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Applies to Surface RT, Surface Pro.

Connect a USB mouse, printer and more

Surface includes a full-size USB port which you can use to connect accessories to your Surface. You can connect a wide variety of accessories, such as a printer, camera, music player, phone, a mouse, or even an external hard drive.

Location of the USB port
Location of USB port on Surface RT

Surface RT

 Location of USB port on Surface Pro

Surface Pro

The USB port on Surface RT is a USB 2.0 port.

Windows RT is compatible with USB devices that are certified for Windows RT. These devices are marked with the certified for Windows RT logo. Some of your current devices might not work with Windows RT. To check what's compatible, see the Windows Compatibility Centre.

The USB port on Surface Pro is a USB 3.0 port. Some devices might support USB 3.0, a connection type that can run up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0.

The power supply included with Surface Pro has a USB charging port. For more info about this, see Battery and Power.
 
Windows 8 Pro is compatible with USB devices that are certified for Windows 8. These devices are marked with the certified for Windows 8 logo. To see what's compatible with Windows 8, see the Windows Compatibility Centre.
Note  If you want to plug in more than one USB accessory at once, for example a mouse and a printer, you should use a USB hub with its own power supply.

Install a USB device

  1. If your USB accessory has a power cord, plug it in.
  2. Plug the USB cable attached to the accessory into your Surface.
  3. Turn on your accessory (if needed).
    The first time you plug in a USB accessory, Windows installs the necessary software for you (if needed).

Troubleshooting

See devices installed on Surface

To see devices that are installed on your Surface, open the Settings charm and then tap or click Change PC settings. Tap or click Devices.

A list of available devices is shown.

Things you can do from Devices

  • View the status of any device to see if there’s a problem, such as the device could not start or is offline.
  • Add and remove devices.
  • See when a device was installed by hovering your cursor over a device.

To see the devices connected to your Surface using Control Panel, see Add, view and manage your devices and printers.

Related topics

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