Current Events > Damn it, Microsoft. This Surface is like 95% the best computer I've ever used

(+) Yeah! (+)

But that last 5% is just so frustrating.

It's got everything - blazingly fast, amazing build quality, exceptionally great keyboard, incredible screen, phenomenal battery life, and it was a ridiculously good deal at $799 for an i5 model w/ 8 GB of RAM and an included keyboard.

But WHY IS IT SO FREAKING BUGGY

Literally every day something new goes wrong. Yesterday the onscreen keyboard just stopped working entirely. The previous day, the predictive text stopped working. Today, the auto-rotate not only broke, but the option to toggle it disappeared entirely and could only be fixed with a registry edit.

I don't understand how a software company managed to nail the hardware side of the Surface so well, but screw up the software so badly!
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@Coffeebeanz posted...

Literally every day something new goes wrong. Yesterday the onscreen keyboard just stopped working entirely. The previous day, the predictive text stopped working. Today, the auto-rotate not only broke, but the option to toggle it disappeared entirely and could only be fixed with a registry edit.

I don't understand how a software company managed to nail the hardware side of the Surface so well, but screw up the software so badly!

As somebody who used to work for them & still has friends on the inside.

1) Windows 10 is a laughing stock and is run without any real testing staff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella
Satya Nadella, the current CEO instituted a big change of firing manual QA testing or converting any of the advanced SDET's (Software Developer in Engineering & Testing) into just normal Dev's.
All Public Alpha is supposed to get most of the bugs and they are supposed to fix most of it.
Then the public (You & I) are glorified Beta testers.

2) The Surface division & Windows team aren't on the best of terms.
They're kind of adversarial to some degree so there isn't much cohesion there

3) Surface is one of the few Bright Spotlights in MS's financial portfolio, so they're kind of like the favored child, ergo pissing off some of the other divisions for some reason.

4) A lot of Surfaces technology is proprietary to some degree.
The Pogo pins for the Type Cover, that's proprietary.
The entire hardware for Surface is completely original and designed by MS.
But normally with prices so high, there are only X amount of testers to feed back bugs.
And not many people feed back bugs (< 10% of consumers).

So it's a complete & utter shit show "In Some Regards".

In some cases, Surface is spectacular; in other cases, it's a complete dumpster fire.

But for the most part, it works well enough for most consumers and excels & leads in many areas that other PC vendors weren't willing to tackle.

e.g. The Screen being as awesome as it is.
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That's an interesting read. It almost seems like MS is a company with divisions that lack good central cohesion. Reminds me of late '90s Sega or 2000's Sony
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How did you get that cpu for 799 with the type cover? is the deal still going?
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Coffeebeanz posted...

That's an interesting read. It almost seems like MS is a company with divisions that lack good central cohesion. Reminds me of late '90s Sega or 2000's Sony

You're very correct on that assessment.

Now think carefully about why in Windows long history has every other version of Windows been a complete shit show on the consumer end?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows_version_history

Windows didn't start becoming popular until 3.1x

Windows 95 was buggy, but loved for it's radical changes at that time.

Windows 98 was much better

Windows ME was a garbage fire that they put out quickly

Windows XP was fine and beloved for the most part and got plenty of Service Patches

Windows Vista was a flaming dumpster fire

Windows 7 was good stuff

Windows 8.1 was a Garbage Truck fire

Windows 10 is a chaotic mess at launch, but turned out only "OK" so far
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solosnake posted...

How did you get that cpu for 799 with the type cover? is the deal still going?

https://goo.gl/siWZ9S

Had to shorten it because it was too long to copy and paste.
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Its weird that you have those issues with the newest pro yet I never had those issues with the Surface 2 I own. (The non pro version)
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@KamenRiderBlade why is there an issue between the surface team and the software side, your posts are very interesting
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Had a surface pro 4 that wouldn't wake up from sleep unless I did a hard restart. Also kept randomly waking up in my bag while closed, heat up and shut down

Updated it awhile ago and never had problems like that again tho
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green butter posted...

@KamenRiderBlade why is there an issue between the surface team and the software side, your posts are very interesting

I wasn't privy to all the details, but a lot of it has to do with Surface being the new Home Grown Profitable division while Windows itself isn't making as much money as it used to be.
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nice, thanks. Any idea how long the sale lasts?
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solosnake posted...

nice, thanks. Any idea how long the sale lasts?

https://goo.gl/siWZ9S

Read the site for details.
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Funny enough Windows 8.1 is amazing for the Surface and Windows 10 took away many features that made the surface great. Its why I never upgraded my original Surface. (My surface 3 is 10 though)

its like 300 dollars for an extra 128gigs of space :(
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solosnake posted...

its like 300 dollars for an extra 128gigs of space :(

You can blame Apple for that.

MS is copying Apple for profit margins in extra features.
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solosnake posted...

its like 300 dollars for an extra 128gigs of space :(

It has a microSD slot
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i use a desktop but i seem to have windows 10 bugs with regards to the user accounts.

if i switch between ms acct and local acct it fucks everything up: emails, settings, even reg files.
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E32005 posted...

i use a desktop but i seem to have windows 10 bugs with regards to the user accounts.

if i switch between ms acct and local acct it fucks everything up: emails, settings, even reg files.

It's so buggy I legit feel relief when I use my old Macbook
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@Coffeebeanz posted...

It's so buggy I legit feel relief when I use my old Macbook

Would you say MS has inflicted PTSD on you?
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Ok the bugs are just too much. I'd rather just use my MacBook at this point.
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Micro$oft

Is this the true laptop thing or hybrid? I have the Surface Pro 4 and it's so good for school work.

I remember it occasionally getting testy with the attachable keyboard or not having the on screen board pop up due to laptop vs tablet mode bullshit. But overall it hasn't been a huge issue for me.
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I literally just booted my MacBook and it already feels like I upgraded to a brand new computer from an old one.

How the hell did Microsoft screw up the software that badly
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@Coffeebeanz posted...

I literally just booted my MacBook and it already feels like I upgraded to a brand new computer from an old one.

How the hell did Microsoft screw up the software that badly

::shrugs::

I guess after all the patches / firmware updates that you applied; MS' bugginess got to you, eh?
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Should probably look into what group policy is and/or win10privacy to customize it and stop most of the useless processes.

Ugh, for as good of a deal this is for $799 I think I'm just gonna return it. My 2014 MacBook Pro just seems like a better overall computer.
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Coffeebeanz posted...

Ugh, for as good of a deal this is for $799 I think I'm just gonna return it. My 2014 MacBook Pro just seems like a better overall computer.

So you're going to put up with Officer365 weirdness?
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KamenRiderBlade posted...

Coffeebeanz posted...

Ugh, for as good of a deal this is for $799 I think I'm just gonna return it. My 2014 MacBook Pro just seems like a better overall computer.

So you're going to put up with Officer365 weirdness?

I actually own Office for Mac 2016 so I don't even have to deal with that BS
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Coffeebeanz posted...

I actually own Office for Mac 2016 so I don't even have to deal with that BS

Even better.

I prefer owning Office compared to leasing it with Office365.
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KamenRiderBlade posted...

Coffeebeanz posted...

I actually own Office for Mac 2016 so I don't even have to deal with that BS

Even better.

I prefer owning Office compared to leasing it with Office365.

Totally. I bought it for my MacBook using my resident discount a few years ago. $9.99 for a one computer license. Totally worth it.
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Coffeebeanz posted...

Totally. I bought it for my MacBook using my resident discount a few years ago. $9.99 for a one computer license. Totally worth it.

Then what was the original issue with your MacBook and the Hospital IT?

You have Office, why do you need to use Office365?
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KamenRiderBlade posted...

Coffeebeanz posted...

Totally. I bought it for my MacBook using my resident discount a few years ago. $9.99 for a one computer license. Totally worth it.

Then what was the original issue with your MacBook and the Hospital IT?

It's not compatible with the receiver software they use for their EMR. You can still access it through a VPN but it's a real pain in the ass.

Also they have an Office 365 security policy that won't allow for non web-app Outlook, so I can only get my emails from the web app and not the actual Outlook application.
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Coffeebeanz posted...

But WHY IS IT SO FREAKING BUGGY

>Microsoft

Found your problem
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Coffeebeanz posted...

It's not compatible with the receiver software they use for their EMR. You can still access it through a VPN but it's a real pain in the ass.

Also they have an Office 365 security policy that won't allow for non web-app Outlook, so I can only get my emails from the web app and not the actual Outlook application.

=(

So what are you going to do now about the incompatibilities now that you have decided to go back to OS X?
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