Surface Book Taskbar Previews close too quickly (when battery status updates)

Anonymous
2016-02-02T02:09:06+00:00

Sometimes when I hover over a Taskbar Preview of an open window, it stays visible until I click it or move the cursor somewhere else. Sometimes it just disappears almost instantly, while I'm still trying to see what it shows. I've discovered what triggers the sudden closing:

As you can see in one of the lower reports, my charger is active. But every few seconds, the top line changes to "Not charging", one of the batteries changes to "in use", and then the top line says "Calculating", and then finally they all agree both batteries are charging. Every cycle of this closes any open Taskbar Previews!

It happens most frequently when the batteries are almost fully charged. Sometimes, probably depending on the CPU load, it keeps happening for hours when the batteries should be fully charged. Unplug the charger and it never happens (that I've noticed).

There are several threads, going back to Win7, describing similar issues with power management and Taskbar Preview. Like:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_7-desktop/taskbar-thumbnail-preview-disappear-too-quickly-to/b0aeb6e1-ba60-4caa-a09a-19ce4d3b3dc8

But those are with third-party power managers for other brands of notebook, with control settings I don't have. I have Microsoft's own flagship Surface Book - how can it be that this relatively ancient problem plagues the interaction between Microsoft hardware and software?

Has anyone found a solution other than running on battery?

Surface | Surface Book | Power and battery

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-05-30T22:56:16+00:00

    Here is a video I made to document the issue

    https://youtu.be/53lTt55wOPQ

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-05-26T14:47:39+00:00

    I've got the same problem on the Surface Pro 4. As others have said, this only happens when the power cable is plugged in and the battery is full. It is one of the few things I really hate about this device. Please fix!

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-05-08T07:39:46+00:00

    Same SP4 model (1TB), same 12v charger. The task preview constantly disappears, so annoying

    It's definitely the charging issue. Only see it when the device is plugged in.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-05-03T17:19:00+00:00

    I found the problem! It is the Cortana Search box. Right click on the task bar, select Cortana, and choose Show Icon or Hidden. If you can live without the Cortana search box, you are good to go. I am.

    I turned off the search box on day one with my Surface Book. Definitely doesn't stop the problem here. Maybe you have a different Surface model? I think the alternation between the two batteries in mine trigger many of the disappearances.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-05-02T03:10:31+00:00

    I found the problem! It is the Cortana Search box. Right click on the task bar, select Cortana, and choose Show Icon or Hidden. If you can live without the Cortana search box, you are good to go. I am.

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