Re multi-desktop workflows: It seems straight forward enough to me using Win+Ctrl+D for a new desktop then Win+Ctrl+left or right arrow to switch. Is it much better on the Mac? https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-use-multiple-desktops-in-...
Re Windows 8 looking home screen: is it in tablet mode? Try switching back to desktop mode. https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/enable-tablet-mode-window...
Re split brain: I can't believe they haven't resolved this. How do they justify having two completely different settings interfaces for so long? I kinda forgave them for it in Windows 8, but we're several updates in to Windows 10 now... It's really a bad look.
Re everything else: Thanks for the heads up. Good to know.
Can I ask what your role is at Microsoft?
And every major Windows update have undo my setting to bring it back. I've reported it to MS, MS attempted to fix it (listed in some Windows 10 update) and they're still failing to fix it.
How about not doing it in the first place, period?
These things should be opt-in, not opt-out.
FTFY
I work in the Azure org, writing multi-platform dotnet core and C++.
notification bar > Tablet mode
Its a button just like enabling wifi, bluetooth, projecting, focus, night mode.
-The battery is great, virtually never have to plug it in. Can go a whole day working from home without power. Or even a whole weekend of light use. Although I have found that on occasion it does not sleep correctly when you close the lid, hitting the power button when closing the screen has prevented that problem. But I have never come back to a dead laptop, just a few percent less.
-I don't think I have seen a fullscreen metro app in...well a long time if ever. So not sure what apps you are using that this happens with.
-WSL has no gaps where I need it. I use it for Linux Web development all day long with no issues. Especially due to recent updates.
-Maybe I have been lucky, but I have never had an issue with windows update. Perhaps it is being more aggressive than normal.
-I just unpinned everything from the start menu, and haven't seen any ads for anything since I did. Am I missing them somewhere?
Perhaps mine has a defect, but I feel lucky if I can get 2-3 hours of solid work done.
> So not sure what apps you are using that this happens with.
The various windows settings are split between both modes and by default the settings window will open maximized. Also, there are two latest versions of OneNote (which is annoying) for example and the UWP one likes to open fullscreen. I think all UWP apps do.
> WSL has no gaps where I need it.
- I believe if you clone a git repo in WSL and then try to use git for windows or any windows app like VSCode or Visual Studio, it'll get very confused.
- Also I think I remember having several weird file permission issues.
- My WSL terminals open very slowly due to something in my bashrc I haven't pinned down (my terminals open lightning quick in iTerm2 or ubuntu.) And performance in WSL is a good deal slower than an ubuntu VM or native Windows.
> I just unpinned everything from the start menu
I'm sure this works, but there are enough annoying issues like this in default Windows 10 that it really hampers the experience.
The hardware is great, except for battery management.
The OS is stable and performant, but a usability shit show.
I feel like a lot of Mac users probably see beautiful, static screenshots of Windows 10, make the switch and then realize screenshots don't tell the usability story.
I won't even go into the occasional ads in the OS, the games and apps installed by default, and the fight to disable all the telemetry. All the while with Microsoft working against you and hiding and changing the settings around.
It's the best laptop I've ever owned, but the OS still requires some improvement.
With that being said, for the first time in years I've felt that Windows isn't a million miles away from becoming a developer-friendly OS.
They've been doing a lot recently to address that, including the Power User Menu, "For Developer" Settings, WSL, Task View (multi-desktop), better multi-monitor support, etc.
MacOS still has advantages, but the gap has narrowed.
I have no idea on what basis you are making that assertion. I feel like until Windows 10, Windows enabled me as a user far more than any other contemporary OS.
Can the MS hardware run Linux without me doing a bunch of work with drivers etc?
But Linux does work - I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 with a custom kernel - display is pretty - pen is so-so under Linux.
I was hoping to use it w dark table and a couple of drawing programs under Linux - but so far I've never gotten it to the quite "just works" point (compared to say, a refurbished ThinkPad).
In answer to that question: I'd stay well away from the Surface Book if you want to run Linux, too many proprietary "magic" drivers for the screen disconnection functionality.
The Surface Laptop uses fairly off-the-shelf hardware (shared by other ultra-portables) and you will *likely have a better overall experience.
Some is just slow because it's inefficient. It's been a while since I had to resort to this, but accessing a big svn checkout over cifs is so slow as to be useless.
But is was plenty buggy, so much that I had to switch it off.
> WSL still has some serious gaps and isn't as productive as Linux
I wonder how well Linux runs on (semi-)recent Surfaces.
I'm spoiled by the very good Linux support on Thinkpads, but recent Thinkpads are not what they used to be. OTOH Surface hardware is pretty pleasant, judging by the short periods when I had a chance to play with it.
>- Its battery management is horrible.
Microsoft didn't manage to implement suspend (ACPI S3). That's why.
In effect, closing the lid does nothing more than shuts of the backlight.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/power/syste...
But seriously? Hasn't MSFT had enough years and developers to figure this out?!
>Microsoft now has the best hardware lineup in the industry
No, their hardware people are incompetent. Until things above change, that will not be the case.
Often times web browsers are to blame for this. I have seen more than 1 browser keep my laptop from sleeping if there is some sort of embedded video content open in a tab somewhere.
The OS is limited to what the software running on it tells it to do.
On the flip side of this, I have also had pending Windows Updates keep my computer from going into hibernate. Because apparently that makes sense. :/
You can run the command
powercfg -requests
at an admin prompt to see what is preventing sleep. For example, right now Opera is keeping my machine from sleeping with an active WebRTC connection.
> - The pencil is a gimmick to me since the apps (like OneNote) are very poorly designed for serious work with a stylus.
I have done very serious work with a stylus in OneNote. It really depends on your use case. For most office work? Meh. For math class? OneNote + Stylus is an incredibly powerful combination.
> - WSL still has some serious gaps and isn't as productive as Linux / OSX for programming tasks.
I have been programming on Windows my whole life, no WSL. Right now I am doing NodeJS and React Native development. In the past I've done C++, Python, and C#. Obviously C# is best of class, but I rarely had issues with the others.
What I did miss from C++ was having access to the wide range of tools, such as Valgrind, that are widely supported in the *nix ecosystem.
The debugging tools on Windows are top notch, and I'd be more than willing to put a talented WinDBG user up against the equivalent on any another platform.
Windows is not some sort of developer wasteland. For nearly two decades, the majority of software written in the world was written by developers using Windows.
> - For example: My Surface Book just updated and now it's stuck on a Windows 8 looking home screen and I haven't yet figured out how to get back to my "normal" desktop.
You're in tablet mode, lower right corner, tap (or do a left swipe from off screen to on screen from the right side of your monitor) and deselect tablet mode.
Or un-dock and re-dock your keyboard, that should kick it into gear.
FWIW my mother loves tablet mode, and loves her touch screen. She found tablet mode on her own and is rather annoyed when Windows exits it. The feature is not made made for us, it is made for consumers who have only a few apps open, and who naturally want to poke at their screen.
> - Windows update continues to be a bad experience.
It is 30 minutes or less once a month, with much of the work done in the background now days. Heck the monthly security patches often take less than 5 minutes to install end to end.
The large feature patches can be a nightmare, but major version revs aren't fun anywhere, user forums for all major desktop OSs are full of complaints about things that break during major patches, Linux, Windows, and macOS. Windows has an order of magnitude more users, there is an order of magnitude more complaints.
Also if you at at Microsoft, with MSIT managed hardware, you are not getting the end user upgrade experience. You are getting MSIT's upgrade experience, some of their releases have been super buggy messes, while other times they have gone the extra mile to make the internal upgrade experience better. On top of all that, odds are you are signed up to one of their beta-testing tracks, so getting pushed a buggy internal release, and then a fix for that buggy internal release a few days later, is not going to be the best experience.
Then again my previous smart phone was an LG made Nexus 5x, which literally had a non-trivial chance of hard locking/bricking itself after rebooting for updates, so my expectations for OS updates may be a bit low.
> - Windows is still awful at multi-desktop workflows.
Install one of the utilities[0][1] that add more multi-desktop shortcuts. The built in ones are quite anemic, especially compared to the otherwise awesome shortcuts for managing windows and multiple monitors. (Related, I actually wonder if at some point the global shortcut namespace is becoming too crowded, I do have problems finding new unique key combinations for global shortcuts!)
None of your actual complaints appear to be about the Surface Book, which is odd, because, at least the first generation Surface Book, is a rather buggy piece of hardware! My friends who worked on it or who worked with the teams that made it, were not recommending it to their friends/family.
[0]https://github.com/mzomparelli/zVirtualDesktop [1]https://github.com/sdias/win-10-virtual-desktop-enhancer/blo...
I use Chrome and the same electron apps (like Teams and VSCode) on both my macbook and surface book. macOS still handles this much better.
> I have done very serious work with a stylus in OneNote [...]
That's good to know. Maybe I'll try it again if I'm doing something similar. I tried to use it for software diagrams and had a bad experience.
> Windows is not some sort of developer wasteland.
This is true. I started my development career using Visual Studio and powershell, but I've since moved to a *nix style of programming and I feel more productive for it. Right now I'm writing mostly C++ with some C# and TS.
> Also if you at at Microsoft, with MSIT managed hardware, you are not getting the end user upgrade experience
You're right, I'll update my original comment to make this clear.
> Install one of the utilities[0][1] that add more multi-desktop shortcuts.
Thanks, I'll try this. It's a bummer the out of box experience isn't better.
> None of your actual complaints appear to be about the Surface Book
I have had hardware issues around going into/out of tablet mode. It seems to run hotter and louder than I would have expected. The hardware is bulky (especially with that hinge.) Battery life (not just the lack of suspend) isn't great. Trackpad isn't as smooth as a mac. But you're right, those are lower order to me than the Windows issues.
Sure, that makes sense.
Biggest complaints about Surface Book:
- Its battery management is horrible. I don't know if the hardware or the OS are more to blame for this. The worst part: I can pretty much expect that if I close the lid and open it some hours later the thing will be dead. Whereas the MacBook (so far) seems to be at the same percentage each time I close then open the lid.
Other complaints:
- Windows' split brain approach with fullscreen metro apps vs traditional windowed apps continues to annoy me.
- The pencil is a gimmick to me since the apps (like OneNote) are very poorly designed for serious work with a stylus.
- Windows is still considerably behind on multi-desktop workflows.
- WSL still has some serious gaps and isn't as productive as Linux / OSX for *nix-style programming tasks. It's getting better though.
- Windows update continues to be a bad experience. Whereas I actually look forward to macOS updates. (EDIT: My updates are managed by MSFT IT which is more aggressive than normal Windows Update so my experience might not be representative. But I'm not using the Insider or beta builds.)
- For example: My Surface Book just updated and now it's stuck on a Windows 8 looking home screen and I haven't yet figured out how to get back to my "normal" desktop.
- Windows continues to advertise "Bubble Witch 3" and "March of Empires" etc. in the home screen. This is unacceptable to me.
Other observations:
- I haven't noticed many BSODs with the Surface Book, so that's improved.
- So far I actually like the touchbar, large trackpad, and keyboard. But I've long ago remapped my keyboard shortcuts to never depend on the fn keys. Esc is still easy to hit on the touch bar for me, in fact the hit-box is bigger than on the Surface Book. If you need it frequently, remap caps lock.
- For MS hardware, there isn't bloatware unless you count MS software which I generally don't.
(Disclosure: I work for Microsoft in the Azure org.)