Category Archives: Windows 10

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

Windows 10 COM Surrogate Errors Continue

June 6, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Hmmmm. About 18 months ago, I blogged about a source of regular crashes on my Windows 10 production PC. Entitled “Chronic COM Surrogate Windows 10 Failures” it goes into possible causes of and fixes for APPCRASH errors relates to the Windows COM Surrogate. As you can see in the Reliability Monitor output at the head of this story, my Windows 10 COM Surrogate errors continue, sometimes multiple times in a day. Sigh.

If Windows 10 COM Surrogate Errors Continue, Then…?

I’ve already tried all of the fixes described in the earlier item and the errors continue. My current error history goes back to May 6, and the COM Surrogate error is mentioned in over half the total error reports involved (5 of 7 items). As I look around online, I see I’m not alone in this situation. It also shows up on most, but not all, of my Windows 11 PCs (of which I currently have 11 at my fingertips).

This feels more like a “feature” even if it is manifestly an “APPCRASH” event. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to impact system stability, reliability or performance. Sometimes, things like this just pop up in Windows. This one is interesting and mildly vexing, but overall doesn’t seem to impair the user experience.

Feedback Hub Search Results

As I search Feedback Hub on some combination of COM Surrogate, APPCRASH, MoAppHang, and so forth, I see that PowerToys sometimes enters the picture, sometimes not. The nature of the error appears to depend on whether it emerges from an app (usually on the PowerToys components) or an executable (usually DllHost.exe).

But it looks like this issue hasn’t gone away since I dug into it a while back. And based on its common presence on Windows 10 and 11 PCs alike (across production, preview, beta, dev and canary channels as well) it looks like something more constant than intermittent. While I hope MS does fix it sometime (sooner would be better than later), I guess I can live with it while they’re searching for the right “round tuit.”

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

Winget Upgrade May Require Cleanup

June 2, 2023 Ed Tittel 9 Comments

OK, then: yesterday dev lead Demetrius Nelson and his Winget team pushed an upgrade to winget. This comes courtesy of the Microsoft Store, and shows up as part of the App Installer and/or Windows Terminal packages. I noticed also that winget would occasionally throw the error “Failed in attempting to update the source: winget” as you can see in the lead-in screencap. What made it interesting was that it happens on some, but not all, of my Windows PCs. Now, let me explain why this post says that the “Winget upgrade may require cleanup.”

Why Say: Winget Upgrade May Require Cleanup?

When I saw this pop up in the wake of the new release, I figured the changes involved in pushing it out the door might have been involved. So I contacted Mr. Nelson and sent him (among other info) the screencap that leads this piece off. He responded this morning and explained how I could fix the issue, using the commands:
winget uninstall Microsoft.Winget.Source_8wekyb3d8bbwe winget source reset --force
The first string removes the winget package from the PC. The second resets the winget environment, which is why the user must agree to Terms again before winget will run. After that it shows no upgrades are available (“No installed package found matching input criteria” with no accompanying error message (“Failed in attempting to update the source: winget”).

Problem solved; case closed. It’s always good to get the fix right from the source. Had to laugh about the “It won’t break while the engineer is watching” comment he sent me, too. Isn’t that just the way things go in Windows-World (and elsewhere in life)? LOL

See the whole thing here:

The fix is in — and working! Good stuff…

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 10

Concluding Windows 10 22H2 Non-Security Preview

May 24, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

There’s an interesting tidbit in the Support Note for KB5026435, released May 23, 2023. Indeed, it is the concluding Windows 10 22H2 non-security preview release, ever. It goes so far as to say “no more” such releases are forthcoming. In a way, this marks the beginning of the end for Windows 10, whose EOL date is 10/14/2025 (about 17.5 months from today). As you can see from the lead-in graphic, I just installed it onto my sole remaining Windows 10 production desktop.

Sussing Out the Concluding Windows 10
22H2 Non-Security Preview

MS elaborates further on the future release scheduling for Windows 10 in the afore-linked Support Note. It says:

Only cumulative monthly security updates (known as the “B” or Update Tuesday release) will continue for these versions. Windows 10, version 22H2 will continue to receive security and optional releases.

Here’s what I think this means:

22H2 is the final release for Windows 10 (unless something big changes).
No more second (4th) Tuesday preview releases for Windows 10 22H2.
There may be some second (4th) Tuesday security and optional releases from time to time.

The inescapable conclusion is that Windows 10 is now purely in “maintenance mode.” That means we’re unlikely to see more (or at least, precious few) Windows 11 features “back-ported” into 10.

Take it as a signal, business users. MS is clearly warning you that it’s time to start planning the transition to Windows 11 (or beyond). It should be interesting to see how this plays out between now and mid-October 2025. Stay tuned, and I’ll opine further on what’s up, what’s hot, and what’s not.

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

Old-School Gadgets Still Rule

May 23, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I read a Windows Latest story yesterday with interest and bemusement. It proclaims that MS is “bringing … Vista-like gadgets to Windows 11…” Of course, these are widgets (not gadgets, per se) and I don’t see them in the same light, either. I’m still happily using Helmut Buhler’s excellent 8GadgetPack, as you can see in the lead-in graphic. For me, these old-school gadgets still rule — as they have done on my desktops since Vista appeared in early 2007 (16 years ago).

Why Old-School Gadgets Still Rule

The range of still-available gadgets is large (61 total on the “Add Gadget” display). It offers elements for time, CPU, GPU, storage, and networking status and activity. Lots of pop-ups for news, weather, games, media and other interesting services. There’s more here, in fact, than I want or need on my desktop.

Here are the four elements I use all the time on nearly all of my Windows 10 and 11 PCs and laptops (they appear in-line at the right-hand side of my left-screen’s desktop; here I stack them 2×2):

Clockwise from top left, these are:
1. Clock gadget: shows machine name and time (with seconds)
2. Control gadget: provides ready access to shutdown and restart, even in RDP sessions (very handy)
3. Network Meter: shows int/ext IP addresses, in- & out-bound network activity (on graph and numerically)
4. CPU Usage: shows overall CPU and memory consumption, along with per-core activity levels.

So far, I haven’t seen Windows 11 widgets that come close to matching this kind of capability with minimal overhead and effort required for installation and use. I’ll keep my eyes on widgets as they develop and evolve. But so far, the old-school gadget still beats the new-school widget three ways from Sunday. Stay tuned: this may change!

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

Winget Just Keeps Chugging Along

May 17, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’ve started a new writing and editing gig with TekkiGurus.com. I’m contributing 3-4 articles a month on Windows 10 and 11 topics, and providing input and feedback on their overall desktop OS coverage. Just recently, I started a series of stories for them on the Winget package manager for Windows. I’ve been using it daily for about a year now, and I have to observe that Winget just keeps chugging along — and getting better all the time.

What Winget Just Keeps Chugging Along Means

Take a look at this morning’s results on my Windows 10 production PC (see lead-in graphic above). It just updated VS Enterprise 2022, TeamViewer, and Chrome, in under 2 minutes with only minimal effort from yours truly. I seldom encounter winget issues — and when I do, they’re nearly always easily resolved.

What continually suprises me is that using winget for updates is often faster than the in-app (or in-application) update facility itself. Visual Studio 2022 made an interesting case in point just now, when it updated that hefty environment (nearly 400 MB to start it going, and over 150 packages as the process worked to completion). It finished in well under 2 minutes on this aging desktop PC (i7 SkyLake, 32 GB RAM, 500 GB Gen 2 PCIe SSD).

Where Winget Falls Short Is Not Its Problem

I do still use other tools to keep my apps and applications updated. But that’s not winget’s fault. As I discuss in my March 17 post here, winget relies on developers to provide package manifests for their software so that it can do its install/update/query/uninstall things.

The list of items for which I have to use other tools includes some apps or applications that seldom get packages (Kindle, Zoom, Box, Dropbox, and others) or that have none (AFAICT). I encourage all developers who don’t already update winget manifests as they push updates to get in that habit. (See this MS Learn item “Create your package manifest” to dig into that semi-automated YAML and PowerShell-based process.) It will make everybody’s lives easier in the Windows admin world — including mine! ‘Nuff said…

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

Pet Peeve: Upgrade Walls Around Free Versions

May 15, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I was checking upgrades over the weekend (part of my daily routine, in fact). I found myself having to search for a specific version of a favorite app. Why? Because the developer erected upgrade walls around free versions of the app. It’s just a “little reminder,” I guess, that users should support developers by paying for what they use.

Why Put Upgrade Walls Around Free Versions?

Basically, the developer steered its “manual update” capability into the purchase dialog for the same program’s for-a-fee version. I have the paid-for version on my production PC, in fact. But I don’t pay for the instances I run on my test PCs (which vastly outnumber my home desktop and traveling “work laptop” — by 5 to 1). It just ticks me off when the developer leads users down a road with no obvious access to downloading the free version through the application’s own built-in update facility. Am I wrong to feel that way?

I don’t think so. But in this case, I had to remember that the name of the free version includes “lite” in its name (cute). Then, I had to Google the name of the application with that string in its name to get to the right download page. Not too challenging, but at least mildly vexatious, IMO.

The Pecuniary Imperative

Sure, developers need income to justify their time and effort spent in creating and maintaining their offerings. But do users need to be reminded that they could pay for the for-a-fee version each time they update (or upgrade) its free counterpart? Depends on who you ask: some developers obviously feel that the answer to that question is “Hell, yeah!” As for me, I just find it somewhat annoying.

Sigh. That’s just the way things go in Windows-World sometimes. Thanks for letting me vent…

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

Intel DSA Version Confusion

May 11, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK then, I’m back in the office after a 10-day hiatus. Natch, after meeting today’s writing deadlines, I started updating all 11 of my Windows PCs. Along the way, I found myself caught up in Intel DSA version confusion for that company’s Driver & Support Assistant software.

Look at the lead-in screencap. The Intel download page shows version 23.2.17.8 is the latest and greatest version. Yet the details for the download file show it as version 23.1.9.7. And indeed, when you install or repair DSA using the file the lower-numbered version is what’s installed. Go figure!

Overcoming Intel DSA Version Confusion

After handling over 100 updates, the Patch Tuesday and incidental WU stuff, I didn’t want to find myself troubleshooting a bogus update problem. But that’s what I’ve got going on. Until Intel puts the update for version 23.2.17.8 in the “Latest” position on its download center, there’s not much I can do to fix this.

C’mon Intel: please fix this issue so OCD updaters — like yours truly — can get caught up. I’ve already got 23.1.9.7 (the version that actually appears in the Properties window for the 23.2.17.8 download) installed. I can’t catch up until the right file gets posted to the download center.

It’s Always Something, Right?

Just goes to show you that here in Windows-World there’s always some kind of gotcha lurking to make life more interesting. In some cases, my issues are of my own making. In this particular case, it looks like something odd is up with the Intel download page itself.

Just for grins, I went to an alternate download source. Much to my surprise, that installer shows the correct version number for this file, to wit:

An “alternate download source” DOES have the right file.
Go figure again!

I wish I knew how the other source got the right file, when I couldn’t grab it myself directly. As Mr. Churchill said of Russia, that makes this “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” I don’t know whether to laugh, or cry.

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

Another Interesting PowerShell Clean-up

April 28, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Wow! What a ride… I was working on my Lenovo P16 Mobile Workstation this morning. Winget kept finding two versions of PowerShell — namely 7.3.8.0 and 7.3.4.0 — when I ran an open-ended upgrade command. That said, I couldn’t find the older version anywhere. Ultimately, this would lead me to another interesting PowerShell cleanup. Let me walk you through what I had to do to come clean, as ’twere…

Starting Another Interesting PowerShell Clean-up

I’ll begin by explaining where I started from. I was running the Preview version of PowerShell. The complete name string (FQDN equivalent): Microsoft.Powershell.Preview. The list command for that string was showing two versions in winget output, as described above. Upgrade attempts had no effect on the older version, despite reporting success. Sigh…

Also, when I searched all the folders where the software should be lurking (from the PowerShell environment variable), I found it nowhere. Likewise, my usual fallback trick — searching for filename pwsh.exe (the PowerShell executable) — showed only one instance.

Frustrating!

Ending the Clean-up Conclusively

When all else fails, remove/replace still does the trick. I ran the following commands to fix things so that only one version shows as in the lead-in graphic for this story:

1. winget uninstall -q Microsoft.PowerShell.Preview -v 7.3.8.0
2. winget uninstall -q Microsoft.PowerShell.Preview -v 7.4.0.3
2. winget install –id Microsoft.Powershell –source winget

That replaced the Preview with the Production version, and did away with the elusive (unfindable, even) older Preview version. Problem solved. Sheesh!

Note: Here’s a handy article from MS Learn “Installing PowerShell on Windows” that supplied me with number 3 above. Works well, but I did have to close my open PowerShell window for the install process to complete. Can’t have the old stepping on the new again, can we? Sigh again…

Cool Tools, Device drivers, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Achieving Intel Driver Update Silence

April 27, 2023 Ed Tittel 2 Comments

I’ve been writing a fair amount lately about updating the Windows OS, apps, applications and drivers. On that last subject — drivers — Intel has an outsized impact on most of my PCs (11 of 13 use Intel CPUs; all of them include at least some Intel chipsets). I’ve been updating Bluetooth, LAN (Wireless and GbE), and Graphics over the last couple of days. I counted anywhere from 5 to 9 mouse clicks needed to work through the various installers. This has me thinking: “What’s Involved in Achieving Intel Driver Update Silence?”

All this said, I’d also like to observe that I use the Intel Driver & Support Assistant (aka DSA) to drive most of my Intel driver upkeep activities. Overall, it does a pretty good job.

Is Achieving Intel Driver Update Silence Even Possible?

To some degree, yes. If you search the Intel site for “silent Intel X install” (where X = one of Bluetooth, Wireless, LAN, Graphic, …) you’ll find articles on how to run installers at the command line in silent mode. I’ll provide a list below, but here’s a discouraging disclaimer from the Graphic driver how-to (bold emphasis mine).

s, –silent

A silent installation that uses default selections in the place of user input. Not all visual indications are disabled in silent mode.

There’s the rub, in the bolded text. Running silent does away with most, but not all, visual indications.

Here’s a list of some very popular how-to’s that cover silent installation:

1. Graphic driver how-to
2. Bluetooth driver how-to
3. Base Driver & ProSET how-to (GbE, etc.)
4. Wi-Fi driver how-to
5. Chipset Installation utility how-to
6. USB 3.0 eXtensible Controller how-to

That’s all I could think of, off the top of my head. Looks like my earlier search formula works pretty well on the Intel site, though. If you need something else, chances are good it will work for that, too. If not, please drop me a line to let me know what else you found or figured out.

PowerShell, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, Uncategorized, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Windows 10 Dual Progress Bars Mystery

April 20, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Back in November 2017, I posted the item shown in the lead-in graphic to Windows TenForums.com. I get two progress bars when running DISM ... /StartComponentCleanup on my Windows 10 PCs. The thread is interesting to read, and offers a good explanation in item#4 for what’s happening: a spurious line feed somewhere in the DISM routines that handle this task. Just this morning, I noticed that this Windows 10 dual progress bars mystery persists to this day. But I’ve figured out more…

More Data for Windows 10 Dual Progress Bars Mystery

This doesn’t happen every time I run DISM ... /StartComponentCleanup on my Windows 10 PCs. It happens only if I’ve just applied a Cumulative Update to that machine, and I haven’t rebooted the machine a second time after the post-update reboot. And, in fact, I just replicated this very same issue on one of my Windows 11 22H2 PCs as well in those same circumstances.

I’m still wondering about why this happens. I take it as ongoing proof that problems do make themselves visible in Windows (10 and 11) occasionally. Ditto for the observation that some glitches are more important than others.

This particular glitch, while interesting, is benign. It’s just a hiccup in the DISM output. Everything works as it’s supposed to, except for the dual progress bars (or appearance thereof if my TenForums informant is correct about the “spurious linefeed” theory). But here is the error in Windows 11 as well. Note: the build number shown, 22621, identifies this OS as Windows 11 22H2 even though the “Major” OS version reads “10.”

I love a good mystery. I hope someday to see this fixed, though…