yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Microsoft Surface] sneak3:
No, my surface pen is working as it should but I really needed a 2 button switch.

Those wacom pens are kind of expensive. Before I invest on it, I'd like some reviews or maybe some insights of people who already had a good experience with them and their surface.

Any chance you guys know where I could find that?
[Microsoft Surface] Botoxopfer:
Hey xda i've got some questions, that I'd like to get answered so please help me!

Is it still possible to watch any flash video on the surface rt?

Can Bluestacks be loaded onto Surace rt?

Is the surface rt 32 gb worth it, if i can get if for 228€?

Thanks in advance!
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
flash yes unless the site is specifically blacklisted (basically only known malicious sites that you won't be visiting anyway).

Bluestacks no. And you can't dual boot android either. No android apps at all on your RT.

Price being worth it is up to you.
[Microsoft Surface] CheyenneDonna:
Is it powerful enough to do this.....?

Hello all,

My name is Cheyenne and I'm a student and substitute teacher hoping to get a contract. I'm a tablet lover, currently using Android (Nexus 7 and ASUS Transformer) and a Chromebook as my main devices; but I occasionally need Windows (and will more often as I work on my Master's). When I have a lot of papers to write I use Dragon Naturally Speaking, I use Office 2013 and Adobe Pro. These 3 programs are essential to me and when I'm really working hard I need to have a browser open for research as well. I have an extra monitor for dual screen capabilities when needed. I currently use a Sony Vaio VGN FZ260E laptop I bought in 2007, it was Vista - I upgraded to 7, upgraded to 3GB ram and have a Core 2 duo 2GHz; as you can imagine it hardly serves my purposes anymore.

I've been searching for a new solution and with the price drop and my education discount the Surface Pro became an inexpensive option compared to my other choices (the ASUS Taichi or the Sony VAIO Duo 11 Touchscreen Ultrabook). Can the Surface Pro live up to my expectations? I like the form, don't mind having a few dongles for vga, usb hub etc; don't use a keyboard as often as most people and love the ability to write and draw directly on screen. Opinions from anyone who is a power user please.
[Microsoft Surface] GoodDayToDie:
Unless you need discreet graphics, the Surface Pro (especially at the discounted price) is a great Windows computer. It'll certainly run all the programs you listed above, although depending what you do it might struggle a little with some of Adobe's software - it's no desktop replacement - but it'll run it. At 4GB of non-upgradable RAM it's only a small step above your old laptop there (though the RAM will be clocked higher), but the Core i5 CPU it packs is far more powerful than a laptop Core 2 Duo from 2007.

The Touch and Type covers really are quite excellent. I don't know that I'd try writing a these on the Touch Cover, but it works for multi-page emails and some gaming even. The Type Cover is a "real" keyboard, and quite usable for extended typing. The tablet has dual mics which can be used for a lot of noise cancellation, which should make using speech recognition software quite good (you can also of course use a headset). There is only one USB port but it's USB3; if you get a USB3 hub to go with it you'll be able to connect multiple USB2 devices at full speed, or you can just use a USB2 hub. The external monitor connector works great by all reports.

As for being a "power user", it's Windows 8 Pro. You can use it like a Windows laptop, if you like; touchscreen and lack of built-in hardware keyboard aside, that's basically what it is. The battery life probably won't match your N7 or Transformer, but that's what you give up for something that will run rings around either device, performance-wise, and also run existing Windows software. It can also even run Android apps; BlueStacks or something like it allow running most Android apps on a Windows x86 machine... which is exactly what the Surface Pro is. The OS also isn't "locked in" in any way; you can install Linux (directly or to Hyper-V or your preferred alternative virtualization software) or another OS if you want, or another Windows version or edition (though for a device like Surface Pro, you probably want something from the NT6.2 family such as Win8 or Server 2012).
[Microsoft Surface] Bioflap:
Edit files with Dropbox

Hi guys,

Im a happy owner of the Surface RT tablet. There is only one problem with it.

I would love to use the Surface RT for school, but to do that, i need Dropbox.

Ofcourse Dropbox works, but i want to open a .DOC and edit it. When you save the .DOC, you need to store it on your Surface, and manually upload it to Dropbox.

I already tried some Filemanagers from the Store, but they dont have these functions.

Please help!
[Microsoft Surface] ericerk:
Try google Drive, all around better experience. (In my opinion.)

Upload to drive, edit on drive (as you type.)

Save locally as needed by you.
[Microsoft Surface] GoodDayToDie:
If it was just a matter of "which cloud thingy do I use" then SkyDrive (and not Google Drive) would be the obvious choice; built-in support for local sync (not present for Google Drive with RT, so far as I know) and a web-based viewer and editor that actually understands the finer points of the doc and docx file formats. However, it sounds like DropBox specifically is needed for school... that's going to be tricky. The client is closed source; it *might* run in the emulator but that's not a good solution and I'd be a bit surprised if it worked anyhow.
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
I am personally a google drive fan. No it doesnt understand the finer points of .DOC or .DOCX but in the time I have used it the support has improved (albeit having a long way to go). But I use it with .ODT exclusively. Reason being that I use libre office on my home machines, I can't afford the spend the money on Microsoft Office and why pirate it when libre office does the job fine? Google docs I think under the hood uses ODT anyway, regardless it supports it fully. MS Office also supports ODT's very well.

I can see GoodDayToDies point about SkyDrive though. Skydrives web editor for files last time I tried it was a bit "funky" in chrome, but on the RT you don't have that option. It is a bit better supported on Windows than Google Drive was. Can't office load files directly from a skydrive now or am I mistaken?
[Microsoft Surface] ericerk:
What I really like like about Google Drive is that you can upload your intended file, (.doc .docx etc...), edit it (Granted not very comprehensively but what would you expect on a FREE cloud-based utility), have it save after every keystroke, and still have all the access to said file, from any mobile device with a relatively up-to-date browser. I'm not going to lie, I am very bias, I have not tried SkyDrive, and w/ DropBox, I didn't notice any cloud based editors.

Long story short, It gets the job done, well, efficiently, while also having offline support. (Granted w/ chrome it's a perfect formula, cue bias)
[Microsoft Surface] GoodDayToDie:
Yes, Office 1013 (what's on RT) supports direct opening from, and saving to, SkyDrive. As I said, it's the only option (on RT, at this time) with fully automatic native sync support.

I don't know how well, or even if, SkyDrive supports ODF files for web view editing. Office has supported them for years (2007 required a plugin for them, I think, but it was free and developed by Microsoft) so it could probably handle them from SkyDrive just fine, but that's not quite as convenient perhaps.

In any case, none of this is solving the problem of "dropbox sync for school".
[Microsoft Surface] habnzrot:
Surface Pro

Just wondering if anyone got a system update on surface pro running stock w8 os in the last 24hrs? I got one today but not sure what this update all about. I am not aware that i downloaded any update files before i put it away last night, but this morning when i switch it on it booted to a page saying updating system took apprx 3 mins then restarted to configuring windows update. I checked the installed update but i can't see any update that was installed today. Anyway I'm just really curious, btw my surface is fully updated to latest firmware before this morning update:confused:
[Microsoft Surface] ericerk:
No, But alternatives were given.
[Microsoft Surface] Osprey00:
[EDIT: Never mind. I figured it out on my own. A very short downward (or upward) flick on a tile brings up the options bar. That's why it worked on the bottom row, where there's only room for a short flick.]

[EDIT #2: Now that I've updated to 8.1, I see that Microsoft has completely changed the behavior. Bringing up the options bar is now done by long-pressing on a tile, which I think is more intuitive. I must not have been the only user to find the "flick up/down" gesture in 8.0 not the most intuitive.]

This is just a general Windows 8 question, but I'll go ahead and ask here, since software questions are allowed. On the Start screen, only the tiles on the very bottom row that I drag off of the bottom of the screen display the options bar (with the options to Unpin, Uninstall, Make Larger, etc.). When I drag any tile from the top two rows down there, they simply bounce back to where they were. Am I doing something wrong or is this by design? If it's by design, I can't understand why in the world Microsoft would do this. Right now, to modify a tile on the top or middle row, I have to first move it to the bottom row, drag it off of the bottom of the screen, then (if I chose something other than Unpin or Uninstall), drag it back up to the row and position that I originally had it in. This can't be the way that it's meant to be. Thanks for any enlightenment.
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
User error. The options bar is not achieved by dragging a tile off the bottom row. Dragging a tile down there should zoom your start screen out so you can view all tiles at once, then allow you to quickly stick a tile that was on the very far left on the very far right for instance rather than having to move it in smaller steps.

Right click the tile. Or I think on touch you long press the tile, you may then have to swipe upwards from the bottom of the screen.
[Microsoft Surface] Osprey00:
Thanks for the suggestions (and for making me feel a little dumb; "User error" could've been left out, IMO), but they weren't the solution to the problem. I figured it out, though. A very short downward (or upward) flick on a tile brings up the options bar. The bottom row tiles are only a short flick from the bottom edge, so I was misinterpreting a flick to the bottom edge as being the trigger for the options bar appearing, when that was only a coincidence.
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
My apologies. It was not intended to cause offense, only to say that it was not a windows 8 bug. We all make mistakes (I spent 2 weeks clicking and dragging the windows 8 lock screen up manually before realising that just pressing a key or the left click once does the job fine).
[Microsoft Surface] stvn2569:
I was just wondering if someone can tell me if I can use my 128gb Surface pro to download the Samsung drivers for my gs4 do I can root my gs4 using my Surface pro?

"Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum"

"Oderint Dum Metuant"
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
The surface pro is the same as any other windows PC only thrown into tablet form, so yes. Anything that works on windows 8 on your laptop or desktop works on the pro.
[Microsoft Surface] drumz0rz:
Has anyone been able to solve the headphones issue on the Surface Pro?

When I plug headphones in, any full screen app (like a game) that was already running, will not switch output to the headphones. Even worse, I cannot change the output to the headphones. I have to quit the application then reopen it with the headphones already plugged in. Likewise, if I remove headphones with a full screen application running, the audio is not routed to the speakers.

I also have this issue with some non fullscreen apps, such as Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 (which runs beautifully on the Surface Pro I might add).

Second question.

When I go to my friends house, and turn on my Surface Pro, I kill his WiFi connection on his Apple products. It's the weirdest thing. It's a broadband cable connection, and I believe the router is a Linksys located at the other end of the house. The moment I switch on WiFi on my Surface Pro, all of his iDevices lose their connections or their connections a VERY slow. I'm talking his iPhone, iPad, and iMac (all wireless). My Android phone is unaffected. My home network has tons of connected devices (32 last time I checked) including iMacs, iPads and iPhones. None of them have issues when I use my Surface Pro there.

Honestly, I think it's more of an Apple problem than a Surface problem, but it certainly is the strangest network issue I've ever seen.
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
Similar happens with my brothers old iPhone, mums iPad, brothers samsung galaxy S2 and sisters S2. All of them seem to prioritise bandwidth over other devices in the house.

Brother and I home alone decided to investigate. Turned his netbook on and my desktop. Found that both could *just* load a youtube video on 144p at the same time (I do have low bandwidth). Turn off the netbook. Try and load something on the S2, even just google, totally kills internet via wifi on my desktop, but if I take the netbook down there and hard wire via ethernet the netbook is unaffected and it just goes to the usual slow down you would expect from having 2 devices connected (turn desktop off and netbook on, it also has no internet while the S2 is doing things).

I have no idea why this happens, my router has no bandwidth prioritisation settings available. My desktop and router are both N capable. The iPhone and iPad definitely are too.
[Microsoft Surface] samgu:
Is there an easy way to upload videos on youtube on Surface RT?
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
The normal way in internet explorer 10.
[Microsoft Surface] Osprey00:
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?
[Microsoft Surface] GoodDayToDie:
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.
[Microsoft Surface] Osprey00:
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.

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.
[Microsoft Surface] GoodDayToDie:
"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.
[Microsoft Surface] Osprey00:
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).
[Microsoft Surface] idexample:
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.
[Microsoft Surface] GoodDayToDie:
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.
[Microsoft Surface] idexample:
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?
[Microsoft Surface] Ciddy:
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!?
[Microsoft Surface] Trig0r:
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:
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
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
[Microsoft Surface] Osprey00:
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.
[Microsoft Surface] Trig0r:
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....
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
Well it is a hunk of metal, their logic is probably the same as mine, sturdy enough already. Would be nice to have something to prevent scratching though
[Microsoft Surface] Trig0r:
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..
[Microsoft Surface] bla1011:
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?
[Microsoft Surface] SixSixSevenSeven:
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.
[Microsoft Surface] Ciddy:
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. :)
[Microsoft Surface] Osprey00:
All of the pictures that I've seen of the Power Cover appear to show it being non-backlit (the absence of an indicator light on the Caps Lock key is an easy way to tell). That's probably also how it appeared at the reveal event. So, that's probably why that rumor exists. Microsoft indicated, though, that that Power Cover isn't the final version, which won't be available until a few months after Surface 2 availability, and wouldn't let attendees play with the prototype (likely lest they knock it for things that will be changed). Replacing what appear to be the Type Cover keys and internals with those from the Type Cover 2 (which add the backlight capability) could be what they need the extra few months for. That would certainly make sense and explain the conflicting information.