- Thread Author
- #1
Surface Pro-specific glaring issues:
- horrible backlight bleed on 99% of devices (as deduced from accounts of users all over the world). Not even gonna elaborate on that, there's a separate 22-pages thread about it on MS forums.
- auto-hibernation issue - same.
- power drain in sleep. Apparently present since Surface Pro 4. How many generations do you need to fix a single problem? It's as if all BMW 3s had the same engine malfunction since 2006. And don't blame Intel - it's your duty to test stuff before throwing it on store shelves.
- Intel's adaptive contrast BS. I can't believe there aren't thousands of posts on the web about this problem - because a screen that constantly changes brightness in a totally unsmooth and flickery way can only be considered a problem, and certainly not a "feature". NO OPTION TO DISABLE IT. You have to look for a special obscure registry key, which I only found after an hour of web search.
- am I the only one (with all of my three Surfaces) with a funny bug in Windows 10 preventing me sometimes from typing in text into the Windows search bar with the touch keyboard? Sometimes the bug literally causes letters to be entered backwards. I showed it to my Linux buddy and you can imagine he was rolling on the floor laughing. Note again that this happened on all 3 of my Surfaces. I can just see all those businessmen and such with their "premium" Surfaces not being able to perform a simple system search. And you wonder why Macbooks are considered reliable by people who just need a working computer.
Windows 10-specific glaring issues:
- I was actually told my an MS rep that it's normally impossible to disable password login if using an MS account in the system. Luckily it proved to be false, but only after performing a Group Policy tweak (1 hour wasted, duh). Also, the setting proved to behave inconsistently between different Surfaces, showing once again that it's always a hit-or-miss with Microsoft.
- the User folder in Explorer receives an automatic name on Windows initial configuration, which is limited to 5 characters - and actually uses your surname. I find the end result somewhat insulting. Besides, thanks for screwing up my cloud directories, Microsoft. And for yet another two hours wasted on resolving problems through hazardous system tweaks.
- you can't just delete the Bin icon from the desktop by right-clicking. No - that would be too easy. To remove it, you have to go through some unintuitive settings windows to eventually find the desktop icons panel. Also, you can't pin the bin to your toolbar. ALSO, you CAN'T SEARCH FOR IT IN WINDOWS SEARCH. It's just not there. WHY.
- ...and don't even begin typing "desktop icons" into the search bar. It's just there to look nice, and certainly won't find the setting you're looking for. It doesn't actually perform any meaningful function. Much like no automatic Windows problem resolver has ever actually resolved any problem for you. It's just there to give an impression that Microsoft gives a ****. How do I know?
- Well, the other day I was installing Age of Empires 3 on my Surface. OBVIOUSLY compatibility issues, despite the 2005 game being a Microsoft product itself. Still, the "compatibility problem resolver" (what are those wizards even called? I don't remember) I tried out after the initialization error somehow failed to notice that all it takes for the game to run on the bloody platform is to enable a simple feature in Windows options. DisplaySomething. Had to google the problem again to find out. Why was the feature disabled by default, if it shouldn't cause any harm to the system? Because Windows.
- themes (wallpaper and colors) kept synchronizing between my PC and Surface without asking me. It's a default setting. Why on earth is MS assuming that I would like that? Does anyone use the same wallpaper and color theme on all their devices? How boring. Not even to mention different screen resolutions.
Other products:
- Outlook mail service - a known issue with Outlook servers is that they redirect 10-20% of correspondence to the Spam folder. I, alas, use my @outlook.com account for business, and can't really change the address for fear of losing potential customers. This makes me stuck with this moronic feature that I can't even disable, because - again - Microsoft knows better what I want. My spam box contains maybe 10% of actual spam (and this being spam that I could easily opt out of if I wanted) - the rest is stuff I wanted to have in my inbox. Hell, often it will even treat as spam senders which I have previously responded to. How smart! Also, Mail app doesn't feature an option to notify about arriving Spam. Luckily, iPhone's e-mail app does, which is a life saver in this case as it often happens that various requests for quotation get qualified as spam by Microsoft. Thanks again for streamlining my business and all that.
- OneDrive - no selective synchronization feature (or whatever the lingo is), meaning that I have to resync the entire 1 GB file after changing just 10 kilobytes in it. Way to go. Instant switch to Dropbox.
- Calendar - good as such, but OBVIOUSLY the synchronization between my and my fiance's calendar worked only for a day, and then dropped. You know a company isn't doing great if you don't even really expect stuff to work, like myself. With Windows you constantly feel like you're on a pre-alpha.
- MS Edge - the thing is surprisingly good (for Microsoft), BUT there's a touch scroll glitch (https://www.you_tube.com/watch?v=J2pG-Wqyyjo). So I guess that MS product will have to go too.
- Bing search engine - Due to my job (translations), I frequently have to search for complex and rarely occuring phrases, and Google keeps proving to be far superior in this regard. And I'm talking about searches in English. Besides, where the hell are image titles in the Images browser? I do want to know the title of the images I'm browsing. So yeah, that'll be another product from Microsoft I just can't use professionally, despite my best will.
--
I'm sorry, I just had to get all the frustration off my chest. I'm feeling better now.
Also, can someone please send all those issues and "improvement suggestions" to Microsoft? I just don't have the patience and any additional spare time to waste. I've wasted enough with MS already. I just expect IT companies to not be idiots and know my basic expectations, or at least give me options. I'm not a democrat to desperately crave "sharing my voice" through some stupid "community platforms". Consider this post just a regular rant.
- horrible backlight bleed on 99% of devices (as deduced from accounts of users all over the world). Not even gonna elaborate on that, there's a separate 22-pages thread about it on MS forums.
- auto-hibernation issue - same.
- power drain in sleep. Apparently present since Surface Pro 4. How many generations do you need to fix a single problem? It's as if all BMW 3s had the same engine malfunction since 2006. And don't blame Intel - it's your duty to test stuff before throwing it on store shelves.
- Intel's adaptive contrast BS. I can't believe there aren't thousands of posts on the web about this problem - because a screen that constantly changes brightness in a totally unsmooth and flickery way can only be considered a problem, and certainly not a "feature". NO OPTION TO DISABLE IT. You have to look for a special obscure registry key, which I only found after an hour of web search.
- am I the only one (with all of my three Surfaces) with a funny bug in Windows 10 preventing me sometimes from typing in text into the Windows search bar with the touch keyboard? Sometimes the bug literally causes letters to be entered backwards. I showed it to my Linux buddy and you can imagine he was rolling on the floor laughing. Note again that this happened on all 3 of my Surfaces. I can just see all those businessmen and such with their "premium" Surfaces not being able to perform a simple system search. And you wonder why Macbooks are considered reliable by people who just need a working computer.
Windows 10-specific glaring issues:
- I was actually told my an MS rep that it's normally impossible to disable password login if using an MS account in the system. Luckily it proved to be false, but only after performing a Group Policy tweak (1 hour wasted, duh). Also, the setting proved to behave inconsistently between different Surfaces, showing once again that it's always a hit-or-miss with Microsoft.
- the User folder in Explorer receives an automatic name on Windows initial configuration, which is limited to 5 characters - and actually uses your surname. I find the end result somewhat insulting. Besides, thanks for screwing up my cloud directories, Microsoft. And for yet another two hours wasted on resolving problems through hazardous system tweaks.
- you can't just delete the Bin icon from the desktop by right-clicking. No - that would be too easy. To remove it, you have to go through some unintuitive settings windows to eventually find the desktop icons panel. Also, you can't pin the bin to your toolbar. ALSO, you CAN'T SEARCH FOR IT IN WINDOWS SEARCH. It's just not there. WHY.
- ...and don't even begin typing "desktop icons" into the search bar. It's just there to look nice, and certainly won't find the setting you're looking for. It doesn't actually perform any meaningful function. Much like no automatic Windows problem resolver has ever actually resolved any problem for you. It's just there to give an impression that Microsoft gives a ****. How do I know?
- Well, the other day I was installing Age of Empires 3 on my Surface. OBVIOUSLY compatibility issues, despite the 2005 game being a Microsoft product itself. Still, the "compatibility problem resolver" (what are those wizards even called? I don't remember) I tried out after the initialization error somehow failed to notice that all it takes for the game to run on the bloody platform is to enable a simple feature in Windows options. DisplaySomething. Had to google the problem again to find out. Why was the feature disabled by default, if it shouldn't cause any harm to the system? Because Windows.
- themes (wallpaper and colors) kept synchronizing between my PC and Surface without asking me. It's a default setting. Why on earth is MS assuming that I would like that? Does anyone use the same wallpaper and color theme on all their devices? How boring. Not even to mention different screen resolutions.
Other products:
- Outlook mail service - a known issue with Outlook servers is that they redirect 10-20% of correspondence to the Spam folder. I, alas, use my @outlook.com account for business, and can't really change the address for fear of losing potential customers. This makes me stuck with this moronic feature that I can't even disable, because - again - Microsoft knows better what I want. My spam box contains maybe 10% of actual spam (and this being spam that I could easily opt out of if I wanted) - the rest is stuff I wanted to have in my inbox. Hell, often it will even treat as spam senders which I have previously responded to. How smart! Also, Mail app doesn't feature an option to notify about arriving Spam. Luckily, iPhone's e-mail app does, which is a life saver in this case as it often happens that various requests for quotation get qualified as spam by Microsoft. Thanks again for streamlining my business and all that.
- OneDrive - no selective synchronization feature (or whatever the lingo is), meaning that I have to resync the entire 1 GB file after changing just 10 kilobytes in it. Way to go. Instant switch to Dropbox.
- Calendar - good as such, but OBVIOUSLY the synchronization between my and my fiance's calendar worked only for a day, and then dropped. You know a company isn't doing great if you don't even really expect stuff to work, like myself. With Windows you constantly feel like you're on a pre-alpha.
- MS Edge - the thing is surprisingly good (for Microsoft), BUT there's a touch scroll glitch (https://www.you_tube.com/watch?v=J2pG-Wqyyjo). So I guess that MS product will have to go too.
- Bing search engine - Due to my job (translations), I frequently have to search for complex and rarely occuring phrases, and Google keeps proving to be far superior in this regard. And I'm talking about searches in English. Besides, where the hell are image titles in the Images browser? I do want to know the title of the images I'm browsing. So yeah, that'll be another product from Microsoft I just can't use professionally, despite my best will.
--
I'm sorry, I just had to get all the frustration off my chest. I'm feeling better now.
Also, can someone please send all those issues and "improvement suggestions" to Microsoft? I just don't have the patience and any additional spare time to waste. I've wasted enough with MS already. I just expect IT companies to not be idiots and know my basic expectations, or at least give me options. I'm not a democrat to desperately crave "sharing my voice" through some stupid "community platforms". Consider this post just a regular rant.
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2007
- Messages
- 36,157
I feel your pain and hear you. The Outlook spam bug annoy's the feck out of me also (I'm on a desktop) and as much as I try to like the Edge browser it just feels clunky. Bing displays some great pictures on it's home page although it's no where near as good as Google which i always default to..
Glad you at least feel better..
Glad you at least feel better..
- Thread Author
- #3
