Surface Book Taskbar Previews close too quickly (when battery status updates)

Hello LorenAmelang,

I would recommend trying the two-button shutdown to reset the battery chip:

1. Press power button for 30 seconds.

2. Press volume-up button and power button together for 15 seconds.

3. Release the buttons and wait 10 seconds.

4. Start the Surface normally by pressing the power button.

Then you can reinstall the battery drivers from the Device Manager:

1. Open Device Manager

2. Expand Batteries

3. Right-click on the batteries and press uninstall. Do not tick the box to uninstall driver software.

4. Restart Surface Book

If the issue happens after this, you can also use the driver pack to make sure that the drivers are truly reinstalled correctly. The file needed is SurfaceBook_Win10_151216_1.msi.

Best Regards

JAM_989,

I believe your suggestions improved some other issues, but the main problem remains... 

1. Press power button for 30 seconds.
2. Press volume-up button and power button together for 15 seconds.
3. Release the buttons and wait 10 seconds.
4. Start the Surface normally by pressing the power button.

I performed 1-3 precisely by the clock. Without pressing #4, the system started itself in "Surface UEFI". Everything looked reasonable so I tapped Exit. It restarted normally, but much faster than it has for weeks - since about the "November update".

The Battery panel now sits solidly on "Fully charged", no more "Not Charging" or "Calculating" (so far...) Both batteries remain at "100%" instead of 98 or 99, but they both cycle between "fully charged" and "in use" - and close any Taskbar Previews when they change. So I continued with your suggestions:

1. Open Device Manager
2. Expand Batteries
3. Right-click on the batteries and press uninstall. Do not tick the box to uninstall driver software.
4. Restart Surface Book

After the restart I checked Device Manager again, and each battery said a restart was needed "to install hardware changes". So I restarted yet again, and now they seem content.

Unfortunately, both batteries still cycle between full and in-use, and zap my Previews as frequently as before.

So the first two-button shutdown has cured the strange and contradictory messages I used to see in the Battery panel, and cut cold boot time at least in half. Welcome improvements. But the ancient problem of battery manager actions closing Taskbar Previews remains.

Tried hiding the Battery tray icon, didn't help. Why does changing its displayed information grab focus away from my cursor? If I keep the cursor moving over the Taskbar icon, the Previews jump right back after disappearing for a second, but that is hardly a solution.


There is another maddening focus/visibility issue on this machine. If I receive an error doing a file copy in Explorer, the error dialog appears at the very bottom of the window stack, instead of at the top. And there is no audio alert, no way to know there was a reason for the failed action. To see the options the dialog usually presents, I must manually close each window above the dialog. And this always seems to happen when there are a dozen or more... 

I'm also curious if this battery issue might be related to my other nagging Surface Book problem:

http://answers.microsoft.com/thread/1fd217b1-82c6-44df-955f-4ab142b2ec89

When that problem happens, I see System, PID 4, with the thread "ACPI.sys+0x1f9c0" using all of the CPU. When the problem is not happening, that thread exists but typically shows no CPU usage. I guess that's a stretch, but when I was reinstalling the battery drivers, there were lots of ACPI items shown...  I'll be watching to see if it changes.

Grassr00t,

Does the Surface Pro 4 use the new 15 Volt charger like the Surface Book? Or the older 12 Volt design? I find the problem is worse when using a 12 Volt "car" charger. It tends to stay in the "not quite sure it is charged" state longer than the official 15 Volt supply. With 15 Volts I eventually get through that and the status stops cycling.

I've had almost the exact same problem - new Surface Pro 4 with Windows 10 (no dock or second battery). The taskbar thumbnail preview icons disappear extremely quickly despite continuing to hover my moues over them. The issue is semi intermittent in that I cant make it happen ALL the time. That said - it seems to happen a LOT if I'm plugged in and my battery is at 100%. If I'm on battery alone (not plugged in) or even if I'm plugged in and its charging (vs being at 100%) it seems to behave just fine for the most part. But once it hits 100% it starts acting up which in turns causes a huge impact to jumping between e-mails, IE windows, etc...

From everything I've read it seems like it might be related to some underlying update/change in status grabbing focus away from the taskbar (e.g. behind the scenes going from charging to 100% and back or something...?).

I've tried updating all drivers (including battery), tried my work IT support, spent time with Microsoft customer support, looked all around the web (its NOT registry entries / hover time). I wish there was some way to figure out what is making it happen, but I'm stumped.

Anyone have any ideas!?! Please help!? :-) Thanks!

EnterpriseZ,

Do you have the "Feb 17" updates yet? I can't get them until next week when I can use an unmetered connection. I'm hoping maybe they will improve this issue, but not enough to pay the overage charges to get them now.

Feb 17th updates didn't seem to do much for me.  Might have slowed down the drain a bit.  Very frustrated with the icons closing.  Trying to use multiple windows while docked is an exercise in how quickly you can move to click the window you want.  

Can confirm removing the battery drivers completely fixes the problem.  Re-adding and the close down comes right back.

Hoping this gets resolved quickly.

Same problem on 2 devices. Every time I'm plugged in and try hovering over the previews they just disappear way too fast. When I unplug, they work properly as they do on my other 10 computers. By the way, my battery meter works 100% perfect by the way, no changes or statuses or flashes or anything, just rock-steady at 100% "Fully Charged". So it's not an issue there.

Summary of the problem in basic terms:

- When plugged in, the taskbar icon previews disappear too quickly to be used (sp4 keyboard).

This is true when clicked or when hovered, when stationary or moving, etc.

This problem is very simple and very obvious. I have all the latest updates, but it occurred before I got them too. 

I can create youtube videos showing it, but it's so silly simple that you're not going to get any more info than that. Pen hover works properly, so it seems to only be an issue with an attached keyboard (including the SP4 keyboard) or USB mouse.

I suspect every Surface Pro 4 and every Surface Book in the world have this exact same problem. It's kind of a fundamental Windows feature to be able to switch windows with the task bar, but with my super quick reflexes I can sometimes nail it just fast enough before they disappear to get my work done (or resort to alt+tab or Win+tab).

Burgesson - Your pen hover works? Mine is just as bad as the (Bluetooth) mouse or touch, always has been. Maybe the Surface Book is different?

It is way worse than just Surface devices. Similar problems have been reported as far back as Win 7, with power management drivers for several brands of notebooks.

[I have relatives named "Borjeson" - are you Swedish?]

Loren