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
    2016-10-20T04:48:18+00:00

    Hi,

    To check this issue further, may we know the Build numbers of your Surface devices? You can check the Build number by typing winver on Cortana or Search and then press Enter.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-10-20T12:28:00+00:00

    build 14393.321

    Just realized that I have not experienced this issue recently. My SP4 is always plugged in the dock as I use it mainly as desktop. Maybe this issue has been fixed? Or maybe it is because my SP4 battery has declined so much. My SP4 has seen its battery full charge capacity drop to 87%, which I have no idea why. It shows 207 charge cycles. I bought it in February. This thing can now only last between 1-2 hours of use on battery. I have MS Complete and I wonder whether I should ask for replacement.

    DESIGN CAPACITY 38,152 mWh
    FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 33,450 mWh
    CYCLE COUNT 207

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-10-20T18:33:43+00:00

    Original poster here...  Some of the Windows versions that have shown the same problem (no version has ever not shown the problem):

    Command Prompt: systeminfo

    OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

    Original:

    OS Version:                10.0.10240 N/A Build 10240

    160725:

    OS Version:                10.0.10586 N/A Build 10586

    161020:

    OS Version:                10.0.14393 N/A Build 14393

    You can't copy the text from winver...  Open a terminal and use systeminfo...  (It closes automatically if you just "run" it.)

    System Model:              Surface Book

    System Type:               x64-based PC

    Processor(s):              1 Processor(s) Installed.

                               [01]: Intel64 Family 6 Model 78 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~2607 Mhz

    BIOS Version:              Microsoft Corporation 90.1281.768, 8/1/2016

    Total Physical Memory:     8,118 MB

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-10-21T13:30:21+00:00

    From Systeminfo:

    SO Name:                              Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

    SO Version:                          10.0.14393 N/D build 14393

    System Type:                         x64-based PC

    Processor(s):                           1 processore(i) installati.

                                                  [01]: Intel64 Family 6 Model 78 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~2107 Mhz

    BIOS Version:                        Microsoft Corporation 106.1281.768, 01/08/2016

    Total Physical Memory:         16.310 MB

    From Surface APP:

    SKU: Surface Pro 4 i7

    Embedded Controller: 103.1158.256.0

    System Aggregator: 103.1226.256.0

    UEFI: 106.1281.768.0

    Touch: 51.250.106.0

    Wi-Fi Driver: 15.68.9040.67

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-10-25T13:31:57+00:00

    Hi Guia,

    Versio 1607, build 14393.321.  Thanks for continuing to look into this.

    Best regards,

    Chris

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