Where is the Surface Pro LTE Recovery Image (How to get)

Microsoft’s latest addition to the Surface Pro family is the Surface Pro LTE. If you are a road warrior, this is THE Surface SKU to get. While it may not be an “always connected PC” (ACPC) officially, it sure seems so to me. It’s being offered to Business customers only, in the Microsoft Store online, and through partners. Note that if you aren’t a business, you will have to jump through some hoops to register to your personal Microsoft Account, but this can be done.

Microsoft offers downloadable recovery images for all their Surface SKU’s, and while the Surface Pro LTE has been in sale and shipping since early December, it isn’t listed in the dropdown to register a new device (as of 1/25/2018):

You actually can download the BMR recovery image today, using a strange work around.

1. Don’t try to Select a Surface product

2. Type in the Serial number for you Surface Pro LTE. You can’t paste it in, for some reason that does not work.

3. Select Download recovery image

Currently, you will see it appear to offer Surface Pro M1796 which is NOT the Pro LTE. Take the leap of faith and ignore this. You will see that the file that downloads is, in fact, the Pro LTE recovery image.

 

4. Select Continue

 

I’ve been bugging Microsoft daily on getting the web site fixed so that this isn’t such a crazy undertaking. You’d think it would be easy to fix, but I guess not..

(And yes, you CAN and should create a recovery image from the bits already on your Surface Pro LTE but if disaster strikes and that image is corrupt and you need one, you can get it from Microsoft).