Category Archives: Updates

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, Windows 11, Windows Update

A-Volute Software Component Mystery Solved

July 13, 2022 Ed Tittel 4 Comments

Oho! Yesterday was Patch Tuesday for July. Thus, I’ve been working through my stable of PCs, applying updates as I can. On my Ryzen 5800X Windows 11 desktop, I noticed something new and mysterious. Its MUC (Microsoft Update Catalog) entry provides the lead-in graphic for this story. Upon conducting research, this A-Volute software component mystery solved itself immediately.

How Is A-Volute Software Component Mystery Solved?

As with most such things, a quick trip to Google helps point me in the right direction. It turns out that A-Volute provides drivers for the Asrock B550’s audio circuitry. This also includes support for an Nh3 Audio Effects Component. It pops up under Software Components in Device Manager:

Googling online points me to a Realtek-related (Nahimic) audio driver, with matching entry in DevMgr. [Click for full-size view.]

I first found a credible mention of this at TenForums. It appears in a thread on which I myself have been active. ( It’s entitled “Latest Realtek HD Audio Driver.”) Next, I find an entry named “A-Volute Nh3 Audio Effects Component” inside Device Manager. Presto! That convinces me the mystery is no longer unsolved.

I like to run things down when something new shows up amidst Patch Tuesday updates. It came along for the ride because MS provides drivers as well as OS and other related updates. In most corporate or production IT environments, this doesn’t happen. Why not? Because untested drivers pose too many potential problems to simply let them through on their own.

Deconstructing Windows Mysteries

In general, when something new or unexpected shows up in Windows, it’s worth the effort to identify it. In most cases, it will be benign — as it was with this item. But sometimes, the mystery might deepen. Or it might even point to something malicious or malign. That’s when remediation comes into play. I’m happy that wasn’t needed this time. I’ll still keep my eye on new stuff going forward, though. One never knows when something wicked might this way come.

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

More WingetUI Interactions

July 8, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then. I’m using WingetUI as an element of my Windows PC update toolbox. Along the way, I’m finding some areas where it shines, and others where it doesn’t. But as I gain familiarity with this tool, more WingetUI interactions convince me it’s worth using. That said, it’s no silver bullet for Windows updates, either. Let me explain…

After More WingetUI Interactions, Another Status Report

If you look at the lead-in graphic, I can point to elements where WingetUI shines, and those where it doesn’t. It handles most third-party apps perfectly (e.g. 7-Zip, Kindle, SUMo, Python 2, and Spacedesk). Not so for MS components, except for C++ runtime elements. It failed (or I didn’t try based on prior failures) with Edge WebView2, Teams, and the WADK. This is not a huge problem for me.

SUMo also catches the follow items that did not show up on the WingetUI radar: Chrome, Firefox, CrystalDiskInfo, Intel PROSet utility, MyLANViewer, Nitro Pro, Notepad++ (a false positive, IMHO), Snagit and Winaero Tweaker. Thus I must continue to use a collection of tools to get through my entire update roster. But I knew that already.

All’s Well That Ends Well

I was able to use PatchMyPC to handle the routine updates that WingetUI didn’t see. SUMo led me to fix everything except Intel PROSet, Nitro Pro, and Snagit. I got the first and last myself, and skipped Nitro Pro for the moment (though I did find install syntax for the latest version using winget itself, which I’ll try again later…).

[Note added 1 Day later…] Eventually, I jumped to the Nitro Pro download page (Product Updates) to grab and install the latest version (13.67.0.45). That got me completely caught up. What I now can’t understand is why winget will sometimes update Nitro Pro for me, but why I must do it manually at other times. I’m guessing it depends on package prep and info…

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

DISM Component Store Cleanup

June 21, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

This morning, I recalled the value of occasional “check-and-clean” operations on the Windows Component Store (aka WinSxS). Check the “Before and After” screencap at the top of this story. It shows that applying updates can leave old components behind. Checking the component store tells you what’s up. Performing a DISM component store cleanup recovers wasted space. To wit: 1.72 GB in reported size, and 1.47 GB in actual size.

How to run DISM Component Store Cleanup

What you see in the before (left) and after (right) image is syntax to check the Windows Component Store. Run it in an admin cmd or PowerShell session, like so:

DISM /online /cleanup-image /analyzecomponentstore

Two notes. One, the output from the before (left) tells you how many reclaimable packages are found (2, in this instance). Two, it tells you whether or not component store cleanup is recommended (yes, this time around). Running the check and report syntax shown above takes 1-2 minutes on most Windows 10 and 11 PCs.

Performing the Actual Cleanup

As with the check and report DISM command, the cleanup command must also run in an administrative cmd or PowerShell session. That syntax is slightly different:
DISM /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup
Depending on how many reclaimable packages are found, and how big they are, cleanup can take upwards of 5 minutes on most Windows 10 or 11 PCs. That wait goes up, as the number (and total) size of packages increases. Be patient! I’ve only had this fail a handful of times over the years I’ve been using this tool (and many of those failures were self-inflicted because of prior use of /resetbase, which locks existing packages into place in the Component Store).

Nevertheless, this is an excellent and recommended Windows cleanup technique, which I try to run after each month’s Cumulative Update (CU) is installed. The check and report command doesn’t always find something to cleanup, but when it does, I follow up with the /startcomponentcleanup to trim down the Component Store footprint. It’s a great technique for regular Windows image management, in fact.

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, PowerShell, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

WingetUI Offers Useful Update Capability

June 16, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Lately, I’ve been using the Winget PowerShell applet to assist with updating my Windows 10 and 11 PCs. Thanks to Martin Brinkmann at Ghacks, I’ve found a GUI front end for that tool. Indeed, the aptly-named WingetUI offers useful update capability.

Winget.UI does other things, too. It let you explore all 3460 packages under its purview (“Discover Software” tab). It also shows a complete list of all packages already installed on your PC (“Installed applications”). On first blush, Winget.UI looks like a good tool. Its GitHub page provides the lead-in graphic for this story.

“Available updates” quickly identifies and provides ready access to item-by-item update launch. [Click image for full-size view.]

What WingetUI Offers Useful Update Capability Means

To update an item from the Software Updates tab in Winget.UI (shown above), simply double-click its corresponding Winget entry under the “Installation source” heading. Personally, I find this prefereable to the winget upgrade --all command. Why? Because it provides item-by-item control. That lets me skip elements (such as MS Teams), which experience has taught me isn’t really amenable to winget updates.

The double-clicking takes a little getting used to, but by and large the update function works well. It worked well for third-party packages, including Kindle, Python 2, and Revo Uninstaller. It hit errors on some built-in MS components, such as the WADK and Edge Runtime. Based on prior history, I didn’t even try the Teams components.

Good, But Not Perfect

I’ll need to spend more time with WingetUI to fully understand and appreciate its foibles and strengths. For now, it’s much like other update tools I use: good — indeed, pretty helpful — but by no means either great or perfect. Perhaps that’s just the way that update tools work here in Windows World!

[Note: Nochmals Danke schoen to Mr. Brinkmann for an interesting find.]

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

Fighting Off Update OCD

June 1, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’ve been whipping my PCs into shape, preparing for a trip away from home. I’ll be OOO for all of next week, attending a legal process in Waco. Naturally, before I go, I’m making sure all the PCs here — especially production ones — are entirely up to snuff. I must be getting close to my goal, because I’m currently fighting off update OCD. Let me explain…

What Fighting Off Update OCD Really Means

As you can see from the SUMo listing for my production desktop (in the lead-in graphic above), I still have three items that appear to be obsolete or outdated. At least one of them is a false positive.

I just checked on FileZilla. And while no update was available yesterday, one is indeed available today. Fixed! Here’s how I found that out just now by asking the app to check for updates:

When I checked yesterday inside the app: nada. Today I found — and installed — 3.60.1. Notice: It bears today’s date (6/1/2022). Go figure!

When I check on status for voidTools Everything (sometimes called Search Everything), it still reports itself current. That’s good enough for me, so I’ll quit looking for the putative 1.4.1.1017 version that SUMo recommends. Here’s what the program tells me when I tell it to check for updates:

If the auto-checker says “OK,” I’ll take it at its word.

The last item is the sometimes tricksy Intel ® PROSet Adapter Configuration Utility. It’s easy to go round and round on this one. I’ve learned to search on the first two digits of the version number — that is, 27.3 — along with the utility name at intel.com. If it comes up, I’ll try it; if not, I’ll wait until next time around. I did find such a version, and thus I downloaded and installed it.

Two False Positives, One Gone

Even though I got to a new version of FileZilla, it wasn’t new enough to satisfy SUMo (it shows up in the app as version 3.60.0.0 rather than 3.60.0.1, despite its own self-labeling). But that’s close enough for me.

AFAI can tell, there is no such Everything version as 1.4.1.1017 — or at least, I couldn’t find it. Again, given the auto-updater’s response in the application, good enough for me.

Downloading and installing the Wired_PROSet_27.3_x64.zip file did clear the PROSet warning, though. Again: good enough for me.

I’ll waste no more time obsessing, and let my OCD find something else to obsess about instead. Basta!

Insider stuff, Networking, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Manual OneDrive Update

May 30, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Late last week, SUMo (Software Update Monitor) informed me that the version of OneDrive on the home-from-school PC was outdated. It didn’t update itself, nor did any of my usual update tools handle this item either. Thus, I found myself asking: “How do I perform a manual OneDrive Update?” The answer, quite fortunately, is: “Easy!”

Working Through Manual OneDrive Update

If you right-click the OneDrive cloud symbol in the taskbar notification area, a menu appears. Click “Settings” from that menu (shown in the lead-in graphic for this story).

Next, click the “About” tab at the upper left of the resulting OneDrive window. If you the click on the version number in the “About Microsoft OneDrive” pane (boxed in red below), it takes you to the OneDrive release notes page.

The Build number clues you into what’s running on the target PC.

From there, you can compare the version number for the installed version (shown in your UI) and the “Last released build” under the “Production ring” heading on the web page. If the numbers agree, you’re up to date. If the on-web version is higher numbered than the local one, click the link to download the OneDriveSetup.exe file. You need only double-click that file to bring your OneDrive version current. Easy-peasey!

Ordinarily, OneDrive takes care of itself just fine. But if you find a PC with an out-of-date version — even a way out-of-date as on the former school laptop — this technique will catch you up quickly and easily. Cheers!

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

X12 Hybrid Tablet 25120 Issues Continue

May 23, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then, I just updated from Build 25120.1000 to 25120.1010 on both of my test machines. In what’s becoming an emerging pattern, the X380 Yoga sailed through the process. OTOH, the X12 Hybrid tablet PC did not. Hence my assertion that my X12 Hybrid Tablet 25120 issues continue unabated. They’re weird, but they don’t last long. Let me explain…

Why Say: X12 Hybrid Tablet 25120 Issues Continue

This time around, I saw similar weirdnesses with 8GadgetPack after the reboot to the desktop on 25120.1010. But because I RDP’ed into that PC anyway, it looks like things fixed themselves as a result of that maneuver. Makes me wonder if my earlier repairs were really necessary. I’m killing my RDP session right now to check the desktop locally…

Indeed, everything looks normal from both a local and an RDP vantage point. But getting to the desktop this time around was time-consuming. The post-GUI restart took 25-30 minutes to complete vs. a more typical 5 minutes or 20. Post-GUI seemed to take the same amount of time, though — about 5 more minutes.

Where Things Get Weird

In fact, the post-GUI reboot didn’t complete until AFTER I’d disconnected the Thunderbolt 3 dock I use on that PC for external storage and a wired GbE connection. Once the PC got to the desktop, I reconnected the dock. Immediately, the OS recognized the dock and its drives. As the following graphic shows, it also reports what it sees correctly:

Eventually, after disconnecting the Thunderbolt dock, post-GUI reboot completes, as does the update

Of course, there’s only one way to show my possible diagnosis is correct. When the next CU or upgrade comes along in the Dev Channel, I’ll disconnect the dock before I start that process. If it completes normally, that’ll demonstrate the dock is a potential culprit. If I still have problems, I’ll know it’s something else. Stay tuned: I’ll let you know. It’s interesting and weird, whatever it is…

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

Kindle Update Problem Solved

May 18, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Huh! In past discussions of update handling tools such as PatchMyPC and SuMO, I’ve complained about the difficulties that keeping Kindle up-to-date posed for me. Ha! Ha! The joke’s on me this time, because there really is NO such problem. There are a few wrinkles, however, even though I now find my Kindle update problem solved. Let me explain…

How I Got My Kindle Update Problem Solved

As it turns out, Kindle will happily update itself for you. But you have to go about it the right way. And you must keep at it until you get to the latest version. This requires understanding how Kindle update works, which is something it took me some experimenting to learn. Let me share:

1. As you can see from the lead-in graphic for this story, Kindle includes an automatic update feature amidst its various options. That said: YOU MUST LAUNCH the Kindle for PC application before the update function will run. Duh!

2. Kindle does not automatically or necessarily update to the latest and greatest version. It seems to update incrementally from the current installed version to the next available version. That just happened on my X12 Hybrid Tablet, where it took me from version 1.34.63103 (Jan 2022) to 1.35.64251 (Apr 2022), even though version 1.36.65107 (May 2022) was also available.

3. If you find yourself trailing behind the latest and greatest version after an auto-update, open and close the Kindle for PC application again. This will repeat the auto-update process. In my case that got me caught up. My guess is that this could take multiple iterations for those running more seriously out-of-date Kindle for PC versions.

This sure beats my previous approach, which had me visiting the Amazon store to “buy” (it’s free) whatever version was current then, and then to install it over the older version on my target PC. This is a whole lot easier…

The Secret: Run the App!

All this said, the secret to keeping Kindle for PC updated is to run the app as part of your update check cycle. Because the default setting is to “Automatically install…” as it shows in the lead-in screencap, the software does the rest. Wish I’d known this sooner, but glad to know it now. Case closed!

Now, if only Nitro Pro worked the same way I’d be free of my last hold-out “must update manually” program. Sigh.

Note Added One Day Later

As the following screencap shows, the PowerShell winget command is “smart” enough to update Kindle without opening the app. Check this out!

Another great reason to use winget for updating Windows PCs: it will update Kindle without opening the app!
[Click image for full-size view.]

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

Yoga 7 BIOS Confusion

May 4, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Looking over Windows news this morning, I was concerned to read reports regarding BIOS problems on some Lenovo Legion laptops. For many such devices, the Lenovo Vantage app is the tool of choice for BIOS, firmware, driver and other system updates. Even though I own no Legion-labeled Lenovos, I’ve got 5 other Lenovo laptops in my office right now. Indeed, I found my own small issue amidst that pack: let me call it Yoga 7 BIOS confusion, so I can explain what’s up.

If you look at the lead-in image above, you’ll see that Vantage wants to update the BIOS. However, upon closer inspection the version of BIOS it wants to install (box at center right, from Vantage Device details) is the version already in place (Speccy info at bottom right). What gives?

Explaining Yoga 7 BIOS Confusion

If I click on the details that Lenovo provides with the Vantage update recommendation, I get this pop-up message: Oho! It’s not because the wrong version is installed; it’s because the tool can’t detect the version info. But Speccy cheerfully — and accurately — found that data (see lead-in graphic). Thus, I have to conclude there are unknown but obvious issues with BIOS update functions in Lenovo Vantage. I’m reporting this to Lenovo through their bug reporting channels.

Just for grins, I checked the Store to see if a Vantage update might be available. It was. And upon running the tool again, it also upgraded its underlying services. Another check for updates took some time to complete, but eventually produced the same recommendation shown above.

Knowing Why Helps, But Not Enough…

It’s great to understand why the tool is recommending a spurious update. It saves from spending the same to apply same unnecessarily. On the whole, I’d rather it were fixed by the most recent update to version 10.2204.14.0. But that’s the way things sometimes go here in Windows-World. I hope my little exercise can help to shed a little light on how to check if the updates that Vantage recommends are really needed.

I won’t be updating my BIOS until a version comes along that’s different from the one that’s currently installed. FWIW, I recommend you do likewise. Cheers!

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

KB5012643 Safe Mode Bug Gets KIR

May 2, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

What on earth does this article title mean? Glad you asked! KIR stands for Known Issue Rollback. Once a Windows 11 PC gets the cited KB installed, it may not run properly if booted into Safe Mode (no networking). MS suggests in its Known Issues discussion that users boot into Safe Mode with Networking. This avoids looping Explorer crashes that otherwise cause screen flickering. Hopefully, the title now makes sense. KB5012643 Safe Mode bug gets KIR means MS will automatically apply a rollback of the offending feature to PCs that tag WU servers. A reboot is required for the fix to do its thing.

When KB5012643 Safe Mode Bug Gets KIR, What Happens?

You can learn more about Known Issue Rollback in a Windows IT Pro Blog post from March 2021. It’s entitled “Known Issue Rollback: Helping you keep Windows devices protected and productive.” Here’s what this item states. KIR “… is an important Windows servicing improvement to support non-security bug fixes, enabling us to quickly revert a single, targeted fix to a previously released behavior if a critical regression is discovered.” In simpler terms, MS can tell WU to back out individual update package components.

Behind the scenes, policy settings either enable or disable code paths for “before” or “after” versions of code. If the “after” version is enabled, the update applies; if the “before” version is enabled, it reverts to the previous version.

Here’s how it works, quoted from the afore-linked post:

When Microsoft decides to rollback a bug fix in an update because of a known issue, we make a configuration change in the cloud. Devices connected to Windows Update or Windows Update for Business are notified of this change and it takes effect with the next reboot.

This is depicted in the lead-in graphic for this story.

Read the Post for More Deets…

There’s lots of great discussion in the Known Issue Rollback blog post. If you remain curious about its workings and capabilities, check it out. There’s also a much more technical exploration of KIRs from annoopcnair.com available for those who really want to get into the weeds. It covers details about managing and filtering group policies, and working with the KIR Policy Definitions Setup Wizard. I didn’t know you could do that, so that makes this good stuff!