Day 2 – Getting started with the Surface Pro tablet, software installs and updates

Teaching and Learning with a Windows 8 Tablet

3/13/2013

Welcome to Day 2 of working with a Microsoft Surface Pro Windows 8 tablet for educators.

Today I will be taking care of some of the more mundane but necessary tasks of installing software and doing the latest Windows Updates so that my machine has the most recent patches from Microsoft.

The first decision I had to make was what version of Microsoft Office I wanted to install. I opted for the latest version, Office 2013, as this blog is meant to explore the leading edge of tablet computing. I had the installation files on a USB thumb drive and all I had to do was plug-in the USB drive into the full-size USB port and begin the install.

Having access to a full-size USB port is a great benefit of the Surface Pro, and it supports USB 3.0!!!

The installation went quickly and included what I call the “Big Four” for educators: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, along with other Office related programs (Access, Outlook, Publisher, Lync, Infopath). The complete Office 2013 install took less than ten minutes.

The new Office 2013, like Office 2007/2010, features the ribbon interface but the touch targets are designed to be larger so that you can use your finger to make selections if you have a touch-enabled device like the Surface Pro. This is another example of Microsoft moving toward the touch-first experience in Windows 8, even with their stalwart programs.

When I turned on the Surface Pro after charging overnight and checked Windows Updates I had 20 new updates to install. I installed the 20 updates, restarted the system and installed Office 2013. After installing Office 2013 I had another 30 updates to complete. This took a little over one hour to complete.

Yesterday was “patch Tuesday” so today I noticed Microsoft had pushed out a firmware update this morning for the Surface Pro so I installed the firmware using Windows Update. The firmware update took about 10 minutes to complete and required a restart.

One of the things that the Surface Pro, and Windows 8 in general, get criticized for is the “dual personality” of the Windows 8 operating system. On one hand you have a new and innovative “live tile” interface of the Start Screen and on the other hand you have the familiar “Desktop” view that we have become so comfortable with over the last two decades.

This is clearly a transitional operating system as Microsoft has chosen to hang onto the past Desktop metaphor but has also added the modern look and feel of the Start Screen. The modern-style of Windows 8 Start Screen is transitioning to a touch-first experience where icons have been morphed into tiles with larger touch points for interacting with the operating system. Some call this dualism “jarring” and a "mess" but after using Windows 8 for some time now I see this as hugely beneficial and not jarring at all.

People seem to making this more difficult than it needs to be. The Desktop environment is there if or when you need it and maintains a certain degree of compatibility for getting things done the traditional way. As new apps are developed I believe we will begin to see the phasing out of the Desktop but it will take some time as there are millions of programs that have been developed over the years to work in Desktop mode. Until then, I am grateful that the Desktop is there, it is a benefit and not a hindrance. The switch to all modern-style apps will not happen overnight.

I did run into a couple of issues with installing the updates that I will write about another time as it deserves its own post. 

Until next time...

Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, PhD

Follow me on Twitter @tomgrissom

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