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
    2016-03-08T14:40:07+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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  2. 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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  3. 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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  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
    2016-05-08T07:39:46+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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