Category Archives: Windows 10

Overlapping Taskbars Get Easy Fix

Here’s an interesting one. In running RDP sessions on my Windows 10 (Build 19044.1682) desktop, the local taskbar suddenly started covering the remote session taskbar. This happened immediately after I installed the latest Preview CU (KB5011831), and proved mildly bothersome. Once I figured out how to properly describe the problem, such overlapping taskbars get easy fix. This is another case where restarting Explorer in the host session’s Task Manager does the trick.

As often happens, finding a solution requires a proper problem statement. I used the search string “taskbar from windows 10 host session covers RDP session taskbar.” It was close enough for me to find numerous discussions, and to find a fix posted in January 2017.

How-to: Overlapping Taskbars Get Easy Fix

For those not already in the know, here’s  a step-by-step recitation of the “Restart Explorer” drill:

1. Open the Taskbar on the host PC (on Windows 10, right-clicking the taskbar produces a pop-up menu that includes Task manager; on Windows 10 or 11, CTRL-Shift-ESC opens it right up).

2. On the Processes pane find an instance of Windows Explorer. Right-click the item and Restart appears in the resulting pop-up menu. Click Restart to shut down and restart the Explorer process.

3. Wait a while: the taskbar will disappear. Then, its contents will reappear, sometimes rapidly, sometimes more slowly (never takes more than 20 seconds on any of my PCs, though).

When that process is complete, the host taskbar should obligingly disappear when you work in the RDP session window. At least, that’s how it works on my Windows 10 production desktop now. If the problem recurs, repeat the foregoing steps.

Not much to it, really. But good to know, should you ever find yourself in that situation. Cheers!

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Resuscitated Windows Welcomes Require Notification Reset

OK, then. I did some “weekend admin” work around the house yesterday. That included installing recent CUs on a couple of holdout Windows 10 PCs. Soon thereafter, I found myself facing the “Let’s finish up…” item shown in the lead-in graphic above. “Hmmm” I found myself thinking. “I vaguely recall there’s an easy way to turn this off.” And indeed, some CUs means that these resuscitated Windows welcomes require Notification reset. Let me explain…

Why Do Resuscitated Windows Welcomes Require Notification Reset?

Apparently, when certain CUs (or an upgrade) gets installed, it resets related notifications in Start → Settings → System → Notifications & actions: see checkboxes under notifications in the following screencap.

Resuscitated Windows Welcomes Require Notification Reset.settings.system

By default all boxes are checked; I routinely uncheck the lower three as shown here.

How Often Does This Happen?

It can happen after some Cumulative Updates. You won’t know until it pops up (literally). It DOES happen after every upgrade, though you’ll see a different screen instead. This one is labeled “Welcome to Windows” as shown next.

This item is turned off when the first of the three unchecked boxes above is unchecked. It’s another one of those things that repeat experience with Windows teaches. But in my case, it happens infrequently enough that I have to refresh my memory with an online search about half the time when it shows up. Sigh.

What About Windows 11?

As far as I can tell, Windows 11 appears exempt from both kinds of “nag screen” — as certain, disgruntled Windows 10 users sometimes label these displays. I guess that’s a good thing, eh?

[Note: thanks to Mayank Pamar at WindowsLatest. His April 25 story Windows 10’s full screen setup nag returns – here’s how to disable it showed up this morning, just after I’d looked this info up yesterday. He’d obviously run into the same thing I did. That’s how things go sometimes, here in Windows-World. Thanks!]

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Three Windows Update Repair Tips

Recent reporting on the latest Patch Tuesday (April 13) includes mention of issues with completing Cumulative Updates (CUs). Thus, for example, check out this WindowsLatest item dated April 22. Entitled Watch out for these issues in Windows 11 KB5012592 & Windows 10 KB5012599 it mentions various errors would-be updaters could encounter. It also mentions two tried-and-true recovery/repair techniques, to which I’ll add a suggestion of my own. Thus, I provide three Windows Update repair tips for your consideration and use.

Here Are Three Windows Update Repair Tips

Note: all these tips work equally well for both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Use ’em with my blessing in the order provided. In my personal experience they’ll cover most update issues people are likely to encounter.

Tip1: Simple Reboot

That’s right. If a CU update fails to complete, the first strategy is to reboot the PC, and try again. Believe it or not, that is sometimes all that’s needed to get things working.

Tip2: Shift-Shutdown

If you hold down the Shift key while you select the Shutdown option in Windows 10 or 11, it forces what’s sometimes called a “full shutdown.” This forces Windows to close all opened apps and applications. It also logs out any logged-in accounts. At the same time, a full shutdown performs neither a hybrid shutdown nor will it hibernate your PC.

Hibernation saves open documents and running applications to the %systemdrive% and copies them back into RAM upon restart, to speed that process along and let you pick up where you left off. That’s NOT desirable when fixing WU issues.

A hybrid shutdown hibernates the kernel session (what the OS is doing) and shuts down everything else. This supports Fast Boot capabilities on the subsequent reboot process to speed it up. It’s enough like hibernation that it too, is NOT desirable when fixing WU issues.

Tip3: Reset WU

Although the tutorial “Reset Windows Update…” appears on TenForums, it works equally well for Windows 11. Basically, it involves running a batch file that stops all update related services, resets all the update related registry keys, then restarts all the update related services it stopped. Surprisingly, it works like a charm. I routinely keep this batch file on many of my Windows 10 and 11 desktops. As it has worked for me both long and well, so it can also do for you.

If None of the Above Works, Then What?

Alas, in some cases, none of the aforementioned fixes will work. Next thing I’d consider would be an in-place repair install (covered in this equally handy tutorial). After that, more dire measures including a clean install and/or a trip to the shop might be warranted. In my 30-plus years of “messing with Windows” that has happened to me exactly twice. One of these occurrences happened less than two weeks ago (see this post for details). Odds are, therefore, it shouldn’t happen to you. Fingers crossed!  One of them was pretty recent, after all…

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Printer IPv4 Address Produces Reports

Here’s something I just learned that I should’ve known years ago. Turns out that if you type in a specially formatted version of any printer’s IP address into a web browser, you’ll go straight into a report interface. To be more specific, the Printer IPv4 address produces reports on the resulting web page. Let me explain…

How Printer IPv4 Address Produces Reports

Of course, three things are essential for this technique to work. They don’t pose a big hurdle, though, as you can see here:

Thing1: The printer must be network-attached and have an assigned IP address (that’s how most printers work nowadays, though many home users still use USB-attached devices).
Thing2: You must know the printer’s IP address (I explain two handy ways to get that info in a following section).
Thing3: You must format the URL for the printer as follows:
http://xx.xx.xx.xx, e.g. http://192.168.1.44
Secure HTTP (which puts https:// at the head of the URL string) does NOT work, as I confirmed by experiment.

When I tried this technique for both printers on the LAN here at Chez Tittel, it worked in Edge, Chrome and Firefox. One is a Dell color laser 2155cn MFP; the other is a Samsung monochrome laser ML-2850. I can’t say from sure knowledge that it works in ALL browsers and all printers, but I can assert it works in all the browsers and printers I use.

Under the hood, there’s a reporting API for network-attached printers. It produces report data as HTML formatted output when this kind of connection gets made. Works nicely, so it’s good enough for me!

Finding Printer IP Addresses

I can describe two ways to get this info, though those with their own IP scanning tools can use them instead. The first way is to open Devices and Printers, right click the printer of interest, then select the Printer Properties item from the pop-up menu. Select the Ports tab, then find the currently selected port in use (hint: it’s the only one whose left-hand checkbox is checked). Highlight that port, then click the “Configure Port…” button. You’ll see something like this:

Note that the IP address appears in the second field from the top (Printer name or IP address). Works every time!

I am also fond of Nirsoft’s NetBScanner utility. If you scan your local LAN segment it will report and describe all IP addresses it finds in use. For me, it’s a little faster and easier than the foregoing tactic, so it’s the one I use most often myself. Other scanners will do the same for you, so if you’re already familiar with another one, use it with my blessing.

Always nice to learn something new. Even better is to learn something new and useful. Here ’tis!

[Note added early afternoon: Thanks to ElevenForum member and fellow WIMVP @stormy13 whose off-hand remark in this thread pointed me into this topic.]

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Blinking Monitor Requires Nvidia Studio Driver

Yesterday, my production PC (Windows 10, i7-6700, 32GB RAM, 3070 Ti GPU) started the “blinking thing” again. As soon as I logged in, the right-hand monitor would go black then come back at irregular intervals. Previous episodes have responded to a driver update. But this time, no such update was handy. But my 3070 Ti runs either a gaming (for game play and high frame rates) or studio (for creative and production work) version. This time, fixing the blinking monitor required Nvidia Studio Driver to do its thing.

Why Is It That Blinking Monitor Requires Nvidia Studio Driver?

This issue has been popping up on my production PC since I switched out the 1070 Ti for the oversized 3070 Ti in January. I’m starting to wonder if my power supply may be having issues with the load on this system.

Reliability monitor doesn’t show any errors. But a dive into Event Viewer shows a Service Control Error 7031 that points to the Nvidia Local System Container at around the times I was getting the blink behavior. Since I’ve switched from the Gaming version of the driver to its Studio counterpart, the error has not resurfaced. Looks like it may be some kind of software glitch after all.

GeForce Experience lets you switch between the two driver flavors pretty easily. Simply click the vertical ellipsis to the right of the Check for Updates item and it gives you a radio button to pick one or the other, like so:

Fortunately for me, switching from”Game Ready” to “Studio” restored my system to proper operation. Good thing I’m not a serious gamer, eh?

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.NET 3.5 Falls Outside Pending EoS

Last Friday, I posted about impending End of Service (EoS) dates for some particular .NET releases. As shown in the lead-in graphic, .NET Framework version 4.6.1, 4.6 and 4.5.2 are all slated to go EoS on April 26 (13 days in the offing, as I write this item). That said, .NET 3.5 falls outside pending EoS (the SP1 version, anyway) as shown in red in that same graphic.

What .NET 3.5 Falls Outside Pending EoS Really Means

It turns out there’s a LOT of software that still leans heavily on .NET version 3.5 SP1. Because older software — some dating back to Vista and Windows 7 eras — requires this .NET version to run, MS packaged this particular .NET version as a standalone product with its own release and support schedule. Again, a look at the lead-in graphic shows that version 3.5 SP1 doesn’t hit EoS until January 9, 2029, nearly 7 years later than any other known EoS dates.

From older versions of Visual Studio, to a wide range of older, but still-used applications, .NET 3.5 is apparently far from moribund. To me, the VS connection is particularly telling, because it speaks to custom apps — many built in-house at companies and organizations to meet specific or proprietary needs — that benefit from an extended lease on life.

Where’s Your Favorite .NET Version in This Mix?

If you look at the Microsoft Docs Lifecycle page for the Microsoft .NET Framework, you’ll find the source for the graphic at the head of this story. MS updates this info from time to time, adding new versions and obsoleting older ones. I’m a little bemused to see that my Update History makes reference to a “2022-04 .NET 6.0.4 Update for x64 Client” (KB5013437). Though I can find an MS Catalog entry for this update and a set of .NET Release Notes that mention versions 6 and 7, only this document provides EoS dates for 7 (November 2023) and 6 (November 2024). Makes me wonder why all this info isn’t also consolidated on the Lifecycle page. Go figure!

Bottom line: I was wrong in my Friday posting in presuming version 3.5 SP1 was also slated for EoS along with the other 4.x versions named above. As you can plainly see in the graphic, 3.5 is around for some while yet. Live and learn!

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Various .NET Versions Facing EoS Soon

On April 4, an End of Support notice surfaced in  the MIcrosoft Message Center. Its initial text appears in the lead-in graphic for this story above. A quick summary of its contents is that various .NET versions facing EoS soon. The version numbers involved are 4.5.2, 4.6 and 4.6.1 runtime. MS recommends that affected PCs update to .NET Framework 4.6.2 before April 26, 2022. No updates or security patches will be issued for those versions after that date.

If Various .NET Versions Facing EoS Soon, Then What?

This is an issue only if certain applications still in use employ those older .NET versions, and they themselves haven’t yet been upgraded to use a newer one. As I look at the relevant folder in my production  Windows 10 desktop — namely:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework

these are the folders that I see

If I understand how this works correctly, all versions lower than 4.0 reflect older .NET versions currently installed on this PC. Thus by reading the version numbers for those folders you can see that 5 such versions are installed, from v1.0.3705 through v3.5.

On the other hand, if you display properties for any .dll file in the V4.0.30319 folder, you’ll see what version of .NET is currently present, to wit:The Product Version line reads 4.8.4084.0, and tells me that I’ve got the latest and greatest .NET version installed here, as well as the earlier versions already mentioned.

What To Do About Impending Retirements?

If you’re using no software that depends on earlier .NET versions, you need do nothing. OTOH, if some of your software does depend on them you must decide if you’ll keep using it and risk possible security exposure, or find an alternative that isn’t subject to such risk. For my part, I recommend the latter approach, unless there’s no other choice. And in that case, the safest thing to do would be to run such software in the MIcrosoft Sandbox as a matter of prudent security policy. ‘Nuff said!

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Ventoy 1.0.73 Requires Interesting Contortions

When I saw a new version of Ventoy came out this morning, I immediately went to update my drive with the new software. It runs on an AData 256 GB (nominal) M.2 SSD inside a Sabrent NVMe enclosure. For some odd reason, the update function did not work properly. Digging into the log, I see the program had trouble writing the new EFI files to the Vtoyefi partition where the program does its boot magic. Indeed, installing Ventoy 1.0.73 requires interesting contortions for me to achieve success. I’ll explain…

What Ventoy 1.0.73 Requires Interesting Contortions Means

First, I backed up the contents of the Ventoy drive, which shows up as E: on my production desktop. Then I tried to use the Install function in the program to over-write the existing disk structures. No go. I switched over to a newer PC, where I was able to cable up using a high-speed USB-C cable into the Sabrent enclosure. Then, I performed a clean install of Ventoy 1.0.73 on the target drive. That worked!

Of course, then I had to go back to my production PC to restore the backup. The whole process ended up taking about half an hour to complete, of which time the bulk went to creating and then restoring a backup of the 28 ISOs in the Ventoy (E:) partition.

Speculation Reigns Supreme

I must confess I don’t know why the update function failed this time around. I’ve not seen this happen before with Ventoy. That said, I’m not surprised that a vintage-2016 PC with USB 3.1 drivers might have trouble with a device that works with USB 3.2 (and Thunderbolt 3) drivers. And indeed, when I hooked up to a device that supported those newer drivers, everything worked as expected.

That’s why I’m thinking something went weird with the USB drivers when the program attempted to rewrite the 32 MB FAT based EFI partition from which Ventoy works its magic. That’s the part that wouldn’t update on the older PC, but which installed flawlessly on the newer PC. If somebody else has a better explanation, please share. But when the next Ventoy update comes out, I’m going to run it from the newer PC. I’ll bet it runs faster that way, too, thanks to those newer — and faster — USB 3.2/Thunderbolt 3 drivers it uses.

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Microsoft Catalog Goes HTTPS

Call it a factoid, or perhaps administrivia. Whatever you call it, this info come thanks to the eagle-eyed folks at DeskModder.de.  Indeed, it’s now clear that the venerable Microsoft Update Catalog is using the secure version of HTTP (namely, HTTPS) for downloads. The lead-in graphic shows lookup and resolution of yesterday’s CU preview URL for Windows 10 (KB5011543) by way of proof. When I say Microsoft Catalog Goes HTTPS, you can see it at the outset of the URL I pasted into Notepad, plain and simple.

If Microsoft Catalog Goes HTTPS, So What?

It’s 2022. HTTPS made its debut in 1994, in the earliest days of the web. It comes to us courtesy of Netscape from the same folks who brought us Navigator. And as far as I can recall, MS has been using HTTPS on its websites since the mid-2000s.

So why is MS making the catalog switch only now, either 28 or perhaps only 17 years later? The answer appears on a recent (April 1, 2022) Microsoft Docs page. It’s entitled “Site compatibility-impacting changes coming to Microsoft Edge.” Among other things it states that “downloading of files from HTTP urls will be blocked on HTTPs pages.”

I guess it just wouldn’t do, if Edge couldn’t download catalog entries for that reason. Note that the catalog itself has this URL for KB5011543: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB5011543. If the catalog download stayed at HTTP only, starting with v94 of Edge, it would no longer deliver the goods. And that kind of defeats its purpose, right?

So there’s your explanation. Enjoy the improved security, while you use any browser of your choosing. Cheers!

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Windows Memory Integrity Now Covers Device Drivers

With the latest versions of Windows 10 and 11, Windows Security gains driver level protection. I’m talking about Build 19044.1586 or higher for Windows 10. Also, 22000.593 or higher for production 11, and 22581.200 or higher for Dev Channel Insider Previews. Looks like those still running Beta (22000.588, or higher) are also covered. Go into Microsoft Security, under the left-panel Device security heading. Drill into Core isolation details, then turn on Memory integrity (see lead-in graphic). Do all those things, and Windows memory integrity now covers device drivers. I’ll explain. . .

What Windows Memory Integrity Now Covers Device Drivers Means

With Core Isolation turned on (requires Hyper-V and VM support turned on in UEFI or BIOS), you can visit the MS Support Core isolation page to learn more. It also provides detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to turn this feature on (note: a restart is required).

Here’s a brief summary:

1. Memory integrity, aka Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity (HVCI), enables low-level Windows security and protects against driver hijack attacks.

2. Memory integrity creates an isolated environment (e.g. a sandbox) using hardware virtualization.

3. Programs must pass code to memory integrity inside the sandbox for verification. It only runs if the memory integrity check confirms code safety. MS asserts “Typically, this happens very quickly.”

Essentially, memory integrity/core isolation puts security inside a more secure area. There it can better protect itself from attack, while prevents drivers (and the runtime environments they serve) from malicious code and instructions.

What Can Go Wrong?

If any suspect drivers  are already present on a target system, you can’t turn memory integrity on. Instead you’ll get an error message something like this:

Note: the name of the driver appears in the warning. Thus, you can use a tool like RAPR.exe to excise it from your system. Be sure to find and be ready to install a safe replacement because that may render the affected device inaccessible and/or unusable.

Should you attempt to install a suspect or known malicious driver after turning this security feature on, Windows will refuse. It will provide a similar error message to report that the driver is blocked because it might install malware or otherwise compromise your PC.

That’s good: because that means driver protection is working as intended. Cheers!

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