Battery depleted Surface won’t charge using Surface Dock
Interesting post in Microsoft’s Surface Forum from an Enterprise customer who has 200 Surface Pro 3’s, stating that if the battery goes completely flat, it cannot be charged using the Surface Dock (brick dock).
After contacting business support, the response to the customer was” This is as designed“. A Technical summary of the problem from Microsoft Support engineer :
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The reason why this is happening is that the power supply of the dock (although it is 80W) reserves 30W of its power to the ports on the dock, this means that only 50W is available to the Surface Pro. This unfortunately is not enough to trigger the charging/booting.
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Apparently, the dock itself won’t supply enough power for some Surface devices and the original charger that was supplied with the Surface device needs to be used to jump start the charging process. I’m told that if the device is charged first for 5-10 minutes with the original power supply, then the dock can be used(and sometimes even short amount of time works).
To me this sounds like a design flaw.
Microsoft Authenticator Gets Account Backup and Recovery
I’ve been a big fan of Microsoft’s two factor authentication (2FA) client since day one and I’m also one of the tester’s. My only concern, as I wrote nearly a year ago in https://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2017/05/27/multi-factor-authentication-app-backup-and-usage-strategies/ is what might happen if my iPhone was damaged and I needed a quick replacement. That concern is no more! Backup and Recovery is rolling out for iOS testers.
Fix for Pen Dragging Canvas in Photoshop 2018 CC after Windows Update
There’s a whole lot of Creatives in the Microsoft Surface Answers Forum complaining that after installing Cumulative Update KB4089848 that the pen drags the canvas around instead of drawing. Uninstalling the KB fixes this (and this is the first I’ve seen that functionality changed dramatically after installing a Cumulative update, but you never never know. And now there may be a “fix” to return to “legacy” behavior.
Pricing for Out of Warranty Surface Exchanges
Microsoft has published current pricing (in US Dollars) for those needing an out of warranty exchange for Surface devices (refurbished devices with a 90 day warranty). Until the end of March, the cost to replace a Surface Pro 3 was $450.00. It’s now jumped to $599.00. This is upsetting customers afflicted by the fallout from Batterygate and other issues. That’s a lot of money for this device and you definitely can do better looking elsewhere if you want to replace your sick SP3 with another SP3.
