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Surface Book Taskbar Previews close too quickly (when battery status updates)
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Anonymous
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:
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
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
62 answers
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Anonymous
2016-10-07T02:45:57+00:00 -
Anonymous
2016-10-04T20:29:47+00:00 Me too. I have the same problem with my Surface Pro 4. Really frustrating.
I contacted Microsoft support (in Italy) that has reproduced the error and told me
that will report the issue to the next level of assistance.
I hope in a fix soon...
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Anonymous
2016-10-04T20:29:15+00:00 I've tried to consolidate some of the workarounds I've found into this post: http://www.tecklyfe.com/workaround-taskbar-thumbnail-previews-disappear-quickly/
There seems to be a number of variables involved. If any of the workarounds work for you, please leave a comment.
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Anonymous
2016-10-04T18:19:47+00:00 I have exactly the same issue with my surface pro 4.
The "tooltip-windows" at the taskbar only work when disconnected or the notebook is plugged but not fully loaded... within the first second after it is loaded at 100% (and still plugged) ... these problems occur.
Working with my Surface Pro 4 (plugged) starts to become a nightmare then. The tooltip-windows close immediately after clicked, almost impossible to click on a link within it.
That´s the reason why I stopped using my surface pro and wanted to sell it,.. now as I found this thread there is a little hope that I can use it again.
I´ve seen you are discussing this issue since February 2016 ... why can´t it be fixed, Microsoft?
It must definitly have something to do with some mechanism that says "I´m fully loaded".
Hope you can fix it soon.
Gerhard
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Anonymous
2016-09-29T04:57:46+00:00 Guia,
I have all the updates, including the latest 913.7 MB batch, and nothing was fixed. I did just notice that it seems the previews last longer if you are using touch rather than the trackpad or a mouse to see them, but the timing is highly variable depending on battery state and CPU load, so that may be an illusion.
Loren (original question author)