I tried, really

[genegx]

Finally decided to pull the trigger on the SP4. Picked up an I5-256-8 yesterday at the Microsoft Store. So, first impression, I really liked it. Loved the screen, liked the form factor. Continuing to setup some items, and we get to the problems.

Added my gmail account to Mail, click on the account, Mail crashes. Peruse the web, one fix says "Run the store App, click on your account icon, select update" to presumably update/refresh the system apps. Store App immediately crashes upon selecting update. Sooo, then notice that a number of updates are pending including a firmware update. (Why not force these updates when you first start up on the brand new machine?) So run all the updates, reboot, check update again, and there are a group of what appear to be smaller updates that flash by quickly. Restarted, same thing. So a group of updates that won't install. Oh well, check Mail App - insta crash. Check Store App - insta crash on update as before.

Ok, figure I made a mistake by not updating first. Next, do a Reset. After the long long time this takes, I go back in and run the updates again. After the updates finish and after rebooting, I run update again. Same thing with the small group of updates that run over and over again. Well, at least reset should have fixed the App issue. Nope, exact same behavior.

Ok, lets do another Reset, this one with the full delete, and after grinding away for a couple of hours get a popup that says it will reset and/or remove any keys, etc. Sure, I don't care, maybe that was the issue. Again ran the update process, and no joy. Exact same thing, group of updates that keep running every time you check, Mail App crashes, Store App crashes on selecting update.

Now I am retired from Microsoft, and at one time was a QA manager there in the product group. I am astonished that a product as important as the SP4 gets out the door in this condition. It was made in January so it is not a real early model and you would think some of these bugs would have been dealt with. Thus, this morning took it back to the Microsoft Store for a full refund.

Bums me out, because I really liked and wanted the SP4 form factor, and wanted to get away more from my desktop. I guess I will wait until I can be reasonably certain that there are machines in the pipeline that have the requisite engineering and firmware changes along with fixes to Windows 10, particularly the flaky App model.

In the meantime, have ordered the Pro update to my iPad Air 2, and will have to use the smaller form factor for drawing instead of the much nicer SP4 Pro screen.

C'mon Microsoft, this really disappoints me.

 

[Aldec]

I have to agree, M$ really have to get their act together on what is a brilliant concept, but their quality control is appalling,
My first purchase an i5 4gb ram was on Feb 16th this year, it lasted a week before a complete lockdown.
A replacement from the same supplier had so many faults, even after a clean install, could not repair missing source files, so requested a refund.
Two weeks later deprivation pangs set in, so decided to try a different supplier.
This came loaded with o/s version 10240, which needed updating to o/s 10586.164, this took many hours to update.
Once done checked sfc /scannow which revealed missing source files, Dism checks could not rectify.
Downloaded WIM.install ISO from TechNet, have posted the solution in this forum, and everything is running as reliably as my other laptop or desktop.
My opinion now being retired, sitting in my armchair, can comfortably rest on my lap keyboard connected to tablet set at any angle with instant access to Windows 10 for superb performance.

 

[jnjroach]

One important part of the story is missing, have you fully updated the SP4? Including all Firmware Updates and Windows Update (meaning you are on 1511).

 

[ValentinJesse]

^
You probably bought the device that i've sent back, because i have experienced the same things with that piece of crap, as you can see in my posts history.

Bought it for my boss and you cannot imagine the cringe that i had to go through while demo-ing the device to him. Replaced it because i found out that the display had some white cloud spots on it.
The new one is a tad better, but now i have to face problems with Windows 10 and the Surface Dock. From standby glitches to complete system lockdowns when removing the surface dock plug.

The thing is that if you want a device to use during business presentations, meetings and in general tasks of high importance, the Surface is simply an unreliable piece of trash.

Make sure you bring a backup with you,

 

[sprockett]

i experienced teh exact same thing when i got mine (updates that wont install, crashes, etc). I suspect it had something to do with me trying to startup my SP4 on very low battery (it died halfway during the initial setup process). I subsequently went home to try to resume the startup process and had problems since then.

Anyway I did a couple of factory resets, each time not touching it and letting the updates FULLY install.

After that, seems to be totally error free. Fingers crossed.

 

[radji]

I'm wondering how people are having all these problems with their SP4s. Other than a few quirks courtesy of Windows 10, my SP4 has been stellar.

 

[leeshor]

Same here, wither multiple SP4s.

 

[hughlle]

Only issues I encounter (other than 2nd screen and dock) are because i'm on the fast ring.

 

[GreyFox7]

I'm wondering how people are NOT having all these problems with their SP4s. My SP4s were crap and people still report many of the same problems as when they fist came out.

The answer my friend is not blowing in the wind the answer is that Skylake is as flakey as granola. Some are good and others just fall apart on you. So far the industry has done a good job covering it up. It would seem that ARM SoCs are much more stable and reliable. Although currently ARM doesn't have the top end performance of the U series that gap is closing every year. Intel has their work cut out for them. The higher powered models may be fine but the low power models appear to get rather inconsistent and squirrely. I don't think their testing and qualification is rigorous enough so these squirrely, flakey units slip through or they relaxed their standards to get the yield up and we are seeing the consequences.

I also believe this is why Apple canceled the update release of the MacBook with Skylake last week. Not that Apple is great just that they don't like to fix anything after it's released.

 

[Aldec]

Absolutely spot on GreyFox, plus M$ updates removing source files have not helped.
Intel and M$ between themselves have made a right pigs ear collaborating in the development of SP4,s

 

[GreyFox7]

Absolutely spot on GreyFox, plus M$ updates removing source files have not helped.
Intel and M$ between themselves have made a right pigs ear collaborating in the development of SP4,s

M$? The mark of last century thinking.

I don't know how M$ has anything to do with Intel building chips. M$ uses chips Intel builds, unfortunately those chips suck and there isn't a darn thing M$ can do about it. They have to wait for Intel to fix it just like everyone else.

Please let this be the last time I type or read M$... so let it be written, so let it be done.

 

[genegx]

One important part of the story is missing, have you fully updated the SP4? Including all Firmware Updates and Windows Update (meaning you are on 1511).

Yes, as I said in my post I performed multiple resets, and would run update multiple times after the reset. The first update would install the major windows updates, and the subsequent ones would appear to be installing a series of smaller updates. This series of smaller updates would pop up again after each restart, appear to install, but continually reappear, thus apparently never getting installed. Now I had a problem on my desktop with a VC++ run-time update that would not reinstall, and found the KB that addressed this and fixed it.

The larger point of my post, and particularly as a former QA Manager and Program Manager AT Microsoft, is that here I was with a brand new device that I purchased at 3 in the afternoon. At 11:30 that night I was still up mucking with it just to get two frigging built in Apps to work.

I also understand the steps that Aldec mentioned in his post, having gone through them on my desktop to get (almost) everything working right on Win10. I also understand the importance of updating, particularly since I myself participated in working on and shipping many many patches and hot-fixes for various Microsoft products. Additionally, since updates are so important, why o why doesn't the SP4 Pro immediately force you into an update cycle when a new unit is started up?

I completely get that I could have installed Chrome, added Gmail there, and never experienced a problem. At least not until I needed to update an App through the App store. I don't have an answer as to why these problems manifested themselves on my unit, and that others claim to have one that works perfect with no glitches right out of the box. Peruse YouTube and you will see lots of issues with both Surface Pro and Book.

The whole point of my post is that I expected more out of Microsoft, particularly on a flagship product. We are just about 6 months post release and these types of problems should not be happening at this point. As I said, I will probably wait another two or three months for the problems to get ironed out and try again, and physically go into a Microsoft Store and make them find one with the latest manufacturing date possible.