Category Archives: Updates

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog

Quick WinGet Post-Thanks Catch-Up

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Today’s my first day back in the saddle after a blissfully long weekend. It started Tuesday, November 26 and ended this morning (December 2: 6 days). Interestingly it looks like most other outfits were lollygagging around as well. Indeed, I assert that’s why I had such a quick winget post-thanks catch-up.  Running over the fleet this morning, it averaged 6-7 updates (min: 5, max: 8, most 6 or 7).

Explaining Quick WinGet Post-Thanks Catch-Up

As I said already, I’m quite sure the fallow period that precedes and accompanies a major hiatus (or holiday) is the culprit. To me, that explains little or no change over the past 6 days. That said,  a little bit of everything shows up on update lists. That includes 7-Zip, CrystalDisk (Mark and Info), TeamViewer, Visual Studio, OhMyPosh and more. For me, they are all very much among the “usual suspects” when WinGet does its thing.

And I think there’s more like that to come. The frequency and heft of updates in the period from now until after 2025 pops in will no doubt drop. It’s a simple outcome of the way business gets done around the globe. I hope that gives me more time to play with other stuff. Why? I’ve got two loaner units from Lenovo — a ThinkBook and a ThinkStation — that I need to set up, review, and return to sender.

That should keep me busy, right? Glad to be back at work, and hopeful that 2024 may go out on a happy note. Let’s see, shall we?

 

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Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

PatchMyPC Home Updater Mini Annoyance

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First things first: I’m a HUGE fan of PatchMyPC’s Home Updater product. Indeed, I got invited to try out the company’s latest version — an app-based implementation that supersedes PatchMyPC.exe — because I’ve written about it often and positively. In the interests of sharing my enthusiasm and support, I also have to report a recent PatchMyPC Home update “mini annoyance.” Let me tell you more…

What Is the PatchMyPC Home Updater Mini Annoyance?

It’s a Store app, so you must call it via the Start menu as “PatchMyPC Home Updater” to launch the program. But it’s NOT available in the Windows Store. Rather you must download it direct from the maker’s website, from the PatchMyPC Home Updater home page. If you try to find it in the MS Store, you get a big fat zip instead. Ditto for a search on “Patch My PC” as it appears here:

Only the website will do: the app is NOT in the MS Store.

Forewarned is forearmed, I guess. But gosh, it’s kind of a minor thing to add an app to the Store, isn’t it? C’mon guys: fix this sooner, rather than later. I applaud the new UI and the switch to a modern app style for this excellent tool. But please: finish the job and put it in the Store. Just sayin…

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11

BIOS Update Demands Cable Switch

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Whoa: this time, things got just a little bit TOO interesting. I’ve got a Lenovo P360 Ultra ThinkStation on loan, and a BIOS update came through today (to version S0JKT2AA). But when I would install the update, the usual BIOS flash screens did not come up after a reboot. It wasn’t until I swapped the graphics cable from the full-size DP to full-size DP port, to a full-size DP (monitor) to mini DP (PC) that the splash screen showed up at boot, and the BIOS flash ran through to completion. Thus, the BIOS update demands cable switch to succeed. Go figure!

How Did I Figure Out That BIOS Update Demands Cable Switch

By watching the post-reboot behavior on-screen, I realized it wasn’t showing me what it was supposed to. Basically, the screen stayed black post-restart until the lock screen for Windows 11 appeared. I knew I was supposed to see the boot-up splash screen (which reads “Lenovo” in white letters on a black background on this device). But instead: nada.

So on a whim, I brought down the video & power cables box from atop my bookshelves. Then, I grabbed a full-size DisplayPort to mini-DP cable and used it to replace the full-size DP to full-size DP I was currently using. Immediately thereafter, I got a splash screen and the BIOS update started processing. It took a while, but it eventually ground through to a successful update.

What About those Intel Graphics?

The next item of business was to get the built-in Intel graphics (UHD Graphics 770) updated. After a handful of failed attempts to get the Lenovo version to run, I visited the Intel DSA (Driver & Support Assistant) and installed that version instead. It worked. You can see the results for my final — and entirely welcome — update check using the Lenovo Commercial Vantage tool as the lead-in graphic above.

That was a wild ride. But indeed, that’s the way things go in Windows-World far too often, based on my current level of interest vs. fatigue. Today, fatigue wins out. Sigh.

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11, Windows Update

24H2 Compatibility Holds Block WU

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OK, then: thanks to Paul Thurrott, I think I know why my half-dozen Windows 11 23H2 PCs are getting no 24H2 offers. Among the half-dozen “Known Issues” that could bollix such an upgrade is an item named Fingerprint sensors might experience problems after a device is locked. And wouldn’t you know it: every one of my Lenovo laptops that could get the offer has one. And now I know: 24H2 Compatibility holds block WU from offering 24H2 to such PCs. You can see the issue label and first ‘graph of text as the lead-in graphic above.

When 24H2 Compatibility Holds Block WU…

One can always decide to upgrade forcibly if WU declines to make an upgrade offer. That’s what I did on the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation — which includes a fingerprint sensor and a Windows Hello IR camera. And indeed, it’s been running 24H2 since October 2 without issues or hiccups.

If you decide you want to upgrade ahead of WU offers, just be sure to make an image backup beforehand. That way, if anything goes sideways, you can reboot to WinRE and run a repair or rescue disk (Macrium Rescue Media, in my local cases) to restore that image. It takes 3-7 minutes to make such an image on my PCs, and up to 15 minutes to restore same. Well worth it IMO, to sidestep potential or actual trouble when needed.

In the meantime, I’m standing pat on my other Windows 11 23H2 PCs (both test and production units) waiting to see how long the compatibility holds will persist. If history is any guide, it’ll probably take another month or three before that happens. Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted!

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11

KB5043145 Throws Interesting Stopcode

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Here’s one I’ve not run into before: Stopcode 0XEA. It shows up on BSODs as THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER. The intro screencap show results running that stopcode against the MS error code lookup tool. Basically, it says a device driver thread is stuck in an infinite loop. (See the MS Bug Check 0xEA page for further deets.) Apparently, it’s showing that optional CU KB5043145 throws interesting stopcode and BSOD/GSOD  on some PCs. Notably, says WindowsLatest, that includes some 2022 and 2024 Asus laptops.

If KB5043145 Throws Interesting Stopcode, Then What?

If that happens to any of your PCs, you’ll need to boot to WinRE on bootable media, and use the “Uninstall Update ” item in its Advanced Options menu to uninstall it from your Windows Image. When a PC won’t boot because the image is damaged, that’s pretty much the only repair that works, short of a clean Windows (re)install.

Alas, this is eerily reminiscent of the July 19 Crowstrike update, which took down 8+million Windows PCs. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as widespread nor impactful as that incident turned out. That said, Windows users should be aware that this optional CU could force recovery and repair to undo. Fortunately, such updates do not typically affect production environments, where update get tested and vetted long before they get scheduled for some update window.

But gosh, it seems like we’ve run into rather more problematic updates that is typical in 2024. FWIW, the update hasn’t caused any trouble on those test machines here at Chez Tittel where I can make it run. Even so, it’s a great reminder to be careful out there in Windows-World…

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

OneNote Updates Sticky Notes

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Here’s an interesting tidbit. If you install or upgrade OneNote on a Windows PC, it will also upgrade to a new version of Sticky Notes. Check the lead-in graphic: it labels this new version as such, and the old version (lacking that same (new) label)shows up in the Start menu. Hence my assertion that OneNote updates Sticky Notes. But wait: there’s more…

Exactly How OneNote Updates Sticky Notes

This dual appearance persists even after you add the (New) version via a OneNote update (or install). If you quiz that version for its About info, you’ll get the OneNote for Microsoft 365 info . It shows up as (line broken for WordPress readability, original is a one-liner):

Microsoft® OneNote® for Microsoft 365 MSO
(Version 2408 Build 16.0.17928.20114) 64-bit

OTOH, if you quiz the older version, it calls itself a UWP app with version number 6.1.20 (and a 2020 copyright date). Go figure!

Two Versions, or One?

If you want to keep both versions, that’s fine with me. If you want to lose the old version, I’d recommend using WinGet to uninstall same. The name of this app is “Microsoft Sticky Notes” so you need to enclose it in quotes (internal spaces) to get it to work. Or, you can uninstall it using the app id, as follows:

winget uninstall --id 9NBLGGH4QGHW

instead. Your choice. I did the latter on one of my X380 test PCs and it worked correctly. Now, I see only Sticky Notes (New) in the Start menu. Just for grins, I did likewise on my Windows 10 production PC: it behaves in exactly the same way, so this works for both OSes. Cheers!

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Clean Chrome Winget Update

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I see it all the time: Winget tells me there’s an update for Chrome availalbe. You can see that too, in the lead-in screencap. It shows that the target PC needs an update to version 128.0.6613.114. A quick peek into Chrome > Help > About shows it’s on …113 right now. On one PC, the winget command showed success but a dive into Chrome ran the update anyway. On the test PC from which the screencap came (includes the post-upgrade About Chrome info at right), I conducted an experiment. It produced a clean Chrome Winget update. Let me explain how that happened…

Ensuring a Clean Chrome Winget Update

For a long time, I’ve wondered if an active Chrome process running might stymie Winget’s updates for that browser. I think I’ve pretty much now proved that to myself. On a PC with one or more active Chrome processes running — and BTW, some persist even if you close Chrome after it’s been opened — the small Chrome updater window may or may not appear. If it doesn’t show up, the upgrade doesn’t happen. If it does show up, you may still have to visit Help > About to hit the “Relaunch” button to finish that job.

But if there are NO (zero) Chrome processes running on the PC when Winget tries to update that program, everything completes properly. It’s always been Winget’s practice to err on the side of caution and prevent updates from possibly affecting, damaging or losing user data inside a running app or application. I’m pretty sure that’s what drives this behavior here.

Reboot Before Winget Upgrade?

I’m tempted to recommend rebooting a PC before running  winget upgrade. But because plenty of apps and applications can (and sometimes do) run as startup tasks, this might not result in a pristine runtime that will ensure everything updates “just so.”

About the best one can do — including your humble author — is to close open processes related to targeted winget updates before turning its upgrade functions loose. And boy howdy, isn’t some kind of caveat like this the hallmark of a real-live Windows-World adventure? Hint: rhetorical question…

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Insider stuff, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11

Chrome Makes MS Catalog Get Weird

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Here’s something I’ve never run into before. It’s quite interesting, actually.  This morning I read about a new update –KB5040527 — for both Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2 versions. When WU failed to produce same upon an update check, I followed the link in the Windows Latest story that caught my eye, and tried to download the update via Chrome. First up: Dutch, next French, and then Spanish on a third try. Edge showed it to me in en-US (English – United States) right away. Thus I couldn’t help but aver that Chrome makes MS Catalog get weird. You can see the French version in the lead-in graphic.

We are from France: Chrome Makes
MS Catalog Get Weird

I wasn’t sure what could happen if I were to install an update for some language with no corresponding language pack present. Now that I write out those words: I’ll probably make an experiment on another test PC to see what happens. Hoping to avoid language issues, I instead used the English-United States version (en-us) that Edge handed me for the update. In passing, I’ll observe it took some while for this to finish, both in download and install phases (about 15 minutes in all, longer than a typical WU update by 10 minutes or more).

Further adding to the mystery, I can’t replicate this behavior on any of my other production-line Windows 11 test machines. I guess I can try on my wife’s and son’s PCs later today to see if I can provoke multiple languages again. If it is truly a one-off, I blame cosmic rays!! One must’ve crashed through my PC recently and flipped an important bit. If you’re not laughing yet, too bad you can’t hear me carrying on. IMO, this is hysterical…

 

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Word Gets Seriously Weird

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I should know better, so I have no one to blame but myself. Yesterday, I was beavering away on an MS Word project for one of my regular customers. An update notification popped up in Word and I confess: I clicked “OK” before I really thought about what that might mean. Alas, I was about to find out — the hard way. My project entailed “rolling up” three tech briefs into one single, larger document which made it mostly a cut-n-paste exercise with some minor reformatting, intro/outro content creation, and a QA pass over about 6,000 words of copy. Then, as MS Word gets seriously weird in the wake of the updates, I notice things aren’t working correctly.

When Word Gets Seriously Weird, Start Over

As somebody who’s been writing professionally in MS Word since the mid-1980s (40 years or so), I’ve seen my share of Word weirdness. Because I was heads-down, trying furiously to hit a deadline, I didn’t really notice what was going on. But slowly it dawned on me that:

  • cut-n-paste boundaries were off
  • item selection was acting strange
  • keyboard and mouse responses were slow and cranky
  • menu commands were sluggish

Finally I thought to myself “Maybe updating Word while I was working wasn’t such a good idea.” I did close and then reopen all files, but apparently that was insufficient. So I went for the first step in any real Office repair: a reboot. I closed all open apps, initiated a restart, and crossed my fingers.

Shoulda Done That in the First Place!

After the reboot, it took a while to set my content elements back up. I opened three source files, a target file, and a template/go-by file, and then started over on the target file. Everything worked just like it was supposed to. I was able to finish the second try at the project in about an hour and half, more or less in line with my original estimate.

What I hadn’t counted on — and won’t get caught on again for a while — is that permitting Office to update itself while I was trying to hit a deadline wasn’t a good idea. I ended up losing another 90 minutes to that debacle. But eventually, I figured out what was up, and responded appropriately. And isn’t that just the way things go sometimes — especially when deadline loom — here in Windows-World? You bet!

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Insider stuff, PowerShell, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog

WinGet Source Hiccup Self-Repair

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I saw a new WinGet error message yesterday. In attempting a “blanket update” PowerShell showed a “Failed when opening source(s)…” error instead (see intro graphic above). That same error also suggested its own fix via WinGet source reset. I didn’t read carefully enough to see that the –force option was also required. But my next upgrade attempt succeeded anyway. There was apparently a WinGet Source hiccup self-repair at work. What happened?

OK, Why Did WinGet Source Hiccup Self-Repair?

I can only speculate that there was a transient communications glitch between my test PC and the URLs associated with the Microsoft Store and WinGet itself. To me, this dual drop most likely indicates an interruption of service at the ISP level. Both domains have vastly different IP addresses so it’s unlikely to have been something at their end. Hence my best guess that something affected the lookups from my end through my ISP,  Spectrum.com.

It’s amusing that I discovered this hiccup simply by entering another command (albeit an incorrect one). Upon re-entering the original blanket update:

winget upgrade –all — include-unknown

Everything went through as expected on the second try. Through well-cultivated habits, in fact, my first impulse with Windows when things don’t work as expected is simply to try again and see what happens. In this fragile world of ours (including Windows-World) what doesn’t work at first often succeeds on a subsequent attempt.

Had it turned out otherwise, I’d be showing a different screencap, and telling a different story. This time, second try was the charm!

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