Just Bought A Surface!

[AceInfinity]

Today I just bought a 64GB Microsoft Surface with the Touchpad :) Kind of nervous about this purchase, but I did thought it seemed like a good product, and from the reviews i've seen it seems to be tough and very responsive as well for the most part. Aside from Flash videos on Youtube at full HD. HTML5 apparently works 100% smoother.

EDIT: For ~$750 after shipping and taxes I'm hoping it will be worth it

:beerchug2:

 

[Corrine]

I am Surface Envy! Will we get an "unboxing" set of pictures after it arrives?

 

[AceInfinity]

I am Surface Envy! Will we get an "unboxing" set of pictures after it arrives?

Definitely! I'll do a full dedicated review on it for you guys so that anyone interested in getting one will have an idea of what it's about, through the perspective of my own opinions and thoughts about this product. :)

I'm looking forward to it though, from what i've seen and read, this is definitely a great product. And it's tough... Byproduct of a good (and not to mention, elegant,) design.

~Ace

 

[A Guy]

Hope you like it. The Pro will be out this year. A Guy

 

[niemiro]

I got one for Christmas, actually. It is a truly amazing device, you will love it. I'll post reviews and pictures too if anyone is interested.

P.S. When it comes out of the box, there are a lot of glitches and quirks in the software. In particular, for me at least, the Windows Store was completely unusable out of box. Firstly, the back button didn't work, secondly neither did the update button, and thirdly I couldn't make any purchases. Read online, these are all common problems without resolution. For me, none of the normal fixes seemed to work. However, installing all Windows Updates did fix all issues, and it has been flawless since then.

You will already have about 400MB of Windows Updates + 500MB of Office updates + 15 store apps to update

I love it!

Richard

P.S. I opted for keyboard cover, so can't speak for touch cover.

 

[AceInfinity]

I just am not sure what someone would do with the Pro version, the actual product itself is designed to be a tablet. So i'd be curious to see what their idea of the Pro version and not the RT version looks like. Should be cool and interesting anyways. I hope there's some zoom features, because I couldn't imagine working on the desktop on an iPad-like piece of technology.

I got one for Christmas, actually. It is a truly amazing device, you will love it. I'll post reviews and pictures too if anyone is interested.

P.S. When it comes out of the box, there are a lot of glitches and quirks in the software. In particular, for me at least, the Windows Store was completely unusable out of box. Firstly, the back button didn't work, secondly neither did the update button, and thirdly I couldn't make any purchases. Read online, these are all common problems without resolution. For me, none of the normal fixes seemed to work. However, installing all Windows Updates did fix all issues, and it has been flawless since then.

You will already have about 400MB of Windows Updates + 500MB of Office updates + 15 store apps to update

I love it!

Richard

P.S. I opted for keyboard cover, so can't speak for touch cover.

Ahh, I heard the keyboard cover makes for a more desktop-like experience (which is obvious enough to go unsaid lol, but i'll say it anyway), but with the touchpad it's close, but almost like you're typing on an imaginary keyboard on your table for the way it feels. Slightly raised buttons, but I like the fact that it's all a sealed surface.

I find that the lower the profile on the actual buttons on a keyboard, the harder it is to actually type, because I type by feeling that i'm pressing a button. Not just "touching" or "tapping" if that makes sense.

We'll see when I get it, it should be here by the end of January :) I think i'll get a keyboard one in the future for it though most likely.

I was watching this guys videos: *This was a kind of funny review lol

There's actually a couple great reviews i've seen on youtube including this one:

 

[Corrine]

I just am not sure what someone would do with the Pro version, the actual product itself is designed to be a tablet. So i'd be curious to see what their idea of the Pro version and not the RT version looks like.

The main thing would be if the person wants to add other software to the tablet. With Windows RT, only apps from the Windows Store can be added. I can see where a "professional person" constantly on the go between customers or vendors or with long commutes needing the Pro version for specialized apps. I've also heard quite a few complaints about the mail program included on Windows RT.

 

[cluberti]

I have a Surface RT (32GB) which I got from my employer, and I was skeptical that it could be used as a primary computing device. I will admit the inbox mail app leaves something to be desired as someone who normally uses Outlook extensively - but it's the only drawback. I use RDP to get to my desktop (also running Windows 8) when I need access to heavy duty hardware and x86 compat (mostly for VS and perf analysis with the WPT), and I use outlook.com for email rather than the mail app (although I have the mail app set up with my account so I can see if I have unread mails on the lock screen). Surface RT + Lync + Office 2013 + OneNote + RDP + a 64GB SD card makes the device pretty much a replacement device. I've been bringing my Series 7 Slate around with me "just in case" for the last month or so for work, but so far I only needed it to reset my domain password that expired whilst I was on vacation. Otherwise, Surface RT+modern apps and RDP is all I need (well, that and a Verizon hotspot or my AT&T phone as a hotspot, but I have those with me anyway).

The one thing any Surface RT user needs to remember, over anything else, is that once the device is unboxed and powered on (and you've logged on with your Microsoft account), run Windows Update from the desktop environment. You will have to do this at least twice (one will have a firmware update and update most system components, the second pass will update Office 2013 to RTM and a few other components), and once you've done ALL of those, you should go to the Store and keep updating the inbox apps until they're all updated and you have no more updates. Next, go to "Your Apps" from the right-click or swipe down menu in the store and get your Windows 8 apps you've gotten in the past installed onto your new Surface RT.

It takes a few hours due to the download size of Office, but it is well worth it for 10+ hours of battery life at ~1.5lbs.

 

[AceInfinity]

I just am not sure what someone would do with the Pro version, the actual product itself is designed to be a tablet. So i'd be curious to see what their idea of the Pro version and not the RT version looks like.

The main thing would be if the person wants to add other software to the tablet. With Windows RT, only apps from the Windows Store can be added. I can see where a "professional person" constantly on the go between customers or vendors or with long commutes needing the Pro version for specialized apps. I've also heard quite a few complaints about the mail program included on Windows RT.

From what i'm seeing, the desktop portion of the RT version isnt' really functional or "user-friendly". Some actually question why you have that at all, for a table-based device. It almost doesn't make much sense, as it's like trying to use your finger as a small mouse to resize windows and such, which may be easier to do for a elementary-grade student who has thumbs smaller than most adults pinky fingers.

You also only have 4 or 5 apps pinned at the bottom to which you can use on the desktop, and since you can't install anything more to that, I wonder what the point of having the desktop environment there would be. But hopefully they make it a bit easier to use when the Pro version comes out. I personally would suggest the magnifying glass feature that apple's devices has when you hold your finger down on a part of the screen to help some users out. They could implement their own feature similar to that, and I think it would be a good addition.

Think of being able to remotely connect to your computer desktop with an iPhone. That's the reason why tablet based devices are "different" for navigation in my opinion. For a tablet device, I can't carry around my 52" monitor with me everywhere :lol:

Speaking to what cluberti is saying, I also have heard that Updates on the device take away from a lot of the "power" you have when using the device for other things. Multi-tasking with updates is lacking in performance. Not sure just how true this is though.

 

[cluberti]

Am not seeing anything like this at all - in fact, the updates have improved performance, rather than caused any sort of degradation. As to the desktop, it's there for Office and Windows Explorer, and certain Control Panel applets, and that's about it. Unfortunately, until Windows is fully off of the desktop interface being required for those things, it's not going away. Thankfully using Office from the desktop on a Surface isn't a problem with either the touch or type cover (both have a trackpad and mouse buttons, which are very useful for desktop use), and neither is Windows Explorer. Using the Control Panel is a bit of a pain if you need to use it, but honestly your average user isn't likely going to need to go into there for anything anytime soon, which has been my experience so far (once the device is set up, the only time I ever hit the desktop is using Windows Explorer or Office).

 

[AceInfinity]

Am not seeing anything like this at all - in fact, the updates have improved performance, rather than caused any sort of degradation. As to the desktop, it's there for Office and Windows Explorer, and certain Control Panel applets, and that's about it. Unfortunately, until Windows is fully off of the desktop interface being required for those things, it's not going away. Thankfully using Office from the desktop on a Surface isn't a problem with either the touch or type cover (both have a trackpad and mouse buttons, which are very useful for desktop use), and neither is Windows Explorer. Using the Control Panel is a bit of a pain if you need to use it, but honestly your average user isn't likely going to need to go into there for anything anytime soon, which has been my experience so far (once the device is set up, the only time I ever hit the desktop is using Windows Explorer or Office).

I wasn't talking about the results of Windows updates, but more so the act of updating. See my mentions towards multi-tasking; I was talking mainly towards multi-tasking while updating, not after updating.

------------------

I just received my Surface yesterday though so I've been able to see a few things for myself for a few hours now. I still use the desktop for notepad though. No need to open a full word document for that unless I need the formatting. Notepad is great for little notes though. I would be using SubLime or Notepad++, but they aren't supported.

I can say that I would recommend this device though.. :thumbsup2:

Seems fast and useful :)

 

[cluberti]

I use OneNote for such things, for two reasons - one, it has a modern application from the store, and two, it syncs to the cloud. But yes, updates do consume CPU time, and you don't exactly have a worldbeater as a CPU if it's ARM - fine for what it's designed for, but you're going to see performance hits while it's churning through updates at times.

 

[AceInfinity]

Another thing, I didn't see how people could take screenshots using this device, even with a keyboard or typecover, but fortunately, you don't even need one!

You can (on the surface itself) touch the Windows logo below the screen, and the volume down button on the left side of the device simultaneously to save a screenshot to your pictures library.

I haven't used OneNote a lot, but you have some good points. I don't necessarily need the cloud though to share my stuff. I usually keep it on my hard drive or port it elsewhere with a USB key to another computer myself. I like SkyDrive though for odd things.

 

[AceInfinity]

Now lol.. Oh man. I don't know if I'm just confused or not, but I was looking into the programs for the Windows RT device (my Surface), and so what I did was copy over the SnippingTool.exe over to my Windows 8 Pro desktop environment to analyze through several utilities including a hex editor (I didn't change anything in the binary data to this file). After comparing to the SnippingTool.exe on my Windows 8 Pro environment, I noticed that the filesize was smaller... Than the one I had on my filesystem.

Then! I realized that the one on my desktop was a PE64 (64 bit binary), and my Surface, as shown in the System window, is a 32 bit system, so it wouldn't be able to run 64 bit executables anyways, regardless of being ARM-based or not. So looking back, I noticed that the SnippingTool.exe was a 32 bit binary on my Surface, and that comparison was scrapped...

I tried porting a 32 bit C++ executable without the .NET dependency over to the device via the USB port on the side. It came up with a message that said I couldn't run the application. So I tried modifying my VB School app a little bit, to see if I could get it to run (I haven't even checked if the .NET framework was installed at this point, which was a mistake), and when running the app, I get a message that i'm not allowed to run a 16 bit application lol!

Round in circle we go! :banghead:

The files didn't look too different aside from the header... Although information out there for RT desktop development, is slim to none. I don't understand why they have their own desktop utilities, and among other desktop accessories, but they don't give you any information on how to use your own programs there. Even portable executables that are small.

edit: What seems odd is that if you do anything with the SnippingTool.exe as an example, moving it to the desktop, you can't run it... I get an empty error messagebox that displays..

Even when moving it back to the System32 folder, as a different name, and try to run it, you can't. So I think it's something like a library for information as to which files can be ran on Windows RT for the Surface.

 

[cluberti]

I believe the binaries are signed (so renaming it would potentially break the signature hash validation), and also must be run from one of the trusted locations in Windows (\Windows and \System32 or \Program Files). There may be ways to get a non-shipped ARM binary to run on a Surface, but I'd wager you'd need Microsoft's signing certificate to get it to run.

 

[AceInfinity]

I believe the binaries are signed (so renaming it would potentially break the signature hash validation), and also must be run from one of the trusted locations in Windows (\Windows and \System32 or \Program Files). There may be ways to get a non-shipped ARM binary to run on a Surface, but I'd wager you'd need Microsoft's signing certificate to get it to run.

Just moving the file around or renaming the file shouldn't break a digital certificate though. A certificate is meant to break when the actual byte data of the file is changed around a file is just a pointer if you will towards that collection of bytes if I can try painting the best picture I can. However, all I really did was copy the file to the same directory, and I couldn't use it. This was System32 folder though, so it was a trustable location, and I didn't invalidate the signature either. That crosses those things out, but i'm wondering, if it's not to do with certificates, and it hasn't anything to do with the trusted locations... What's stopping it?? :confused2:

There's got to be something else we're missing here...

The file that I'm trying to run:
- Is (still) signed by Microsoft with an SHA256 hash digest
- Is in the System32 folder ("trusted location")

I'm a guy who knows a fair bit about digital certificates, and the binary data itself has to change in order for it to invalidate, disregarding any flaws it has, that's what it's meant to do. Have any other ideas? lol I can't understand this right now... ARM or Windows RT, information seems scarce at this point in time with it being so new.

I appreciate any kind of feedback or hints you can give me if you have any.

Edit1: .. .. Nope, I copied regedit.exe from Windows to System32, and tried running it from the System32 folder, regedit.exe (same name as file in Windows folder), and nothing showed up. Running as administrator gives no results either.

I'm starting to wonder if there's some cached version of the $MFT around which would allow the system to only run the files it knows exist in it's factory locations on the filesystem as absolute paths? Otherwise this just doesn't make sense to me. If that were the case, if somebody could find it, it may be possible to get that much closer to running your own programs on Windows RT. Right now i'm just speculating however. Still need to be able to compile executables that will run on the Windows RT environment under an ARM based processor instead of Intel.

Edit2: It's confirmed, as far as I know. Somehow it's using that absolute filepath to the executables it knows are meant to be run (provided by Microsoft). I tried copying regedit.exe to the same original folder, it did NOT run, so I renamed the original to regedit.exe.bak, renamed original to some other filename so I could rename the copy to the actual filename ("regedit.exe"), and it ran PERFECTLY! So this seems to be an issue of maintaining an expected filepath including the filename.

Now the new question: WHERE would it be validating that I wonder? :confused2:

Edit3: Uhh, that's odd. I found a file that was in the Windows directory, called write.exe, which is another notepad-like device, only it supports rich text. The odd thing is that it displays the same refusal to run that the other tested executables show when I just copy them and try to run the copied file. Perhaps this is not in that mysterious "database" of "allowed-to-run" files? Did Microsoft forget this application? How come write.exe will not run for me (Note: I did not edit or change or fool around with this file in ANY way.) Perhaps if I can't run some more executables, that the file's list can be shrunk down a bit with a friend I call delete? :lol:

Something seems to be preventing certain files from running, i'd like to know what that would be though...

~Ace

 

[cluberti]

I believe something like AppLocker is in use on Windows RT. A certificate to sign a binary is a part of what's going on, but that plus the file size, name, and a few other things appear to be in use here to keep binaries that Microsoft has not blessed from running (and from what locations).

 

[AceInfinity]

I believe something like AppLocker is in use on Windows RT. A certificate to sign a binary is a part of what's going on, but that plus the file size, name, and a few other things appear to be in use here to keep binaries that Microsoft has not blessed from running (and from what locations).

Locations seem to be the main thing I've noticed from testing, because even with the signature in tact, file unmodified, and just copied into the same directory with a different name, the file doesn't want to behave and run properly for me lol It runs if I change the copied file's filename back to the original, and replacing the copy with the original, sot that's all fine... For some reason Microsoft has implemented quite a few validation checks to prevent 3rd party PE's from running on the Surface or Windows RT. AppLocker.. Hmm...

Thanks for that information, I appreciate it :)

Edit1: How come "write.exe" in the Windows directory, is not an application that I can run? It's created by Microsoft, I didn't move or edit it in any way. Perhaps they forgot to give it the "okay" with this AppLocker? :confused2:

Edit2: Seems to be that way with more than just "write.exe", but if I cannot run them, what purpose do they serve being on the filesystem taking up space? This whole thing is confusing my brain :banghead: *back to my self research*

~Ace

 

[cluberti]

Because that whole environment really isn't designed for use by normal users, especially ones who'd go looking for binaries that were left behind in the migration to ARM :). I'm not surprised some of the binaries available on disk don't work on ARM, honestly. The environment was designed for use for things like Windows Explorer, Office, the Control Panel for advanced config, and task manager in a pinch. It really isn't designed for anything else, so whatever you're using it for is a bonus .

 

[AceInfinity]

Because that whole environment really isn't designed for use by normal users, especially ones who'd go looking for binaries that were left behind in the migration to ARM :). I'm not surprised some of the binaries available on disk don't work on ARM, honestly. The environment was designed for use for things like Windows Explorer, Office, the Control Panel for advanced config, and task manager in a pinch. It really isn't designed for anything else, so whatever you're using it for is a bonus .

I just like seeing how things work, that's all. I hope, Microsoft does make an office suite in the app view though instead of the desktop view. On my Surface I would rather have an app for Word, OneNote, Excel, PowerPoint, ect... Instead of a desktop window where I can't make use of the full screen. I think this would be great.

Since the desktop environment IS there though; existant, and I have no idea why I even have the desktop, if it weren't for the registry and file explorer, and other utilities like that. I would like to see how I can make the most out of it, which includes being able to run my own developed PE's. But that would require being able to have an installed .NET framework in order to run a percentage of my (desktop) apps. *Edit: But now we're getting closer to the idea of a laptop now that I think of it... So I am very curious to see what the regular edition entails for the Surface, in comparison to the RT version.

If they finally come out with a Windows 8 Pro version of the Surface for availability, then I would assume all of this would be possible, and then in that case, I would almost consider my RT version limited in comparison to the Pro or regular 8 version, as I'd assume that not only will the regular version be able to run regular apps, and have freedom to install apps at will, but, you'd also have pretty much all of the app portion functionality that the RT version would have. But i'm just speculating and assuming right now, i'll have to see... I'll be kicking myself in the rear though if that's what I see in the Windows 8 Pro version in the future haha.

I think I'm off to archive and delete a few non-usable files from my Surface to clear up some space, Still experimenting to see what else I can do with this thing though :)

Cheers
Ace