Category Archives: Windows 10

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, Updates, Windows 10, Windows 11

GPU Driver Update Fixes Flickering Solitaire

March 23, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I cheerfully confess: I start most working days off with a rousing round of Microsoft Solitaire. When the game pane started flickering this morning, I asked myself “Time for a new Nvidia driver?” Sure enough, a new one issued on March 22 (yesterday). And, as usual, that GPU driver update fixes flickering Solitaire as desired.

Keep Calm and Carry On: GPU Driver Update Fixes Flickering Solitaire

I upgraded the Game Ready Driver to yesterday’s version 512.15 using GeForce Experience. The whole process took under 10 minutes. No reboot was required. Interestingly, Reliability Monitor collected no errors nor warnings while the monitor was flaking out on me, either.

It’s a good thing that the symptoms are both obvious, and easily diagnosed. And FWIW, a keyboard GPU restart (CTRL+WinKey+ Shift+B) didn’t fix things. That’s why I was hopeful that a driver update would make it all better. Luckily for me, that turned out well.

What If a New Driver Flops?

Things rapidly get more interesting if a new GPU driver fails to fix monitor flicker. First and foremost, I’d check cables next, starting (in this case) with the DisplayPort cables that stretch from the Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti GPU adapter to the affected Dell 2717D. If a cable swap didn’t fix things, I’d try rolling back two driver versions or more (for Nvidia GPUs, that means using its manual driver search facility). If no joy after two or three older driver attempts, I’d next run monitor and GPU diagnostics.

Most of the time, it’s the driver. If it’s not the driver, it’s usually the cable. If I have to get down to diagnostics (usually available from GPU and monitor makers), things can quickly get expensive. Glad to have avoided such issues this time around.

But, here in Windows-World, it’s always something, right?

Insider stuff, Remote Desktop (RDP), Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

MSA Login Doesn’t Connect Via RDP

March 3, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting problem that I apparently share with lots of people. Try searching on “can’t login to RDP” or “MSA login to RDP doesn’t work.” You’ll see what I mean. For me, MSA login doesn’t connect via RDP from my trusty Win10 production desktop to my new Ryzen 5800X build. Sigh.

So, of course I went through all kinds of contortions and research to try to get it working. I tried a variety of GPO settings, registry hacks and more, all without getting any love. I spent 45 minutes trying to make this work to no avail. Even though I double-checked my passwords (and in one case, reset it just to make darn sure) I kept getting errors. Either “The password used to connect to the remote PC didn’t work” or “The credentials didn’t work” (RDP app and mstsc.exe, respectively).

Words alone can’t convey the frustration in using a known, good, working password and getting such an error. Ouch!

When MSA Login Doesn’t Connect Via RDP, Use Local Account

Then, in several of the posts I read online, I noticed that similarly afflicted individuals succeeded in opening an RDP session using a local (client) account. So I set up a local account on the client PC using the “Add account” facility in Settings → Accounts → Other Users. Hint: you have to say you don’t know the user’s sign-in info to get to the right screen, where you choose the “Add a user without a Microsoft account” (MSA) to create a local account. Sigh again.

So, I created an account named LocalU, and then promoted it to Administrator status. Then, on my next RDP attempt into that PC the login succeeded using that account name and its associated password.

Even though you can’t always make Windows do exactly what you want, you can often find a way to get what you need through some workaround. This is actually a pretty good example. I can’t say I’m happy about this (and plan to report it to Feedback Hub next). But at least I can RDP into my new desktop. This will be very important when I start migrating files and stuff from the current production desktop to what will be my new production desktop next month.

Stay tuned! I’ll keep you posted as things progress in their usual “two steps forward, one step back” fashion. Should be fun…

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

Overcoming Obsolete AMD UEFI Limitations

March 2, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

In yesterday’s blog post I provided an overview of the build process for a new AMD 5800X based PC. That started with putting the physical pieces together (covered therein). It continued with getting Windows 11 installed on the box. That’s today’s subject and it involved overcoming obsolete AMD UEFI limitations. Let me explain . . . and then share some other interesting observations about the state of current PC art.

What Overcoming Obsolete AMD UEFI Limitations Means

When I started up the AMD build for the first time, I had my Ventoy drive plugged in. The then-present UEFI was smart enough to recognize that my SSD was unformatted and hence, unbootable. Pretty cool. Even better, it was smart enough to recognize that the Ventoy drive was bootable — so it passed boot control to that device.

I had a fresh new Windows 11 image on that drive, and started the install process right away. But after getting past the “enter product key” hurdle (I grabbed one, courtesy of my WIMVP Visual Studio subscription) came the WTF moment. The installer informed me that the PC did not meet Windows 11 hardware requirements. I knew it should (and would, eventually) but I had to figure out what was up.

To Get to 11, I First Had to Get to 10

The same Ventoy drive also included a fresh Windows 10 ISO as well. So I selected that as my install source and went through a hurry-up install of the older OS. It went FAST: took less than 10 minutes, in fact. Then I grabbed the PC Health Check to determine where my problem lay. The then-current UEFI did not support TPM in firmware (aka fTPM). No TPM, no Windows 11.

Thus, I checked the support page for the Asrock B550 Extreme4 motherboard, BIOS (UEFI) page. The latest version is numbered 2.10, dated August 6, 2021, and its first description element reads “Support Microsoft Windows 11” (See lead-in graphic). So I quickly re-learned how to use the Asrock Flash utility, downloaded and installed the new version, and rebooted my PC. This time, the fTPM capability showed up under the Security settings for the UEFI. I was set!

All’s Well on the Second Try

Sure enough, the Windows 11 installer raised no objections to the upgrade process. Here again, the install was fast, and completed in less than 20 minutes. As an aside, I had no issues with drivers on either the Windows 10 or 11 installs, though I do have an unresolved “PCI Encryption/Decryption Controller” entry in Device Manager I still need to clean up. Based on many, many prior PC builds a single dangling reference ain’t at all bad. Looks like a new February 2022 version of the AMD Chipset drivers should take care of it, too.

{Note added 5 mins later: And yes, installing those drivers did indeed clear this entry in Device Manager. All fixed!]

I used the Windows 11 product key to activate the OS after the install was complete. I’d never activated the Windows 10 having chosen the re-installing option to bypass that check when bringing up the PC for the first time. I’m still in the process of cleaning and finishing up the new Windows 11 install on this PC. That will probably stretch out over the rest of this week, given other work commitments. But so far, now that I’m past the UEFI hurdles, the new PC has shown itself to be fast, smart and capable.

Next month, I’ll start the process of shifting over from my current production PC to make this build my new production PC. But I have a bunch of other “real work” to do first. Stay tuned: I’ll keep reporting on this process. In fact, I’ll explain what I had to do to RDP into this new PC in tomorrow’s post.

For now, here’s the info on this new PC that shows up under my MSA. As you can see I named it RyzenOfc. (It’s got a Ryzen CPU and it’s in my home office, so why not?)

Interesting how Windows 11 shows up with a 10-based version number. The build suffix gives it away though…

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

Bringing AMD PC Into Windows 11

March 1, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Man! What a day yesterday turned out to be. I finally had all the pieces together — or so I thought — to finish the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X PC. On the path to making that happen, and getting Windows 11 installed, I learned more than I expected. A LOT more… Bringing AMD PC into Windows 11 proved more difficult and challenging than I’d ever dreamed. Let me explain…

Parts Needed When Bringing AMD PC Into Windows 11

I finally broke down and ordered an Nvidia 3070 Ti GPU for the new build. I didn’t realize, until it showed up and I measured it against the Antec 902 case, that that darned thing was TOO BIG to fit inside. As my first such card, I didn’t know it needed about 2cm (around an inch) of additional clearance between the PCIe slot (and rear of the case where the outputs go) and the HDD cages at the front. Ouch!

So here’s what I had to do. My old Z170 (vintage 2017) build is in a monster Rosewill case with massive clearance. It housed an Nvidia 1070 Ti which I swapped out with the new 3070 Ti. Fortunately, the Corsair 750 PSU in the Rosewill case had enough power connectors for me to plug in 2x 8-pin power plugs to make that beast happy.

On the Antec side, I shoehorned the old 1070 Ti in. Even so, I endured some “cable snarl” to put everything in place. I had to use a tiny cable tie to hold the Reset, Power, and HD Light cablets together. Then, I used a “mosquito” (a tiny hemostat, very helpful for working inside tight spaces inside PCs) to plug them in together.

Other contortions were involved:

Went through a card slot at the back of the case to plug the HD97 audio connector in.
Used two HD power cables to reach each of 2 hard disks, to work around the 1070 GPU.
Used all but one of the power cables from the build’s Seasonic 650W PSU (first time ever for such a situation).

Power, Lights and Action…?

Eventually, I had all the parts together and mouse, keyboard and monitor plugged in. This time, when I hit the power switch the PC booted right into the Ventoy drive I had plugged into one of the USB 3.2 ports. I jumped immediately into installing Windows 11, only to be informed that the PC didn’t meet the necessary hardware requirements after getting past the “request for product key” screen.

Turns out that although the B550 Extreme4 motherboard and its Ryzen 5800X do support fTPM, they won’t do so unless it’s enabled in the UEFI. Figuring that out and fixing it turned into another series of adventures. They will serve as the basis for tomorrow’s story. Stay tuned, and I’ll tell you all about it then.

For now, I’m happy to report that the machine is running nicely at my second desk here in the office. I still have some setup work to do. Mostly that consists of installing a bunch of utilities, Macrium Reflect, Office 365, and then tweaking things just the way I like them. That should provide the basis for yet another story later this week. Cheers!

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

New Ventoy 1.0.66 Version Available

February 14, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Thanks to Martin Brinkmann at Ghacks.net, I just learned there’s a new Ventoy 1.0.66 version available. Among other cool features, it now supports an “experimental” (beta) feature to boot most supported image formats from a local disk. Check out the GitHub page and its documentation page at Ventoy.net for a complete recitation.

With New Ventoy 1.0.66 Version Available, Grab One!

I’ve been writing about Ventoy since April 2020, when I first learned about this outstanding tool. Here’s my first-ever Ventoy item: Bootable USB Tool Ventoy (Win10.Guru). The Ventoy,net site has long since overcome its initial underprovisioning issues. Indeed, the tool is now available through both GitHub and SourceForge as well. It’s also added lots of bells and whistles along the way.

If you don’t already know and use this tool, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Be sure to check out the many content items on the Ventoy Document page for news, how-tos, explainers, and information about the tool’s growing collection of interesting plug-ins.

Make Ventoy Your Go-To Install/Repair Tool

Right now, I’m still using a 256GB SSD in a Sabrent NVMe drive caddy (USB 3.2 Gen 2) for my collection of tools and images. I have 29 images on the drive, which include many versions of Windows 10 and 11, plus the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT), the MacriumRescue ISO, BOOTPE.iso, various memtest utilities, and more. I’ve still got 94 GB of disk space free on the drive and will no doubt keep adding to it over time.

It’s a great tool: worth downloading, using, and updating as needed. Cheers!

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

PowerToys 55.2 Fixes Things Up

February 13, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

If you read this blog regularly, you may be aware that in early January I reported about a fix for a strange Zoom issue. Seems that for some odd reason, the Mute Video Conference feature in PowerToys when enabled clobbers Zoom. Turn it off in PowerToys, and it works again. A workable, if not entirely satisfactory, repair. I’m pleased to report that PowerToys 55.2 fixes things up. I have a feeling it’s .NET related and comes thanks to the tool collections update to the .NET 6 framework and so forth.

But hey! I’ve been busy for the past two weeks. Cliff Rutkas and his team could’ve slipped an earlier fix past me. Be that as it may, I can now use both the Video Conference Mute feature in PT55.2 *and* Zoom on the same PC. Good-oh!

PowerToys 55.2 Fixes Things Up . . . and More!

While I’m on the subject of PT (any version) I’d like to extend my further thanks and appreciation to that team for the work they’ve done on the toolset lately. Installation has become much more routine. There’s been no need to stop mid-way through the initial “turn off old components” section lately, jump into Task Manager, and kill stuff before the installer can proceed. Instead, the process sails through to completion without human intervention — just the way I like it!

This tool is definitely gaining polish and capability. I had already liked it quite a bit. Now I like it even more. If you’re not familiar with PT be sure to check out (and read over) its documentation. It will definitely clue you in, and get you going with this terrific Windows toybox full of handy little tools.

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

Monitor 2 Blink Mode Gets Easy Fix

February 12, 2022 Ed Tittel 2 Comments

Talk about great timing. I just finished a marathon work engagement on Thursday, and was playing catchup yesterday. As I was beavering away at a mountain of email and phone calls, I noticed my right-hand monitor acting up. It started going into what I call “blink mode.” That means it would go black every 30-60 seconds, after which it would return to what looked like normal operation. As you can see from the lead-in screencap, the right hand monitor is labeled “2.” Fortunately, monitor 2 blink mode gets easy fix (this time, anyway).

Here’s How Monitor 2 Blink Mode Gets Easy Fix

From long experience I know that when Windows monitors/displays start acting up, there are two common causes. Most common is a misbehaving graphics driver. Second most common is some kind of hardware fault, out of which the cable running from PC to display is most likely.

“Hmmmmm” I found myself thinking “Didn’t I ignore a recent Nvidia Studio Driver update because I was too busy to mess with it?” And indeed, when I ran GeForce Experience, it updated itself right away. Next thing I noticed was a new release of the aforementioned driver (Version 511.65) was out with a February 1 release date.

Consequently, I grabbed and installed that driver right away. Luckily for me, it fixed the problem. The monitor hasn’t blinked once since the update (at least, not that I noticed). It’s a good thing that the obvious fix sometimes works. It’s a better thing that it worked this time. Better still, this problem didn’t manifest until AFTER my recent work marathon ended. It would have been problematic troubleshooting an issue in the middle of a deposition, with the clock ticking away.

What If The Driver Update Didn’t Fix the Problem?

I keep cable spares around as a matter of routine. Thus, my next attempt would have been to swap out the DisplayPort cable from monitor to GPU. If that hadn’t worked, I would have swapped the monitor from one of my test PCs (I have a spare, but I’m using it to check dual-screen behavior on Windows 11 Dev Channel). I’m pretty sure the GPU is OK, because Monitor 1 has remained rock steady throughout this situation. That said, I could always switch the second monitor to HDMI, on the chance that the GPU port itself was having issues.

That’s the way things go here in Windows World. I’m glad the simplest, most obvious fix did the trick. You would be too, if it happened to you.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows OS Musings

Serious Zoom Shenanigans Make Meetings Interesting

February 11, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Wow! It’s been a wild, wild two weeks. Attentive readers will have notice my blogging frequency dropped, and may have wondered why. I make a large part of my living working as an expert witness and I’ve recently testified at two depositions and attended a third. All were conducted over Zoom, and all lasted at least 10 hours. Around those “depos” as they’re called, I had lots of other side Zoom meetings. And indeed, serious zoom shenanigans make meetings interesting — and sometimes slow and frustrating. Let me explain…

What Serious Zoom Shenanigans Make Meetings Interesting?

There are two classes of issues that loomed large in setting the rhythm and pace of all my many recent Zoom encounters:

Performance issues
User interface driving issues

I’ll discuss each one under its own heading below, but I will observe that the three depos were capped at a certain number of hours (X) of recorded video time. Each one last at least 1.4X hours from start to finish; the longest one went 1.64X. Ouch!

Zoom Performance Issues Observed and Endured

I’m lucky. I myself experienced no Zoom performance issues at all coming from my Zoom PC (a 6-core 8th-gen Intel i7 8850H CPU with 32 GB RAM and dual NVMe SSDs running Windows 11). That was probably thanks to my reliable and reasonably speedy “Gigabit” level connection through Spectrum/Charter here at Chez Tittel. I did have a moment of panic yesterday while testifying when I saw I had inadvertently unplugged that unit’s wired GbE dongle. But the machine sits right next to my 802.11ax WAP (and supports 802.11ac at 160MHz). Apparently, it switched over from GBE to Wi-Fi (and back again) without any noticeable hiccups. Thank goodness!

Other participants weren’t so lucky. During a winter storm last week, another person found himself dealing with all kinds of glitches. These included voice issues (drop-outs, loss of volume, ringing, and so forth), stuttering video (turned off for a while to conserve bandwidth), and very slow uploads for materials he needed to share.

Thus, I couldn’t help but notice that performance issues can — and at least in once case, did — exert a powerful drag on productivity. As a result that particular meeting stretched out far longer than it needed to, or should have.

Driving the Zoom UI

Then, there were the usual issues in dealing with UI interaction that often come in Zoom meetings. Some attendees had to be instructed on how to perform certain activities (mostly surrounding uploading or downloading files). Others struggled gamely through learning how to use the environment’s features. A couple reported log-in issues, which were quickly resolved by the legal meeting service provider’s excellent tech support staff (though not without multi-minute delays here and there).

I myself had to call in once, which is how I know their tech support staff was superb. Meeting invitations arrive a day in advance, and include the notification “If you don’t get a meeting link by one hour before the scheduled start time, please call this number to obtain one directly.” I didn’t get a link to yesterday’s soiree by that time, so I followed those instructions. And indeed, the person with whom I spoke had me fixed up and into the Zoom meeting in under two minutes. Bravo!

Another Zoom Wish Pops Up

During one meeting another participant, when faced with a large number of items to download asked “Why doesn’t Zoom have a feature to zip up multiple items and send them in one file?” Good question! I hope the Zoom developers have this on their list of planned enhancements. It would certainly make it faster and easier to manage meetings where numerous documents have to be exchanged.

All in all, it’s been a trying and busy, busy, busy last two weeks. I’m looking forward to getting back on a more regular and predictable schedule. And it will be a while before I find myself missing marathon Zoom sessions…

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

WU Update Connectivity 8 Hours vs Minutes

February 8, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, so it’s “Patch Tuesday” once again. I’m updating my fleet of 10 PCs. I’ve got one eye on the clock and the other on a recent article from WindowsLatest. It’s entitled Microsoft: Windows 10, Windows 11 need eight hours online to deploy updates. As I update my various Windows 10 and 11 PCs I’m seeing times in minutes, not hours. Why assert WU update connectivity 8 hours vs minutes?

Why Is WU Update Connectivity 8 Hours?

As I’m timing my various machines, the X1 Carbon took about 7 minutes to handle the updates from start to finish. My production desktop is at 11 minutes and counting. What does the story say? Here’s the most salient quote (emphasis mine):

Your device should be online for at least eight hours to process Windows cumulative or feature updates properly. This period is called ‘Update Connectivity’ and eight hours is necessary to get the latest updates from Microsoft’s servers and successfully install them.

I can only understand this one way. This is the interval that’s needed when the user doesn’t initiate updates. It sure doesn’t take that long when one requests an update from WU. My production PC (i7-6700) took 15 minutes to get to the “Restart required” notification. Prior experience says it will take another 5 minutes, max to the desktop. So why 8 hours? It gets more interesting, as recited next…

More Interesting Quotes

“The Update Connectivity period includes a minimum of two continuous connected hours and six total connected hours after an update is available for download.

Specifically, data shows that devices need a minimum of two continuous connected hours, and six total connected hours after an update is released to reliably update. “This allows for a successful download and background installations that are able to restart or resume once a device is active and connected,” Microsoft noted in a new blog post.

What does this mean?

It means it’s best to leave PCs connected to the Internet when the Internet is the source of updates for those selfsame PCs. Those who use their own servers to push updates (or other means of update distribution) won’t be subject to the same limitations. Fascinating, though: who knew?

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows OS Musings

Pondering 1.4B Active Monthly Users

January 26, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then: MS held its latest earnings call on January 25, to disclose Q2 FY’22 results with investors. One of the interesting nuggets that emerged was a claim I’m pondering 1.4B Active Monthly Users. Apparently, as Frank Shaw reported on Twitter, that includes both Windows 10 and Windows 11 users. Further reporting at OnMSFT indicates this number also include Hololens and Xbox devices as well. This is an interesting number, for a variety of reasons. Let me explain…

When Pondering 1.4B Active Monthly Users, What’s Involved?

First thing: On April 27, 2021, MS published an assertion that there were 1.3 B devices running Windows 10. Thus, the 2022 number represents a “mere” increase of 100M.

Second thing: The latest claim from the earnings call includes both Windows 10 and 11 devices in the newer 1.4 B number.

Third thing, in December 2020, Statista reported over 100M active Xbox network subscribers.

Fourth thing, the best current estimate of Hololens sales comes from website BuildWagon.com as of December 2021. It guesstimates that “total hololens devices sold, as per the available public sources, is around 520,000 devices.” Let’s say 0.5M, in round numbers.

What Do These Numbers Say?

Let’s assume no Xbox growth since December 2020, and discount Hololens completely (0.5M isn’t even a blip against 1.4B). My take: there has been no overall growth in active monthly Windows users since April 2021. My Xbox assumption is arguable, in fact. MS reported a 10% increase in Xbox content and services in the latest earnings call.

Even so, it looks like the Windows population may have peaked. My best guess: over time, Windows 11 growth will come mostly from Windows 10 upgrades or PC replacements.

What about new PC sales? eMarketer.com forecasts an 8.6% year-over-year drop in PC sales for 2022. Against projected sales of 344.7M for 2021, that translates into 315M new PCs sold.

How much of this translates into new Windows 10 or 11 users, and how much into an old license decommissioned instead? I don’t see ready numbers on this. But conventional wisdom says that PCs should be replaced every 4 years. Global PC gamers alone account for about around 1.7B users (Statista). Figure another 1 B non-gaming users around the world, and 25% of that total (675 M), dwarfs projected 2022 PC sales.

That’s my basis for suggesting that Windows may have reached its peak. Could I be wrong? Sure. But think about the overall context, and the relentless advance of smartphones vs. PCs. Time will tell, but I stand by my analysis. ‘Nuff said.

[Note Added Jan 27] For a completely different take on these numbers and what they mean, see Paul Thurrott’s Jan 26 story: 1.4 Billion. He sees the numbers going up overall, despite an apparent decline in official, reported numbers. Check it out.