Microsoft Updates Surface Tools for IT with Support for Surface Pro and Surface Laptop

Microsoft's latest additions to the Surface hardware line up, the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, started arriving on retail shelves last week and so Microsoft has updated their key support tool kit for this line of devices to support the new hardware.

The Surface Tools for IT contain several individual utilities that allow IT Pros and System Admins to maintain and support any Surface hardware that is deployed in their organizations.

Although this update adds support for the two recently released devices, it of course continues to support previously available Surface hardware that is still under support except as noted below.

Here is a breakdown of the various tools in the kit:

Surface Deployment Accelerator

-- Surface Deployment Accelerator v2.0.8.0 supports deployment of the new Surface Pro.

Note: Surface Deployment Accelerator v2.0.8.0 provides support only for Surface Pro and does not replace Surface Deployment Accelerator v1.96.0405 which supports Surface 3, Surface Pro 3, and Surface Book.

Surface Data Eraser

-- Surface Data Eraser v3.2.36 adds support for the storage devices of Surface Studio, Surface Pro, and Surface Laptop.

Note: The Surface Data Eraser USB creation utility cannot run in a Windows 10 S environment. To erase the storage device of a Surface Laptop with Windows 10 S, you must first create the Surface Data Eraser USB drive using another computer with a Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise environment.

Note: Surface Pro devices with 1TB storage are not currently supported by Surface Data Eraser.

Surface Dock Updater

-- Surface Dock Updater v2.1.15.0 adds support for Surface Pro and Surface Laptop.

Note: The Surface Dock Updater utility cannot run in a Windows 10 S environment. Surface Dock devices connected to Surface Laptop with Windows 10 S will receive firmware updates through Windows Update and do not require the Surface Dock Updater to stay up-to-date. If you wish to check the firmware version of a Surface Dock, or to manually update a Surface Dock, connect the Surface Dock to a Surface device with a Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise environment.

Surface Enterprise Management Mode

-- Surface UEFI Configurator v1.0.74.0 adds support for Surface Pro and Surface Laptop and a new ability to generate a USB drive with WinPE that can be used to enroll a device in Surface Enterprise Management Mode.

-- Surface UEFI Manager v2.2.21 adds for Surface Pro and Surface Laptop.

Note: The Surface UEFI Configurator and Surface UEFI Manager cannot run in a Windows 10 S environment. Surface Laptop devices running Windows 10 S can be enrolled in SEMM using the USB drive generated by the Surface UEFI Configurator, or otherwise can be enrolled by upgrading the device to Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Enterprise.

You can download the Surface Tools for IT utilities from the Microsoft Download Center.

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