *developer* site. It's not a user site. The focus is on getting the most out of our devices, not answering the questions of people who don't even have what we consider to be baseline-level knowledge about the subject of mobile devices (such as the fact that ARM devices cannot be turned "into a Win7"; a question which makes about as much sense as if somebody asked if their sailboat could be made into an airplane or something).

    If you're looking for a site devoted to answering the questions ordinary people have about Surface, as opposed to one about experts sharing information on hacking a Surface, try something like http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface. Yes, linking to external sites which arguably compete with XDA is against the forum rules, but I'd argue that it largely falls under "post in the correct section" too; based on this thread, I'm not sure that you could be said to be *contributing* anything here, except the admittedly useful reminder that we can be a bunch of arrogant snobs at times. That's true, and it's something we should pay attention to, but it doesn't actually help you any.

    In fact, given how unlikely it is that the next person like you will read this post before asking for the 11902nd time, writing it is probably a net detraction from XDA's usefulness too. But it's already written, so I may as well post it and hope.
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    C-Lang
    arisgiann said:
    Thank you but the problem remains with the calender app. When i am trying to add my google account it says that sync is unavailable.
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse

    First of all, is this a work account? If so, IT could be blocking it or something. Assuming it's not, go to your calendar on the website and try going into settings. Share the calendar to your Microsoft live mail address. Once that's done, sign out of GMail and go to your Livemail. Open the invitation to join, make an account, and just use that account to sign into your calendar in Windows ? :good:
    Long, complicated method, but should work!

    -------------------------------------------------
    Hit the thanks button if I helped!
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    C-Lang
    arisgiann said:
    Hi.
    I've tried lot of times to add my Google account to my RT but allways says that the details are incorect.

    Does anyone knows the reason for that?
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse

    When you say Google, I'm assuming you mean GMail in the mail app or contacts in the people app. I've added mine and it works fine. However, you might want to try logging into your live account (I'm assuming you have one since you have a surface) and hooking up your two accounts there. To do this, go to live.com and click on your name on the upper right-hand corner. Then click on account settings. Login with your password again and go to permissions on the left-hand side. In the following screen click add accounts. There you can add Google contacts. For mail however, there are other ways to link.

    -------------------------------------------------
    Hit the thanks button if I helped! :D

    ---------- Post added at 01:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 AM ----------
    Wischm0pp said:
    Often, when I change the system volume using the volume rocker it kinda gets stuck into it. For instance if I press the Vol+ button it goes all the way up to 100 and the volume indicator won't fade away until Vol- is pressed. Also it doesn't seem to recognize any touch input while being stuck.
    Also it seems to be a software misfunction since I can't tell anything weird regarding the volume rocker. Seems to work normal on the hardware side.
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse

    Hey, this is most likely a hardware problem. I had a similar issue with mine (only I could still change the volume with touch). Does it do the same thing with the touch/type cover? This would tell you if it's a hardware problem.
    However, I got mine replaced 'cause my headphone jack stopped working. The volume rocker was then fixed and has been fine ever since. Oh, and have you tried resetting or refreshing in case it is software? If you're going to get it replaced anyway (just call Microsoft, explain what happened and tell 'em you want it replaced, they'll do it for you) you may as well try that first.
    Hope this helped!

    -------------------------------------------------
    Hit the thanks button if I helped! :D
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    schettj
    everal said:
    software
    1. why does imap in the windows rt mail app works not correct, i think there must be a restriction for sync of max directorys, so the app is not usable, i missing many directorys from my german 1and1 mail hoster (the same on desktop pc win8 pro)?
    2. why does the surface rt go offline on 5% battery, shutting down os and no oppinion to start the tablet with the less power?
    3. why i cannot deinstall apps from windows rt app store?
    4. how i can global disable live titles?
    5. very great powershell v3, but i missing "powershell ise", will it be available in future?
    6. how i can switch my language from my default osd-keyboard between writing this words (from german to english), i found no key on osd for this?
    7. how i can change to different skydrive-accounts in metro-app (the mapped 7gb ist wrong, based on @outlook-com), becouse i have a another old account with 25gb, based on @web.de)
    8. does in future coming a fix which enable automatic osd-keyboard in desktop-mode?
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse

    1) do you have the correct imap prefix set? How many folders do you have?
    2) probably because deep cycling the battery under 5% reduces overall battery life
    3) you can't? http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-surface-rt-tip-deleting-apps
    4) http://superuser.com/questions/496906/how-can-i-remove-live-tile-updates-in-windows-8
    5) possibly never, but I agree that would be awesome
    6) don't understand - keyboard should use your global language setting
    7) you could always share your bigger skydrive's account with your smaller skydrive account - that should make the space accessable from the smaller account. Do that in the skydrive web interface.
    8) ?
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