Category Archives: Windows 10

Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows tools

Zoom Updates and Payment

October 20, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting set of observations. In the past weeks, I’ve noticed that the free version of Zoom no longer offers the “Check for Updates” option in its menus. I’ve also noticed that Zoom has been asking free users to “upgrade” to the for-a-fee pay version. That got me to thinking about Zoom updates and payment. So I conducted an experiment…

What About Zoom Updates and Payment?

I went ahead and signed up for an individual Zoom license. It’s assessed annually, and costs about US$185 per year. Right now, the first year is discounted, so my actual out-of-pocket was “only” US$95.88. But it renews automatically at full price one year from today. Ouch!

That said, as I suspected — and as you can see in the lead-in graphic above — if you do pay for Zoom, you also get the Check for Updates option back. That raises the interesting question: is automatic updating worth US$95 (this year) or US$185 yearly? I’m not convinced.

There IS Another (Free) Way

If you don’t mind running a few Winget commands, you can keep the free version and update as you need to. FYI, I use SUMo to tell me when it’s time to update, but because I don’t pay for a license to that software on all my PCs, I’ve figured out how to use Winget to handle that instead.

The basic concept is to uninstall the version that’s running. Then, if you install Zoom again it will grab the latest version. That results in an up-to-date version on your PC. Two simple one-liner commands are involved:

Winget uninstall Zoom.Zoom
Winget install Zoom.Zoom

That’s it. Works like a champ. Be sure to keep your sign-in account and password info handy, because you’ll need to sign into the newly installed version after going through this remove/replace operation.

But you can keep using the free version, and stay current, if you follow this simple two-step operation. That’s probably what I’ll revert to next year, when my renewal comes due. To be continued…

It’s Irksome, and Potentially Insecure

C’mon Zoom: this approach is potentially unsafe for lots of users who SHOULD be free (e.g. students, seniors, nonprofit workers, and so on). Sure, it may be an inducement for some people (me, for example) to purchase a commercial license so as to regain auto-update ability. But the vast majority of free users who have no choice but to stay put should not be exposed to potential security vulnerabilities in the name of (modest) incremental revenues.

My plea/request: return the automatic updates to the free version! Find a different way to increment your income, please, in the name of better overall application security.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, USB devices, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

USB NVMe HW Tweak Delivers Big

October 14, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’m still noodling about, trying to figure how to get the best performance out of high end USB NVMe drive enclosures. To that end, I was reminded of something I already knew but hadn’t considered. That is: deep down in the hardware policies for Windows removable devices — including NVMe drives — is something called “Removal policy.” As a quick and easy item, this USB NVMe HW tweak delivers big results.

Those results appear in the lead-in graphic for this story. Both sets of CrystalDiskMark results come from the same system, same USB-C port, and the same NVMe hardware. The only difference is that one is tweaked (selected “Better Performance”) and one is not. As you can see, this tweak makes a big difference. (Hint: the left-hand item shows tweaked results.)

How-To: Set Up NVMe HW Tweak Delivers Big

This takes a bit of digging to get into. This properties page is several levels deep in the storage device properties hierarchy. There are multiple ways to get to this page. I’ll illustrate one with step-by-step instructions using Disk Management:

1. Use Winkey+X to open the quick access menu.
2. Select Disk Management.
3. Right-click the drive letter for the NVMe device, then select Properties.
4. On the General tab, click the Properties button at lower right.
5. On that General tab, click the “Change Settings” button at lower left.
6. Click the Policies tab on the resulting Properties page, and click the radio button next to “Better Performance.” Also, click “Enable write caching on the device.”

Here’s what that final page looks like, with the described selections made:

This page is four levels deep into the device properties hierarchy. It offers a useful “Better Performance” option.

What About Those Results?

I built a spreadsheet using both sets of results. Note that for every cell in each set of results, the tweaked drive was faster than the untweaked one. Some of the differences are negligible (under 10%). Some are minor, but noticeable (under 35%). The entire write column, however, offers at least doubled speed (top two columns). The random writes are 30 times faster when one thread works against a queue depth of 32. That drops to “merely” 11 times faster for a single thread and a single write request. Amazing!

Tweak(R)	Tw(W)	Notweak (R)	Notw(W)	Delta (R)	Delta (W)
3049.53	2898.59	3004.07	1326.67	101.51%	218.49%
1760.91	2020.40	1620.99	857.20	108.63%	235.70%
499.74	361.83	411.16	12.00	121.54%	3015.25%
50.92	110.77	38,74	9.52	131.44%	1163.55%

This represents a significant boost in performance for a quick settings tweak. It does mean, though, that you must use the “Safe Eject” tool in the notification bar to eject the drive before you can disconnect it. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll simply do it the next time the host PC is rebooting (best done right when the restart gets underway, after shutdown is complete).

But gosh! Consider the money for a fast-ish NVMe drive (about US$120 – 150 for the 1 TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus). Then, factor in US$150-170 for a fast, USB4 NVMe enclosure. The tweak takes under a minute and really helps with drive performance. If you spend the money, you need to spend the time and effort to apply the tweak. You’ll get the most from your investment that way.

Realworld Results Change

Untweaked, it takes Macrium Reflect 5:30 to image the system drive on the P16 Mobile Workstation where the USB4 NVMe drive is attached. Tweaked, that same drive finished the job in 2:25. That’s over twice as fast. To me, that’s much more meaningful than synthetic benchmark results like those from CystalDiskMark. It also shows those benchmark results have some truth to them as well. Good-oh!

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

Fixing Windows 10 WinKey-X

October 12, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I don’t remember anymore how I shot myself in the foot this particular time. All I know is that I somehow removed all traces of PowerShell from the WinKey+X menu on my Windows10 production PC. The lead-in graphic shows that menu from my ancient Surface Pro 3, also still running Windows 10. Recently, I’ve found myself fixing Windows 10 Winkey-X because I want it to show Windows Terminal.

After Some Fumbles, I’m Fixing Windows 10 WinKey-X

If you search on “customizing WinKey+X menu” you’ll find lots of information and advice available. Initially, I was beguiled by Sergey Tkachenko’s WinX Editor. I should’ve known better: it hasn’t been updated since 2017.

A key ingredient in modifying the WinKey+X menu, as it turns out, turns on using the latest version of Rafael Rivera’s hashlnk.exe program. Basically, it creates hash values and associated them with menu shortcuts, so the OS treats the entries in the following path correctly:

%LocalAppdata%\Microsoft\Windows\WinX

The sub-folder “Group3” is where my specific shortcut had to go. But it didn’t work without using the latest (2.0) version of hashlnk. And because WinX Editor doesn’t use that version, it doesn’t work, either.

TenForums to the Rescue

As with many other topics in the Windows world, I found my fix in the TenForums Tutorials. This particular one is called Add Custom Shortcuts to Win+X Quick Link Menu in Windows 10. I followed its guidance, step-by-step, and got an admin version of Windows Terminal installed in my WinKey+X menu without undue difficulty.

As is often the case in fixing Windows issues, it took much longer to find the right solution than it did to implement it. I think we’re talking about an hour-plus of fumbling around and failed attempts before I turned to my unusually reliable and intelligible TenForums resource. Sigh. That’s the way things go around here sometimes….

Here’s what my Winkey+X menu looks like now, with my desired entry up top.

After going through the motions I get a Windows Terminal entry with admin privileges (reads “Term (Admin)”).

I have long been a proponent of Ten Forums and ElevenForum tutorials. This doesn’t change that stance at all. In fact, it strengthens it!

Backup/Restore, Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Uncategorized, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

HDDs Still Have Their Uses

October 11, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Hmmmm. Just saw a fascinating story at Neowin.net. It provides links to some low-cost deals for hard disk drives (HDDs) that range in size from 3 to 14 TB, with prices from US$60 (3TB) to US$210 (14 TB). I’m not endorsing the brand (WD) or the deals (listed from Amazon and — in some instances — Newegg). But I am amazed at just how cheap conventional hard disks can be today. And because HDDs still have their uses — particularly for archiving and spare backups — buying may make sense.

Economics Also Verify That HDDs Still Have Their Uses

I’m struck by the contrast between HDD and NVMe prices, especially for 4 and 8 TB devices. Looking at Amazon, I see that 4TB NVMe drives go for US$460 and up, with most top-end devices just below or over US$600. When you can find them (not easy), 8TB devices cost from just under US$1,200 to around US$1,500 or so.

The comparison to HDD is pretty stark. The Neowin story cites prices of US$70 for 4, and US$130 for 8 TB. Do the math to figure out the ratios. The 4TB NVMes cost between 6.57 and 8.57 times as much as their HDD counterparts. 8TB models run between 9.23 and 11.53 times as much.

Of course, denser solid-state devices are much more expensive to make. Though higher-capacity HDDs have more platters, achieving denser storage doesn’t magnify costs anywhere near as much. In fact, the HDD cost increment for going from 8TB to 10TB is US$30, and from 8TB to 14TB US$80. That clearly shows the incremental cost of storage is much, much cheaper for HDDs than SSDs.

But given the mind-blowing costs for higher capacity NVMe devices, they’re not going to replace HDDs completely any time soon. They simply cost too much to justify wholesale switchovers. Nobody’s going to use HDDs for serious, real-time workloads any more. They have no place as system drives, either. But for other applications where high capacity trumps I/O performance, they still have a vital role to play. And that explains why I still have over 40TB of spinning storage myself, much of it idle as “backups for my backups.”

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

ThinkPad Universal Thunderbolt4 Dock

October 10, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

It must be because I asked Lenovo for gear to test Thunderbolt4 and USB4. Last week another unexpected and unnanounced device showed up at the door. This time, it was a brand-new ThinkPad Universal Thunderbolt4 Dock. From what I’ve seen so far it has a lot going for it — especially price (relatively speaking, that is).

Why Is TB4/USB4 Gear So Costly?

Before I dig into the details on the mostly excellent ThinkPad Universal Thunderbolt4 dock, I must rant a bit. I’ve got 3 TB4 docks here at the house right now. The Lenovo unit is the cheapest by US$70-plus (that’s a good thing). But all of them cost over US$300, and two of them are at or over the US$400 mark. That stings!

I’ve been looking at a lot of NVMe enclosures that support USB4 lately, too (they work with TB4 controllers, BTW). These puppies cost even more. That means US$80 – 100 more than the cost of decent-to-high quality USB3.1 NVMe enclosures. I’m talking US$30-50 versus US$130-160. That’s a big difference!

One usually pays a premium to climb onto the bleeding edge of technology. And right now, TB4/USB4 is as fast as external devices get. Given a PC that supports these interfaces, I still don’t understand why climbing aboard this latest technology wave incurs such a hefty buy-in. Sigh.

More About ThinkPad Universal Thunderbolt4 Dock

Now that I’ve set the stage for describing and exploring this device, more of what I have to say should make sense. Indeed, this Lenovo dock is a relative bargain among all the TB4 docks I’ve tested so far. That is, with an MSRP of US$322, it costs US$77 less than the Belkin Pro Thunderbolt 4 dock. It enjoys the same price differential when compared to the CalDigit TS4 dock but that device keeps selling out, and is only immediately obtained on eBay for US$500-600!

Thus, the Lenovo Device has a definite price advantage in this very narrow product niche. See this Amazon Search for a fairly good list of the whole product range right now. From what I can tell, Lenovo offers the best price currently available for these kinds of devices.

Here’s a short list of ThinkPad Universal TB4 Dock features and functions (see product page for complete specs):

Handles up to 4 external monitors, up to 8K total resolution (1x8K display @ 30Hz or 4x4K display @ 60 Hz via 2xfull-size DP 1.4, 1xfull-size HDMI 2.1, 1xUSB-C)
2 40Gbps Thunderbolt4 ports (one for computer in, one for other uses)
4xUSB-A 3.1 ports and 1xUSB-C (may be used for video, as already indicated)
135W external power brick, up to 100W available for charging
RJ-45 GbE (Intel I225-LMvP circuitry)
Audio mini-jack for headphones or external audio hookup
Universal computer lock port for attaching locked cable
Dimensions 220x80x30 mm (8.66×3.15×1.18″)

The Lenovo dock even downloads and handles its own Windows drivers with reasonable aplomb and dispatch. I found it loaded up its own USB Audio driver (under Sound, video and game controllers). It also updated the local Thunderbolt controller driver to a newer version after hook-up.

Stacking Up the Hubs

My testing so far puts all 3 docks — Lenovo, CalDigit, and Belkin — into the same overall performance range for USB4 and Thunderbolt 4 devices. That said, the CalDigit device offers 18 ports including GbE and 2.5 GbE RJ-45 networking hook-ups and SD flash device slots. If you can find one and need that extra functionality, that may make it worth the extra cost. Likewise, the Belkin device also supports a full-size SD slot and dual USB-A 2.0 slots, which may or may not make a different.

By comparison, I’d give the Lenovo device a “Best Buy” rating right now. If you don’t need SD support or lots of (different) USB-A ports, it can handle what you need. I have no difficulty using it as a docking station for a Lenovo X12 hybrid laptop with external mouse, keyboard, and two or three external storage devices. It also works well with HDMI or DP to drive an external Dell U2717 monitor.

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

Advanced IP Scanner Worth Using

September 30, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

For years now, I’ve been a huge fan of Nir Sofer’s software tools. Along the way, I’ve often used his NetBIOS Scanner (NetBScanner). It shows me which IP addresses Windows PCs occupy. Two weeks ago, I noticed PatchMyPC supports a tool named Advanced IP Scanner. I’ve now tried it out. I can say I totally find Advanced IP Scanner worth using. It appears as this story’s lead graphic, in fact.

This NetBScanner output shows only Windows and other devices with NetBIOS names; Advanced IP Scanner (top) shows EVERYTHING IP.

If Advanced IP Scanner Worth Using, What About NetBScanner?

Once I started using the former, I immediately saw the limitations of the latter. Simply put, NetBScanner shows only 8 entries; Advanced IP scanner shows 18. It even includes devices that lack NetBIOS names but participate in the LAN (e.g. my ASUS WAP, my thermostats, and my TV). Better still, it shows the IP addresses that some of my PCs (laptops, mostly) use for Wi-Fi and GbE, along with which one is live at present and which one is unused (e.g. X380).

There’s more: as I was troubleshooting my PING and RDP issues earlier this week, I learned to make use of the right-click tools it offers for devices whose IP addresses it shows. You can access its maker’s own Radmin utility to jump directly into its version of remote administration of anything showing.

To me, though, the right-click Tools menu is both interesting and helpful. Shown above this paragraph, it lets you run a variety of commands in a cmd.exe window against the highlighted item. I used it to run PING tests point-to-point on my LAN and eventually got everything working. It also turns out to be a handy way to launch RDP as well.

Remember: Cools Tools Rule

I’ve come to like this free, informative and easy-to-use utility enough to add it to my top tier Windows tools collection. I call these “Cool Tools.” For me, they are essential items in my administration and troubleshooting toolbox. If you try Advanced IP Scanner out, I predict you’ll want to add it to your lineup, too.

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, USB devices, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Flash Drive Goes Incredibly Slowly

September 26, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’ s an interesting item. Last week, when trying to troubleshoot the graphics driver on the Lenovo P360 Ultra SFF PC, I ran into an interesting follow-on issue. I decided to copy the “old driver” file to a flash drive to take it upstairs where the unit lives (networking issues temporarily kept me from using RDP, as is my more typical practice). And gosh, I couldn’t help but notice my Mushkin Atom flash drive goes incredibly slowly when copying that 649K file. The deets, courtesy of File Explorer, provide the lead-in graphic for this story.

If Flash Drive Goes Incredibly Slowly, Then What?

Just for grins, I plugged in an older USB3 mSATA device and copied the target file again. Despite its antique vintage (2014 or thereabouts) it beat the snot out of the flash drive. As you can see in the next screencap, it achieved a data rate of 236 MB/sec. That’s a whale of a lot faster than the paltry 12.5 MB/sec shown in the lead-in graphic.

The SSD-based USB device is more than 18 times faster than the flash-based device. Wow!

What does this say? It says that older mSATA SSDs are worth keeping as a much speedier alternative to flash drives. Back when I bought the Sabrent enclosures in which my 3 mSATA drives are housed — I have one each 256, 512 and 1,024 MB devices — I paid US$60 or thereabouts to buy them. Now, you can pick them up at Amazon for US$14.

For US$14, you can move files around a whole lot faster!

To me, that’s money incredibly well spent, given the half-dozen or so mSATA drives I still have kicking around here. If you’ve got one or more sitting idle, this would be a smart buy for you, too.

Note Added 2 Hrs Later: Cheaper Than Flash!

You can buy a 256GB mSATA SSD for under US$30 right now. That makes the total price around US$45 for enclosure and drive. That’s about 3X what you’ll pay for a 128 GB flash drive, and less than some “faster” 256 GB flash drives cost. To me, this argues even more strongly that this is a good way to boost your USB storage arsenal without breaking the bank.

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

Thunderbolt Software Upgrade Strategy

September 22, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

At first I thought “Catch-22.” Those using PCs old enough to run Intel’s Thunderbolt Software have reason to ponder Heller’s famous catch. An updated replacement — namely, Thunderbolt Control Center — is available from the Microsoft Store. But if you run Thunderbolt Software, it doesn’t show up there. Nor is there an easy upgrade path. That’s why, in fact, I had to come with a Thunderbolt Software upgrade strategy.

Finding a Thunderbolt Software Upgrade Strategy

All I can say is “I got lucky.” I chose as my search string to dig into this topic “Thunderbolt Software vs. Thunderbolt Control Center.” It immediately struck gold in a Forum post from Mac/PC oriented website egpu.io. There, those same terms appeared in inverted order.

There’s a trick involved in making this upgrade. It works as follows: if one downloads newer DCH drivers for the Thunderbolt device in DevMgr → System Devices, updating that driver causes Windows 11 (or 10, for that matter) to update the related software automatically. It’s actually pretty easy. I’m going to upgrade my remaining holdover system (one of my Lenovo X380 Yogas, acquired in late 2018) and take you through the steps involved.

NOTE:For a Thunderbolt device to show up in DevMgr, you may need to plug in an actual Thunderbolt or USB4 device. That’s what I had to do on each of my three 2018 vintage systems that needed this upgrade.

Making the Transition, Step-by-Step

Step 1: Visit this Intel Download page and download the ZIP file available there. Don’t be put off by the NUC notation: I’ve run in on a Yoga 380 and an X1 Extreme, and it worked on both systems. It seems to work on any Intel Thunderbolt controller.

Step 2: Unzip the file into a target directory. I named mine TBdev to make it easy to identify.

Contents of the ZIP file in the V:\TBdev folder. The INF folder is where the action will be.

Step 3: Open DevMgr, navigate to the Thunderbolt controller, right-click, and pick “Update driver.” In the resulting pop-up window, pick “Browse my computer for drivers “(lower item). Browse to your TBdev\INF folder, as shown here, then click “Next.”

Click “Next” and the driver should update itself from the various files in the INF folder.

If this process succeeds, you’ll see something like the following Window appear.

Guess what? If this worked, you’re finished. Windows will now visit the MS Store on its own and install the Thunderbolt Control Center app for you. Until you next reboot your PC, you’ll see both the old software and the new side-by-side if you type “Thu” into the Windows 11 (or 10) search box:

Old (Thunderbolt software) on the left, new (Thunderbolt Control Center) on the right. Only TCC will work, tho…

After the next reboot, Thunderbolt Software no longer appears. Case closed!

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

Thinking About Windows 10/11 SSDs

September 20, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’m still busy benchmarking away on the two Thunderbolt4/USB4 PCs that Lenovo has recently sent my way. But as I’ve been doing so, I’ve been thinking about Windows 10/11 SSDs in general. On that path, I’ve realized certain principles that I’d like to share with you, dear readers.

I’m spurred in part to these statements from a sponsored (and pretty contrived) story from MSPowerUser entitled “Is NVMe a Good Choice for Gamers?” My instant response, without reading the story — which actually focuses on storage media beyond the boot/system drive — was “Yes, as much as you can afford.” Spoiler alert: that’s what the story says, too.

Where Thinking About Windows 10/11 SSDs Leads….

Here are some storage media principles that flow from making the most of a new PC investment.

The more you spend on a PC, the more worthwhile it is to also spend more on NVMe storage.
Right now, PCIe Gen4 drives run about 2X the speed of PCIe Gen3 drives. They don’t cost quite twice as much. Simple economics says: buy the fastest NVMe technology your PC will support.
Buy as much NVMe storage as you can afford (or force yourself to spend). For pre-built PCs and laptops, you may want to buy NVMe on the aftermarket, rather than get the drives pre-installed. Markup on NVMe drives can be painful. Hint: I use Tom’s Hardware to keep up with price/performance info on NVMe SSDs and other PC components (it’s also the source for the lead-in graphic for this story, which still prominently displays the now-passe Intel Optane as an SSD option. Caveat emptor!).
Corollary to the preceding point: fill every M.2 slot you can in your build. For both my recent Lenovo loaners — the P360 Ultra and the P16 Mobile Workstation — that means populating both slots with up to 4TB each. Right now, the Kingston KC3000 looks like a 4TB best buy of sorts.

Thinking Further (and Outside the Box)

More thoughts in this vein, with an eye toward external drives and multi-tiered storage (archives and extra backups):

If you’re going to put an NVMe SSD in an external enclosure, you will be OK for the time being in a USB 3.2 rather than a USB 4 enclosure. Right now, the newer enclosures cost more than twice as much but don’t deliver anywhere near 2x the speed (except on synthetic benchmarks — I used C: imaging times as a more reliable indicator). Over time this will no doubt change, and I’ll keep an eye on that, too.
I don’t consider spinners (conventional mechanical hard disk drives, or HDDs) any more, except for archival and inactive storage. If I need something for work or play, it goes on an SSD. If I might need something, someday (or to restore same) then it’s ok on an HDD.

I used to restrain spending on NVMe SSDs because of its high price differential. I’m now inclined to believe that restraint is a false economy and forces less productivity as a result. That’s why I’m rethinking my philosophy. I haven’t quite yet gotten to Les Blanc’s famous dictum (“Spend It All”) but I am coming around to “Spend As Much as You Can”…

Remember This Fundamental Assumption, Tho…

My reasoning aims at high-end PCs where users run data-, graphics-, and/or compute-intensive workloads. It does not apply, therefore, to home, hobbyist, and low-end office users. For them typical productivity apps (e.g. MS Office or equivalent), email, web browsing and so forth predominate. They wouldn’t need, nor benefit much from, buying lots of fast NVMe storage. That said, a 1 TB fast-as-possible NVMe for the boot/system drive is the baseline. Other storage options will balance themselves against budget to dictate other choices and PC builds for such users.

In different terms, if you’re not maxing out your PC running data analytics, 3D models and other high-end graphics rendering, or AI or machine learning stuff, this advice is most likely overkill. Too, too costly. But for this user community, more spent on NVMe (and GPUs and memory as well) will repay itself with increased productivity. ‘Nuff said.

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

Accidental Pause Kills In-Process Updates

September 15, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I just learned something I didn’t really want to know. I “oopsed” my way into pausing updates on a Dev Channel test PC this morning. As I did so, the download for Build 25201 was underway, as was the install for KB5017257 (CU for .NET 3.5 and 4.8.1). Alas, this accidental pause kills in-process updates. Thus, I had to restart to apply all the other stuff that had finished, then un-pause updates. Next, I had to redownload Build 25201. Both installed correctly, and another reboot finished the job.

Living with Accidental Pause Kills In-Process Updates

Oh well. If that’s the worst thing that happens to me today, it will still be a good day. What I didn’t know was that in-process items would come to a screeching halt. That’s because I’d never accidentally clicked “Pause for 1 week” during the update process before. Sigh.

Hopefully, alert readers can profit from my mistake without having to learn the hard way for themselves. Tip: stay away from the “Pause…” button while updates are in process. That’s the best way I can think of to skip the whole learning experience entirely.

Compounding the Mistake…

Because I hadn’t yet applied last week’s Patch Tuesday updates to the affected machine, as well as pending Dev Channel build 25201, this was a pretty big update cycle for that machine. I count 1 driver update, 2 Definition updates, and 3 “Other” updates among that number, as well as the items already recited.

But alas, that’s the way things sometimes go in Windows World. Fumble fingers got me pretty good this time. Hopefully, we’ll all be exempt from this particular gotcha going forward. Sigh.