Puzzled....
I thought RT had been declared dead and buried. Why an RT 8.1 update? Am I missing a trick here?
Microsoft has quickly backpedalled on its Windows 8.1 update, pulling it from the Windows Store after reports that it was bricking Surface tablets. In this post at its Answers site, Microsoft explained the withdrawal of the update: “Windows RT 8.1. Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users …
If it can be recovered it is definitely not bricked....
Bricked = Irrecoverable = some of the ROMs avaialable on XDA were "bricking" galaxy notes for a short time, due to the ROM triggering memory problems that had been incorrectly addressed by Samsung. The devices were rendered completely useless and impossible to recover ( fully).....
There is a HUGE difference between bricked and confused.
For the average user I don't think that's a particularly relevant distinction.
For someone with enough (WIndows-specific) technical skills, recovering from something like this might be reasonably easy. But for the average person (ie someone un-technical enough to have been daft enough to buy one of these) it amounts to the same thing.
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Two down votes just for saying I was able to upgrade my RT to 8.1 before the upgrade was pulled?! /sigh/
The hardware is solid, I like the kickstand, the touch keyboard (got that for $30) and overall build quality is good, but I'm still not sold on RT as an OS. I wish Microsoft would allow alternate browsers, I'd prefer a Chrome browser (assuming Google would spend the time to make one for RT) or that I could run Android on it. We have a work app that like Chrome or Firefox better than IE.
I wouldn't have bought one as I'm happy with my iPad and Android tablet, but the Surface RT was a "free" bonus with some training classes I needed to take. As I said, I like the hardware better than the OS.
"I got a Surface RT for free and had no problems upgrading it to 8.1 before the update as pulled."
Only 0.1% of users were affected apparently. Good on Microsoft for still pulling the update. Unlike Apple who continued to churn out IOS7 broken updates for ages....
>For someone with enough (WIndows-specific) technical skills, recovering from something like this might be reasonably easy. But for the average person (ie someone un-technical enough to have been daft enough to buy one of these) it amounts to the same thing.
It is not really very important who eventually recovers the device, be it the owner, a friend or a technicien . What is important is that the device can be recovered. A truly bricked device can't, it literaly becomes a brick, whilst this is not the case.
There won't be many people stupid enough to simply throw away such an expensive device without doing at least a bit of research on how to get it repaired, which fortunately for them they will be able to do or at least have done for them..
>Create a recovery disk....
>Well most non tech savvy people wont have done that when they got the machine and once its "bricked" they won't be able to create one
One of two things here.
1 : TLDR
The problem is nothing more than a missing/corrupt file - not exactly the end of life for the tablet that now is it.
2 : You don't actually understand what is required in order to "create a recovery disk". It can be done from almost any version of windows above XP.
Quote from original blog.
NOTE: You can create a USB recovery drive using ANY Windows computer running XP or above. You could probably even do it on a Linux machine. You just need to be able to format the USB drive as FAT32 and extract .zip files!
As I mentioned above anyone with a "modicum" of tech savvy can repair this... It does not equate to a bricked device..
Also I note that the original blogger did not call it a bricked device , only the "ITNews" website did that, followed by a poor El Reg hack that decided to copy the article and add a "sensational title"........
"You can create a USB recovery drive using ANY Windows computer running XP or above. You could probably even do it on a Linux machine. You just need to be able to format the USB drive as FAT32 and extract .zip files"
To the vast majority of "normal" users, that's gobbledegook right there.
Howdy,
As the original blogger, I'd be more inclined to call it "stuffed" than bricked. For the "ordinary" user though I'd say there isn't a whole lot of difference, so just arguing semantics I'd say. There isn't really anything super magical about the fix, it's just knowing that there is even a step to fix it in the first place.
The file I provide isn't anything other than an ARM copy of the WinPE recovery boot disk (only the boot files, not the full system recovery). That is probably the biggest challenge as you need access to a working RT device to create one from scratch if you don't know the trick of duplicating one.
I was going to add a script that would take you straight to the command prompt and run the command, but I was concerned asking people to download and run stuff "blind" was a big enough risk without having someone accuse me of "tampering" and trying to run stuff on their tablet. The steps aren't that hard, and in the end I didn't really feel like doing any more of Microsoft's job for them.
>As the original blogger, I'd be more inclined to call it "stuffed" than bricked. For the "ordinary" user though I'd say there isn't a whole lot of difference,
I would disagree, on the XDA forums there were many newbies, neophytes, non techies looking for solutions to their problems. They eventually learned that "bricked" meant irrefutably damaged....
It is extremely important for the users to know/learn that their expensive toy is only slightly "confused" ( there I used by own technical term).
Bricked has become/is becoming synonymous with "f***ed" and we know this is not the case. Using the correct terminlogy/analogy is highly important for all involved.
I do not expect to read "the internet is broken" when the actual news story is about IE crashing. So why say something is "bricked" when it is simply corrupted?
Calling this a file corruption does not minimize the problem. It's still a huge issue for Microsoft and the end user. But the end user's limited understanding of the issue is not the story I expect to read on a tech news-site. So arguing it's "bricked" as far as they are concerned is rather beside the point. Especially when "bricked" is not an expression they are likely to use.
OK, so if a device has no user recovery path, but the manufacturer can re-flash the internal memory using the initial manufacturing process, is that not bricked?
Or how about they can rescue your data, and replace the main system board, but use the same case, serial number etc. Is that not bricked?
I agree the sentiment of what you are saying, and in this case the term is not justified, but I don't believe that there is really any hard-and-fast definition of bricked, and whether a device is bricked or not depends on the device state and the available resources to the user.
If you were on a desert island, with a satellite Internet feed and no other computing devices, unpacking a zip file onto a USB file to boot would not be possible, so this would effectively be a bricked device.
I would hazard to say that :
If the only person that can get your device working again is the manufacturer then it should be classified as bricked.
Otherwise it is just temporarily "confused". I really can't think of a suitable adjective to replace confused - incapacitated, out of order ....
If you, a techie friend can get it back up running without the manufacturers help then it is not bricked. The original bloggers post will probably recieve a lot of traffic from NonTechnically minded people looking for a solution. No one wants to suffer the pain of sending back tot the manufacturer if they can avoid it.
I initially used the word confused because during the boot routine the boot loader can't find a particular file and cannot proceed as expected, thereby leaving it in a "confused" state.... It had no viable alternative solution other than to panic or remain in an endless loop.
Still arguing semantics here. Bricked depends entirely on the capabilities of the person recovering the device. If you don't know how to recover it yourself, it's bricked to you, hence if you find a fix, you can un-brick it. (pretty sure that's a valid term isn't it?)
If a manufacturer can get the device working again, then would that mean it is "really confused" rather than just "slightly confused".
I do understand your point about teaching people the *correct* usage for "bricked", but like "hacker" or "troll", I think it is a battle you can't win despite our best efforts.
Hence the reason *I* don't call these bricked, especially given the steps many non-techie users have been able to follow in this instance to recover it.
I think we all agree on the intent of functional vs non-functional, it's just the words that are appropriate to describe them where there is lack of consensus.
I've recovered "Bricked" stuff using JTAG.
I'd call it bricked if average user (actually more likely 9 out 10 users) has to bring it to service centre / shop to get it recovered. Can the guys at Carphone Warehouse or PC World do it? Would the average user know to go there?
How many will get binned?
"but I don't believe that there is really any hard-and-fast definition of bricked"
If the end user can follow some moderately simple steps on a website to breathe life into their device, it got messed up, but not bricked.
Bricked implies that the average end user CANNOT fix it themselves unless they have some specialist knowledge and/or tools ( JTAG for example), but then this would make them no longer "average".
Or to put it another way, if you can kick it into recovery mode, it isn't bricked. If you have to open it up and start attaching stuff to it, it is.
No, the term "bricked" doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a low level recovery procedure. Some manufacturers anticipate bricking.
In this case though, it's just the embedded OS that's messed up (as is often the case, while low level firmware is still viable) but a user would consider it bricked because they can't recover it by normal means.
For example most "bricked" routers can be recovered with built in routines that allow you a brief opportunity to put a firmware image using tftp. Barring that, they have special communications ports (JTAG) inside that you can solder on to and connect with software and erase buggered firmware and get it to the point where you can upload a new image.
So they (Microsoft) controls the software and the hardware and they cannot even get an update out that doesn't brick units? What Microsoft should do, take some of those unsold units, put 8.1 on them and replace the units where a consumer has an issue with the update. For the amount of money that they spend on advertising and placing the product in TV shows, this would be a keep gesture and give the Surface some good press for a change.
Brand spanking i3 HP laptop, fresh out of the box. Backed up the W7 image and put 8 on, then 8.1. Took a very long time to do both upgrades.
Had a look around, don't care much for it but need to learn I guess.
Just rebooted, and im in a continually looping automatic repair. This is a fresh install, nothing touched
System restore not done anything, trying the PC refresh. If that fails it's back to 7 in the morning.
same here with a new Samsung Ativ 8 - installed 8.1, and after reboot no more video / graphics.
apparently it has to do with the Intel hd4000 driver that is being installed, PR some conflict between that and the hardware-accelerated graphics card.
after tinkering a bit, gave up, and wiped it clean / used the factory reset option.
won't touch 8.1 for a while...
i got 8.1 yesterday and my previously awesome samsung fondle slab is borked now. cpu wont go uner 65 percent. touch interface freezes for extended periods and cant use my dock and multi screens any more. can someone point me to instruction for undoing the update pleeeeeease...im dying here
I have two machines. The one that I successfully managed to upgrade to 8.1 after several hours has a Core i7 CPU and an NVIDIA Titan GPU. Since upgrading, I have noticed that on rare occasions the mouse pointer suddenly lags for a second or two, then recovers. This feature is new to 8.1. Oh yes, they also added a Start button.
I cannot upgrade the other machine, because the Windows Store refuses to open, and doesn't provide the courtesy of an error message. Still waiting for a useful response on that one, although I am not hopeful, because Windows support appears to be crowdsourced.
well my surface RT, my 5 year old dell laptop, and my custom built desktop all updated without a single hiccup. Quite quickly too.
its obviously not universal. From what I can gather some laptops are having trouble due to a lack of driver support, which is poor as the preview has been out for quite some time now. plenty of time to update the drivers.
>> From what I can gather some laptops are having trouble due to a lack of driver support
and windows truly appalling ability to handle bad/suboptimal/fallback drivers or any unforeseen problem without totally and utterly dying in the most pitiful way possible, every single time
>> which is poor as the preview has been out for quite some time now. plenty of time to update the drivers.
fixed it for you.
Microsoft seems incapable of not always stumbling over itself in their mobile and software upgrades and updates operations.
Just within the last ten days or so, they released 28 patches to fix the two previous weeks patch updates that were hacked badly, and very recently introduced 9 Windows 8 and IE patches listed as critical.
By any count the company has released probably more than 100 patches and fixes for patches just in past six months or so. Windows 8 desktop and mobile are nothing more than permanently 'patched' operating systems software. How does it survive?
In August, it was revealed that Windows 8 Mobile has a serious and unfixable Certificate authorization issue and issued "work arounds'.
The company and it's many Microsoft apologist supporters on ZDNet come across as doofus to the rest of the technology world.
Actually the article states "Microsoft has quickly backpedalled on its Windows 8.1 update, pulling it from the Windows Store after reports that it was bricking Surface tablets."
The title reads "MICROSOFT PULLS WIN 8.1 RT CODE WHICH UPGRADED SURFACE 'SLABS INTO BRICKS"
No "some" there. Try reading it again. Dare ya!
Since Microsoft have claimed it is only a minority of devices affected, then my confirmation that the update isn't bricking every Surface adds some validation to the discussion. My condolences to the 'other surface owner' who must have the bricked one.
If they claimed it wasn't happening, but in reality every owner's device was getting bricked, then people complaining here would show they were full of BS. A bit like your comment which isn't even about the article, is 100% irrelevant, is not news and adds nothing of value to the discussion.
They just get really badly programmed.
Holy crap, it's not as though Microsoft has to deal with thousands of hardware configurations, is it! How can they fuck up like this, is MS working on skeleton staffing levels these days?
The customers affected will be muttering to themselves, "I knew I should have gone with that other company's device."
I have an update repeatedly installing KB2802618 and no previous update history. Microsoft now recognise this is an issue preventing downloading windows 8.1 update http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_update/windows-update-successfully-installs-kb2802618/7a9e24cb-a350-4aa8-938c-efbaedd4f0cd
I updated the Surface RT to 8.1 with zero issues on the morning of the release.
Used it constantly while away last 3 days and on an 18 hour boat trip that had dial up speed satellite broadband (gave up on that), I was watching away from my wide choice of movies on the 64GB SD card, had a friend of mine kindly fill it with the latest releases.
The offline skydrive folders worked perfectly I synced all the content to the device and it cached it fine.
The mail apps seems much improved, so much so, that I did not fiddle with the new outlook yet.
Overall 8.1 seems a fine upgrade on the RT.
There's only four guys developing it. They sit in a darkened room pulling at their beards all day. They only had one weekend to test it, and I suspect they ran out of Cola, and just went home on the day of launch. : )
Not a true story.
I do like MS, but it is mainly due to their backward compatibility achievements. Oh, right, ho-hum.
It is ridiculous that the 800lb gorilla of fading desktop technology, and one of the wealthiest corporations in the world simply cannot produce any software, or make updates/upgrades without having total catastrophes on almost every occasion. Partial tally: 28 patches a few weeks ago that was in response to previous weeks' patches being "hacked" - twice, 9 Windows and specifically IE9 patches just past fortnight and now this calamity of pulling a critical Windows upgrade.
Those persons considering and/or preferring Microsoft mobile or new Windows products over "any" offering from Apple or premier Android devices are totally nuts and need their heads examined.