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Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 firmware update fix freezing issue

Microsoft Surface Pro 4
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
2015 has been a big year for Microsoft. Along with the release of Windows 10, the firm is gradually moving away from its old irregular releases of software and toward subscription models and more frequent updates. Before now, though, the software giant laid the groundwork for this type of patching and tweaking with its Surface Pro firmware updates, and those look set to continue following the release of the Surface Book.

This update brings with it some simple changes to the various 2-in-1 systems that Microsoft has put out in recent months. For starters, it will improve stability for both Surface devices, and provide an update to its Management Engine that will improve optimizations with touch. That function was also augmented through tweaks to the Precise Touch Device driver, which was brought up to v1.1.0.217.

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An update to the Microsoft Surface ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery driver should also ensure that the correct Surface driver is installed — a problem that a few Surface users ran into prior to this update.

Related: Microsoft Surface Pro 4 review

According to a Microsoft answer thread, many of the changes made this time around were to fix a freezing issue that some Surface users were dealing with. Developers, however, are still working on fixing up a problem with graphics driver crashes.

Although far from a big update in any sense of the word, it’s good to see Microsoft continuing with its plans to optimize and improve different aspects of the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 after their release, much as the firm has done with previous generations of Surface hardware.

If you are a Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book owner, then chances are these updates have been applied automatically. If they haven’t however, you can trigger them manually by opening up the Update and Security settings on your device and clicking on the ‘Check for Updates’ button (as per Winbeta).

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…
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