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Microsoft Surface Pro – March 2014 Updates
Guess what kids? It Patch Tuesday!
Below is a list of the updates for the Microsoft Surface Pro System Hardware updates that will show up in your updates.
Windows 8.0 updates:
The following updates will be listed as “System Hardware Update – 3/11/2014” when you view your update history.
- Surface Type Cover 2 Firmware Update Device (v1.0.317.0) update improves multiple finger support on the touchpad.
- Surface Touch Cover 2 Firmware Update Device (v1.0.317.0) update improves multiple finger support on the touchpad.
- Surface Power Cover Firmware Update (v1.0.323.0) provides support for Surface Power Cover.
Windows 8.1 updates:
The following updates will be listed as “System Firmware Update – 3/11/2014” when you view your update history.
- Marvell AVASTAR 350N Wireless Network Controller (v14.69.24052.168) resolves wireless network connectivity issues.
- Marvell AVASTAR Wireless Composite Device (v14.69.24052.168) improves Miracast support.
- Marvell AVASTAR Bluetooth® Radio Adapter (v14.69.24052.168) updated as part of a driver package that includes the Marvell Wireless Network Controller and Marvell Wireless Composite Device. There are no Bluetooth updates in this version of the driver.
- Surface Type Cover 2 Firmware Update Device (v1.0.317.0) update improves multiple finger support on the touchpad.
- Surface Touch Cover 2 Firmware Update Device (v1.0.317.0) update improves multiple finger support on the touchpad.
- Surface Power Cover Firmware Update (v1.0.323.0) provides support for Surface Power Cover.
You can see a list of all the updates and previous updates here.
HP Slate 500 N-trig Input Control (Touch) Workaround
One of my biggest complaints with the HP Slate 500 on Windows 8 is the lack of decent touch control with N-trig. N-trig has decided that they aren’t going to fix their drivers. That’s fine, this will be my last device that has N-trig digitizer. My dollars will be spent elsewhere.
So, what’s the problem you say. My problem with the N-trig drivers is the lack of support with the input control (Digitizer Settings, see screen shot below). This is what allows you to change how the touch and pen act (see picture). Pen Only, Touch Only, Auto Mode, Dual Mode.
This Input Control (Digitizer Settings) do not work in Windows 8 and N-trig is not going to fix. Shame.
So, what does this mean. Well, for me I get the palm rejection or false touches when I write and my hand (palm) touches the screen. The current setting is Dual mode, concurrent Touch and Pen input. Think of it like the touchpad on your laptop. You are typing and your palm touches the touchpad and causes the cursor to jump to a different spot on the page. On a laptop you have the touchpad control that allows you to turn off if it senses a mouse plugged in or when you are typing. Well, with N-trig, you don’t any longer on Windows 8. No workie & No fixie.
I was browsing the internet the other day and happened on a blog post where the blogger found a workaround. You will have to forgive me that I can’t find the blogger’s post or the blogger’s name. When I do, I will definitely give him/her credit.
What is this workaround going to do? This will temporarily disable the touch control on the Slate. This would be similar to selecting Pen Only above. This will allow only Pen touch only and the touch is temporarily disabled. This isn’t going to be for everybody, but for this is golden for me. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way similarly to Auto mode.
Going to download a program that is a that when run connects to the Device Manager like view that allows you to enable and disable devices. However the steps below will create a shortcut or command line that will be used to disable the touch. You can also pin the shortcuts to the Task Bar for easy use.
STEPS:
1. Go out to www.Nirsoft.com and find a program named DevManView (direct link). At the writing of this post the current version is v1.27. Scroll down to the bottom and download the (x86) version (or x64 version for Samsung Series 7 or ASUS B121)
2. Create a directory on the root of your C Drive called TouchControl
3. Unzip the file you downloaded in Step 1 into the C:\TouchControl folder. There are 4 files that are extracted.
4. Create a shortcut in that directory using the following command.
a. Open Device Manger | Devices | N-trig DuoSense(R) Digitizers
b. Locate “N-trig DuoSense MultiTouch HID Device” and double click.
c. Click on the Events Tab. Copy the value that is highlighted in yellow. This value will be added when you create the shortcuts.
d. Open Windows Explorer, browse to the C:\TouchControl and right click in the folder and select New | Shortcut
e. Copy and paste the Disable command below into the path, but using your value that you got above.
DISABLE
C:\TouchControl\DevManView.exe /Disable “HID\VID_1B96&PID_0001&MI_01&Col02\7&24205bb2&0&0001”f. Click through and give the name of the Shortcut “Disable Touch”
g. Now Create another shortcut but use the ENABLE command below and name it “Enable Touch”, also using your value that you got above.
ENABLE
C:\TouchControl\DevManView.exe /Enable “HID\VID_1B96&PID_0001&MI_01&Col02\7&24205bb2&0&0001”
5. Add the shortcuts to the Task Bar just right click on the shortcut and select Pin to Task Manager.
6. To give it a little flair right click on the Shortcut | Properties | Change Icon, browse through the list and select an Icon that you like for Disable and Enable shortcuts. I picked the Green for the Enable and Red for the Disable.
**Please note that the device that controls touch may not be the same on your tablet. I was able to get this to work using the information below on my HP Slate 500, Samsung Series 7 Slate, and ASUS B121 eSlate but using the 64bit version of DevManView. I have not found anything about the downloaded software that would cause any alarm. It is not installing any software it is extracting several files that launch as a separate program.
EDITED (11/10/2012)
Found that the HID value is different on every computer. Updated blog post to reflect that.
Also, this does require the elevated permissions when doing so. I haven’t found a way around this. You are actually disabling a device so I don’t think there will be a workaround. I run my as a standard user and then another account that has Admin and just pop in the credentials when prompted. I have run this so long that I don’t give it a second thought.
For a limited time get Windows 8 Media Center Pack for free
Act fast. Get Windows 8 Media Center Pack for free. Not sure how long this will last.
ASUS has released Windows 8 Drivers for the EP121 and B121
Looks like ASUS released Windows 8 Drivers for the EP121 and B121 Eee Pad Slates. New BIOS update and other drivers. <10/30/2012>
ASUS B121
http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Slate_B121/#download (stopped working)
updated:
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Eee+Slate+B121&p=28&s=3
ASUS EP121
http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Slate_EP121/#download (stopped working)
updated:
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Eee+Slate+EP121&p=28&s=3
You will get the following pop up about some incompatibilities.
Windows 8 software update tool for Samsung Series 7 Slate
Samsung just released a new piece of software (sw update) that detects your computer model and finds Windows 8 Drivers. It also has some new Samsung utility software on it as well.
SW Update is a program that allows you to install the latest Samsung software and updates with ease. Normally, software is installed from CDs, DVDs, or by directly downloading the software from the Samsung Electronics website. With SW Update, however, you can automatically search for and download the BIOS, drivers, and software for your Samsung computer product over the internet, without having to look them up individually. What’s more, you can choose to install all available software and updates at once or install them selectively. Certain software and updates may be required to ensure complete functionality of your Samsung computer, so it is recommended that you use the automatic notification feature to easily find the essential software for your computer and the updates for enhanced features.
I’ll blog more about content. I’m pretty excited about this.
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/win8upgrade/index.html
Click on the Samsung Download Center link on the page.
Once installed and the first time you launch it, you will be prompted to put in your serial number of your device (I don’t like that, but oh well). I have the Samsung //BUILD tablet and it was able to detect drivers for it. On the summary page it identified all sorts of drivers, some that were up to date and others that were newer. You can click on the specific driver and install it, download it, or install them all. On mine it detected about 13 updates.
It will also allow you to download all the drivers (they call it export) and Samsung software as well. All in all it was about 1.5GB of stuff.
There is a piece of software that acts like the old Windows Start button for those who still can’t live without it. It’s pretty cool.
Great job Samsung! I only wish this would have been out there sooner for us early W8 pioneers.
How to Sign out without a Keyboard in Windows 8
One of things that you need to get use to in Windows 8 is the Start button now longer there and some of the new Windows Keyboard shortcuts that aren’t available without a keyboard.
I found my self in that situation the other day at work when I needed to log out of my tablet and log in as my admin account. Ok, I swipe the charm to bring up the Start button and have the option of a shutdown or restart, but couldn’t figure out how do I just sign out or log out.
I had a Duh moment.
Go to the Start Menu and click on your user in the upper right corner and menu will pop up. Click the Sign out option. Bada Bing! 
N-trig digitizer on my HP Slate 500 (Windows 8 RTM)
N-trig released their much anticipated W8 drivers recently (August 13th). The drivers have been broken since the Consumer Preview. Well I downloaded these and immediately tried to install them on my W8 Release Preview. I wasn’t impressed.
After going back to the instructions I noticed a blurb “before updating to Windows 8, make sure you have the latest bundle installed”. I must have skipped right over that in my first pass.
I sent an email to N-trig support to get clarification and received email back a couple of days later. Basically they stated.
This step comes to ensure you have the latest DuoSense SW installed under Win7. Then when you upgrade to Win8, you should follow the installations of our new driver and it should work OK.
So they are expecting everybody to upgrade to W8 and not do a fresh install. I don’t know about you, but I am not a big fan of upgrading. I like to perform a fresh install.
Well, I since it didn’t seem to work very well in W8 as a fresh install I decided to go back to W7 and see if it was any better. I found my original W7 image that I took way back in March 2011 and restored it. I did have to go into the and edit the booting information that W8 updated. No real big issue. After getting back to W7 (yuck), I made my W8RTM bootable USB drive and ran the setup.exe off the USB drive. Got prompted to upgrade and save user settings. Took about 45 minutes. After reboot I found that I had no touch or stylus. I then installed the updated N-trig driver and found that touch and stylus came back. Checked Device Mgr. and found nothing missing or had issues.
THE GOOD
The much anticipated calibration tool is great and helps with the false touches and ghost taps.
THE BAD
The lack of the Input Control Panel. Having upgraded from W7 it is there but throws when trying to use. The exclusion of the Input Control, the ability to put the digitizer to Touch Only, Pen Only, or Auto is a huge missing component.
I will say that the drivers are better than what they were in the Consumer Preview and Release Preview (note that they didn’t exist), but still in my opinion are lacking.
I emailed N-trig support to find out when this was going to added and their response back was there are no plans. Huge, huge disappointment.
I do a lot of inking with the stylus and without this control I get a lot of false touches or palm rejection. It comes close to being unusable.
Shame on you N-trig…
Installing Windows 8 RTM on Asus B121 Part 2
In my previous post I installed Windows 8 RTM on the Asus B121. Now I am going to continue where we left off and install any missing drivers.
Open Device Manager to see what is missing.
1. From the new Windows 8 Start Screen, click on the Desktop icon.
2. Right click on the desktop and select Personalize.
3. Click the link in the upper left named “Change desktop icons”
4. Put a check under Control Panel and click Apply and then OK.
5. Double click Control Panel
6. Click on the the Hardware and Sound link.
7. Under Devices and Printers click on Device Manager.
This is a list of the drivers that Windows is unable to find.
After connecting to my home network and configuring Windows Update these missing devices were resolved. Also note that the hardware buttons and screen rotation work great.
After the Windows Update I do see one additional missing device, as there was in the prior Windows 8 Release Preview, but installing the Asus B121 Bluetooth driver does not resolve.
Still investigating…
Other Tips and Tricks:
Be sure to disable Defrag here.
New Windows 8 Shortcut Keys here.
Who needs a Start Button here.
Installing Windows 8 RTM on Asus B121 Part 1
On August 15th Microsoft released the Windows 8 RTM (Release to Manufacturing) to the MSDN and TechNet site. You have to subscribe the site to get access. If you don’t have access you can download the EVAL version of the Windows 8 RTM which is the Enterprise edition that is good for 90 Days. I decided to run that course until it is released to the public in October.
Pre-Steps:
1. Download the Windows 8 RTM Eval 64-bit here (3.4GB).
*Note: No product key is needed however you do need to activate
2. Create a bootable USB Stick. Download Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool here. This allows you to create a bootable USB stick with the downloaded iso file. This makes the process so easy. Click, click, walk away and boom, you have a bootable Windows 8 USB drive. I used a 8 GB USB stick that you can get for $10 at Walmart. Note: A 4 GB will work for both 32-bit and 64-bit.
Backup
1. If you feel it necessary, backup your machine. Run Windows Image Backup and take a backup of your Windows 7 system so you can restore back if you want.
Install Process
1. Plug USB into Slate and start. The Slate will automatically recognize the USB stick and boot from it. No need to get into BIOS. I am also using a USB hub so I can run USB Mouse, Keyboard, and USB Stick.
Note: If it doesn’t boot to the USB stick automatically, you will need to go into the BIOS and change it. You will need USB Keyboard and hit DEL key at boot up.
2. Go through the usual installation options. I selected fresh Install (not an upgrade). You can select an upgrade, but it looks like you won’t be able to keep your files, applications, settings. So really not worth upgrading.
3. Once complete this is the lock screen. Love the new login/start screen.
This is the new start screen.
This is the new desktop.
Look for my next post Part 2 for post OS install.
Windows 8 RTM is now available on MSDN and TechNet subscribers
Today Microsoft released Windows 8 RTM to those who are subscribers to MSDN and TechNet.
If you feel left out don’t. You can download a full Windows 8 RTM Evaluation edition that is good for 90 days. Allow you to install on your desktop, laptop, or tablet and start playing with it until the full release to public in October.
Download it here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/jj554510.aspx
UPDATE:
Information from the Software Evaluation email after registering on the website.
- You cannot upgrade from the EVAL
- No product key is required to install
- You have 10 days after installing to activate it
- Once activated you have 90 days to use it
Cameron Mergel 