[OFFICIAL] questions and answers for Microsoft surface

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Osprey00

Senior Member
Jul 21, 2009
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In Disk Management on my Surface RT, it shows a 450MB "Recovery Partition" at that start of the disk and a 2.46GB "Recovery Partition" at the end of the disk. Both are listed as 100% free. Is this normal? If they're really recovery partitions, I would think that they wouldn't be empty, especially the larger one. Oddly, I can't do anything with them--can't delete them, assign them drive letters, nothing--since the only option when tapping and holding (right-clicking) is "Help." It seems like wasted space, especially the 2.46GB one. Preferably, I'd like to either delete it or put actual recovery files on it. I've seen mention of people doing both with a recovery partition on the RT, but I don't see how when Disk Management is locked down like this (perhaps an 8.1 change?) Any ideas?
 
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GoodDayToDie

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Jan 20, 2011
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Unless you did something really weird to your disk, they aren't free. More likely, since they aren't mounted at all, Disk Management doesn't know how much space is being used (in fact, it may not have even checked what file system they are, which is an obvious pre-requisite to checking available space).

You can copy the recovery data off to a flashdrive or similar and then delete the recovery volumes, yes. Please don't ask "how", I'm quite sure your browser is capable of search.
 

Osprey00

Senior Member
Jul 21, 2009
448
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Unless you did something really weird to your disk, they aren't free. More likely, since they aren't mounted at all, Disk Management doesn't know how much space is being used (in fact, it may not have even checked what file system they are, which is an obvious pre-requisite to checking available space).

That makes sense. I'm able to create a USB recovery drive, so I suppose that the files are coming from those partitions, likely the 300MB of recovery tools from the 400MB partition and the recovery image from the 2.46GB partition. I'm just not used to Disk Management being misleading and so locked down. I suppose that it has something to do with Windows RT.

GoodDayToDie said:
Please don't ask "how", I'm quite sure your browser is capable of search.

That really wasn't necessary or appreciated. Most of us are advanced users, many of us professionals and/or developers, and this is a Q&A thread, even. Choose to not answer something, if you want, but leave out the attitude, please.
 
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GoodDayToDie

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 20, 2011
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"Most of us are advanced users"... you don't hang out much on the General / Q&A parts of XDA, do you? Nothing personal; that is just becoming a standard disclaimer on my posts in response to a question to the point that I've considered adding it to my signature. Most questions that I see here - and I literally mean well over half - could have been answered with a quick web search or even just a forum search, and on the rare occasion that this is not so but somebody (myself or another) is able to help anyhow, the near-universal response is "can you tell me how to do that?" It gets very tiresome.

Also, I nuke recovery partitions, on the rare occasion that I encounter one, by habit; does x86 Disk Management show the amount of space that they have free correctly? The command-line diskpart tool on RT was able to accurately tell me about the recovery partitions' filesystems once I mounted them, and I expect it's working from the same data as Disk Management.
 

Osprey00

Senior Member
Jul 21, 2009
448
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"Most of us are advanced users"... you don't hang out much on the General / Q&A parts of XDA, do you? Nothing personal; that is just becoming a standard disclaimer on my posts in response to a question to the point that I've considered adding it to my signature. Most questions that I see here - and I literally mean well over half - could have been answered with a quick web search or even just a forum search, and on the rare occasion that this is not so but somebody (myself or another) is able to help anyhow, the near-universal response is "can you tell me how to do that?" It gets very tiresome.

Well, I think that says more about you than it does about them, to be honest. Maybe you should avoid the General/Q&A forums if they upset you so often to the point where you need to vent to deal with it. I can understand it being annoying when others follow up with requests for you to hand-hold them, but you could try waiting until they do that, rather than pre-emptively being rude. I saw just recently where a guy posted a very nice thank you to an OP for his work and you blew up at him by saying, "...massive, useless necroposts like yours are just annoying. Stop it. Learn to read. Do some research before you post. Don't waste our time." Nothing personal, but is the one with the issue there really the guy who popped in to say thank you to someone else? Anyways, thanks for the answer to my question (I just wish that you'd left it at that).
 

idexample

Senior Member
May 7, 2011
78
16
London
Is this the only touchscreen enabled on Windows?
I shortly start enjoy the rom changing in android rooted devices, is there an option to port this Windows touchscreen on a common Chinese cheap quad core android tablet?
I just mess up my latest used android without pc, and would be great if I can continue play without but seem impossible, so I tought this cheap alternative, and also very portable, will save many of us.
Thank you very much.
 

GoodDayToDie

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 20, 2011
6,066
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Seattle
By "touchscreen enabled on Windows" I'm guessing you mean... something along the lines of "touch-based Windows operating system for ARM devices" because otherwise your question makes no sense.

There's no installer for it, and even if there were, drivers would be required. So, don't expect to get it on your cheap Android tablet. Most such things wouldn't meet the minimum specs anyhow.
 
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idexample

Senior Member
May 7, 2011
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London
Do you mean that this Windows tablet and all the new have better spec and teoretically sufficient enought to run Android also?
Would it be an option make a dual boot?
 
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Ciddy

Senior Member
Nov 15, 2008
182
9
Hey folks. After holding out for more than a year since the first anouncement I just preordered a Surface Pro 2. Just posting this if anyone else is looking for this info.
I was planning to add one of the new Power Covers to it as soon as they become available. HOWEVER I just called sales support (Germany) and had the one remaining question about the power cover answered which really struck me as plain STUPID:

The Power Cover is not backlit!

How can THAT be? The plain keyboards suck (a tiny bit, but nontheless!) of power from the Surface, but the battery pack does not get backlight? Where's the logic in that!?
 

Trig0r

Senior Member
Jun 19, 2007
741
94
Hey folks. After holding out for more than a year since the first anouncement I just preordered a Surface Pro 2. Just posting this if anyone else is looking for this info.
I was planning to add one of the new Power Covers to it as soon as they become available. HOWEVER I just called sales support (Germany) and had the one remaining question about the power cover answered which really struck me as plain STUPID:

The Power Cover is not backlit!

How can THAT be? The plain keyboards suck (a tiny bit, but nontheless!) of power from the Surface, but the battery pack does not get backlight? Where's the logic in that!?

I've pre-ordered mine as well, 8/256, I wouldn't of minded the 8/512 but its £400 more expensive than the 256 version...
Power Cover, I was thinking about it but then decided that given the Type 2 is £109 the power version is going to be near on the price of the dock (£164 here in the UK) so I'm just going to get a Type 2, if I dont like it I'll give it to whoever here at work gets my Pro and I'll keep the Touch keyboard.

If you look on the power cover specs it says its 5mm thicker than the type but weighs the same, be interested into how they've done that :lol:
 

SixSixSevenSeven

Senior Member
Dec 26, 2012
1,617
318
Do you mean that this Windows tablet and all the new have better spec and teoretically sufficient enought to run Android also?
Would it be an option make a dual boot?

The surface pro (not the RT) is a full blown x86 computer. It is just your regular windows laptop thrown into a tablet body. It can run android-x86 in dual boot, or linux if you want, or whatever you can run on your regular laptop or desktop PC. It is entirely different from an android tablet, plus costs a huge sum compared to an android tablet.

The sruface RT cannot run android. IT has the hardware for it, we just have zero way of installing it.





Where chinese android tablets come into this I have no idea. You couldnt use the surface to repair a chinese tablet, besides the cost of a surface screen alone is probably more than the entire chinese tablet
 
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Osprey00

Senior Member
Jul 21, 2009
448
212
If you look on the power cover specs it says its 5mm thicker than the type but weighs the same, be interested into how they've done that :lol:

Yeah, I don't think that the weight is correct. The rumors from early this month were that the Power Cover would weigh 1.1lbs (compared to 0.55lbs for the original Type Cover), which seems more reasonable. Perhaps someone said that it weighs 0.55lbs more than the Type Cover (0.55 + 0.55 = 1.1) and what was heard was that it weighs 0.55lbs.
 

Trig0r

Senior Member
Jun 19, 2007
741
94
Still no price on the power cover here in the UK, no stock on the Dock either, have got the Pro2 and Type 2 cover on pre-order though...

Wonder if they'll do proper cases for them as well at some point....
 

Trig0r

Senior Member
Jun 19, 2007
741
94
Exactly, that's all I want tbh, the case I have has a loop in the back of it for the pen which it better than the magnetic hole it goes in..
 

bla1011

Member
Mar 13, 2010
19
0
Hey folks. After holding out for more than a year since the first anouncement I just preordered a Surface Pro 2. Just posting this if anyone else is looking for this info.
I was planning to add one of the new Power Covers to it as soon as they become available. HOWEVER I just called sales support (Germany) and had the one remaining question about the power cover answered which really struck me as plain STUPID:

The Power Cover is not backlit!

How can THAT be? The plain keyboards suck (a tiny bit, but nontheless!) of power from the Surface, but the battery pack does not get backlight? Where's the logic in that!?

Do you know if the Type covers ordered from Germany (microsoftstore.de) will have a German keyboard layout?
And how about the Surface language? Can you change it to English without any problems?
 

SixSixSevenSeven

Senior Member
Dec 26, 2012
1,617
318
Do you know if the Type covers ordered from Germany (microsoftstore.de) will have a German keyboard layout?
And how about the Surface language? Can you change it to English without any problems?

German type cover language I don't know about. I know the current gen covers sold in the UK are the proper UK layout though which apple do not do (apple basically make the enter key double height as with UK keyboards and then stick a £ sign in, otherwise its a US layout, microsoft do a 100% UK layout). I would expect that they also do german layouts on the german store.

The surface pro is running full blown windows. RT is more or less a direct port of full blown windows to ARM. You can change language as you can on a windows laptop or desktop PC no problem.
 

Ciddy

Senior Member
Nov 15, 2008
182
9
Update: I just called the US MS Store (previous was Germany) and while they couldn't tell me a price for the power cover, they confirmed that it IS indeed backlit. So, false alarm. :)
 

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  • 5
    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!

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    Rom: Jedi knight 6
    kernel: Jedi kernel 2
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    3
    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.
    2
    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.

    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!

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    2
    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?

    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.

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    ---------- Post added at 01:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 AM ----------

    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.

    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!

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    1
    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?

    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) ?