Surface Pro 9 won't enter tablet mode after disconnecting the type cover

Anonymous
2023-04-02T21:43:46+00:00

So it's been two days of back and forward with customer support and cannot get a resolution on this issue. Bought a brand new Surface Pro 9 and out of the box have had issues with basic functionality. Initially we thought that the auto rotation was janky but eventually discovered that we could boot up the device without keyboard attached and tablet mode worked great, but once we connected the type cover keyboard and then removed it, the device stays in desktop mode. I've reinstalled a fresh version of the OS three times, run all Windows updates, downloaded and installed the Surface Pro 9 drivers from the Microsoft site, done the 20 second power down... none of it makes any difference.

Anyone have any advice? If I can't solve this I will need to return and repurchase etc, which means I may just go elsewhere, this has been a pretty poor user experience and I was pretty excited for this purchase. Hoping to get some help, much appreciated 🙏

Surface | Surface Pro | Display and screen

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-12-04T09:07:32+00:00

    Same issue here - Surface Pro 8. Removed keyboard and it stayed in desktop mode. No amount of restarts or shutdowns would get it out of desktop mode!!! Unbelievable. I can't recommend Surface if these glitches exist!

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-10-15T12:01:23+00:00

    Hi Marrion,

    Could you please give us an update on this problem? To my amazement, Dave from the supportteam told me there was nothing about this problem in their database. Strange because people here are telling they spend hours with the supportteam on this problem. And also depressing because the conclusion is that Microsoft isnt working at all on this! I also did al the basics to try and solve the problem. I now use the workaround as described here, it works but its totally silly that we have to do that. Due to my work as a doctor I change from laptop to tabletmode at least 8 times a day.

    I still can send my Surface back and order a new one but i'm afraid that that will not work as we can read in this thread.

    kind regards,

    Evelyn

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-09-28T14:39:44+00:00

    Can someone from Microsoft acknowledge there is a fix being worked on?!

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-08-25T08:29:03+00:00

    Also the same problem. 4 months after this thread has been created and still no resolution from MS is extremely poor. Folding the cover back before removing works though so it's not a huge issue for me but on a flagship product it shouldn't happen.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-04-04T15:10:15+00:00

    Hi Marrion,

    Thanks for the reply. I have already sent the unit back, but would have loved to have tested your steps. Basically, the unit would enter tablet mode if booted up while disconnected from the keyboard type cover. Once the cover was connected, it stayed in desktop mode regardless of whether the typecover was removed and/or replaced. It seems that it never detected (or responded) to the typecover being removed so it could return to a mobile-respnsibe state.

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