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
    2016-03-21T22:30:26+00:00

    For awhile after my Feb. 2 reinstall of the battery drivers, the charging indication in the battery panel seemed to read properly, never contradicted itself. Fewer "Calculating" episodes seemed to trigger fewer disappearances of the taskbar previews. Since the most recent updates, the old behavior is back - the top line almost always says "Not charging" while other lines say Charging.

    Looks like no changes to the drivers since Feb. 2...

    But https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3139907 was installed - with dozens of cryptic filenames and no explanation of what they all do. "This update makes stability improvements for Windows 10 Version 1511 and Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4 servicing stack." That was about the time the change happened...  Who knows... 

    Or maybe there were more firmware updates. Hard to tell, since they don't show up in the "Installed Updates" list. Is there any way to see a timeline of the installed firmware updates?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-08T14:40:07+00:00

    I had all the right drivers and have continued to update. But the problem persists - the @#$% thumbnails just disappear really quickly (will happen for a "stack" of open e-mails too when there are too many thumbnails to display). Still feels power related

    • happens much less / almost never when on battery.

    Microsoft - Are you guys not seeing this across the board on Surface Pro 4s with Windows 10? Its a major usability issue. Please assist / advise?!?

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-02-24T06:08:32+00:00

    Burgesson - Your pen hover works? Mine is just as bad as the (Bluetooth) mouse or touch, always has been. Maybe the Surface Book is different?

    It is way worse than just Surface devices. Similar problems have been reported as far back as Win 7, with power management drivers for several brands of notebooks.

    [I have relatives named "Borjeson" - are you Swedish?]

    Loren

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-02-23T23:03:56+00:00

    Same problem on 2 devices. Every time I'm plugged in and try hovering over the previews they just disappear way too fast. When I unplug, they work properly as they do on my other 10 computers. By the way, my battery meter works 100% perfect by the way, no changes or statuses or flashes or anything, just rock-steady at 100% "Fully Charged". So it's not an issue there.

    Summary of the problem in basic terms:

    • When plugged in, the taskbar icon previews disappear too quickly to be used (sp4 keyboard).

    This is true when clicked or when hovered, when stationary or moving, etc.

    This problem is very simple and very obvious. I have all the latest updates, but it occurred before I got them too. 

    I can create youtube videos showing it, but it's so silly simple that you're not going to get any more info than that. Pen hover works properly, so it seems to only be an issue with an attached keyboard (including the SP4 keyboard) or USB mouse.

    I suspect every Surface Pro 4 and every Surface Book in the world have this exact same problem. It's kind of a fundamental Windows feature to be able to switch windows with the task bar, but with my super quick reflexes I can sometimes nail it just fast enough before they disappear to get my work done (or resort to alt+tab or Win+tab).

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-02-22T21:36:55+00:00

    Feb 17th updates didn't seem to do much for me.  Might have slowed down the drain a bit.  Very frustrated with the icons closing.  Trying to use multiple windows while docked is an exercise in how quickly you can move to click the window you want.  

    Can confirm removing the battery drivers completely fixes the problem.  Re-adding and the close down comes right back.

    Hoping this gets resolved quickly.

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