Can I connect Surface RT and PC with USB cable?

Anonymous
2012-11-30T00:08:13+00:00

I have a Toshiba Thrive running Android. I can connect it to my PC with a USB cable and access files on my Thrive on the PC. The PC treats the Thrive as a hard drive. Can I connect my Surface in the same way? I have tried and the PC does not appear to see the Surface.

This is a pain, one of the reasons I bought the Surface was to be able to do this type of hard connection and not have to use "iTunes" or the Cloud.

Surface | Other

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Anonymous
2013-03-05T02:57:40+00:00

Greetings SaeedR_706,

That is a good question, however I would suggest rather then using the USB cable, to transfer files over your WiFi network to a shared folder on your Windows 7 Laptop.

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Anonymous
2012-12-05T00:46:39+00:00

Hello Rrccw,

No, you cannot connect the Surface to the PC via USB. However, you can setup Shared folderson your PC. Once you have that, have the Surface connect to the same network via WiFi and then go into Network from the Desktop app, select your PC and then see the Shared Folders. From there, the Surface should have Read/Write access if you gave the permissions on the PC.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-12-04T01:03:32+00:00

    Greetings rrccw,

    Yes, you can do this. I have connected my Android phone (HTC Evo 4G LTE) to the Surface via USB cable, and it will charge my phone. I swipe down from the top of my phone, select Charge Only and set it to Disk Drive and it shows up on the Surface. Open My Computer if it doesn't automatically open, and find Removable Drive. 

    Let me know if this helps at all.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-11-30T01:07:59+00:00

    Your Surface can access files on your PC if Surface joins your homegroup:

    http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/support/surface-with-windows-rt/files-folders-and-online-storage/share-files-on-a-home-network

    This is what I do to play music on my Surface.

    It sounds like you want to go the other way? Share files on Surface with your PC?

    For that I would probably use SkyDrive - upload files to SkyDrive using the SkyDrive app on Surface - and then on your PC you can either use the SkyDrive app or go to SkyDrive.com.

    Hope this helps,

    Kate

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