Category Archives: Windows 10

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

Achieving Intel Driver Update Silence

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.

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

Windows 10 Dual Progress Bars Mystery

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.”

Windows 10 Dual Progress Bars Mystery.Win11I love a good mystery. I hope someday to see this fixed, though…

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

AI Support Shows Up in Task Manager

Leave a comment

After recent updates to Office on Windows 10 and 11, AI support shows up in Task Manager. It’s in a process named “ai.exe” of which you can see four instances in the lead-in graphic. That comes from my Windows 10 production desktop, but you can also see this running in Windows 11 versions as well.

That said, this facility comes from Office, not OS, upgrades. That means it won’t show up on PCs that aren’t running Office 365 or newer standalone versions. Nevertheless, I find it interesting that MS is moving AI into its own processing environment away from the executables for individual office components (e.g. Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Teams and so forth). In fact, I’m guessing that the reason I see four instances in Task Manager reflect recent use of all four of those components recently on this very PC.

What AI Support Shows Up in Task Manager Says…

It tells me that MS is really getting serious about supporting AI throughout its application stack. I have to presume that support in the OS itself won’t be too far behind. Yesterday’s announcement that new Surface devices will support Neural Processing Units (NPUs) to speed AI workloads therefore comes as additional confirmation. To me,  this represents a shift in the kinds of things that OSes and apps can do, and handle, as part of normal operations. AI is here, and it’s not going away.

Read more about what’s going on here in this Windows Latest story dated April 10. It’s got much more detail about the processes, folders, and executables that have recently popped up in Windows 10 and 11. Personally, I find it fascinating, and hope to see tangible impacts in my work with Office apps soon. So far, after a six-day stretch during which I’ve worked in Word all day long (8 hrs +) I haven’t really noticed anything… But here’s hopin’, right?

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

Weird Windows 10 Winget Timeout Error

Leave a comment

OK, I’m mystified by this one. Running through the usual update checks this morning, I noticed Winget was taking longer than usual to complete on my Windows 11 PCs. And when I checked my production PC, I got the weird Windows 10 Winget timeout error you see in the lead-in graphic. In fact, I ran it twice and got the same error both times. So I jumped over to my sole remaining other Windows 10 PC. While it also took longer than usual to complete, it did so successfully. What gives?

Weird Windows 10 Winget Timeout Error Is Opaque

What’s interesting — to me, anyway — is that I can’t find any useful information on how to fix this error. My most productive search string is “winget upgrade timeout.” Even so, I don’t see anything useful about this error nor how to fix it. Ditto for a search on “winget upgrade failed when searching source.” Interesting!

I just ran it again on the production PC and got some output (the manifest progress bar showed, then went blank, and the timeout error popped up again). I suspect some issue involving communication with the MS Store is also involved because “msstore” is identified as the source. That said, I access the Store app and update there without difficulty (though it, too, took longer than usual).

I just filed a Feedback Hub item. I’ll be interested to see if this gets a response. And that’s how things go in Windows-World sometimes. Stay tuned: this one might fix itself…

Note Added Early Afternoon

After noodling about on this for a bit, I found a PowerShell script at GitHub to install Winget afresh. I ran it, it reported success. But there’s no change to the timeout error. Resolution may have to come from elsewhere. We’ll see…

Note Added April 23 AM

OK then: winget is working once again, on all machines. As Pink Floyd once put it: It was apparently just “A Momentary Lapse of Reason.” Glad to have things working again. Wish I knew why they broke in the first place. But these things happen, here in Windows-World.

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

PowerShell Update Oddity Version Confusion

Leave a comment

I’m flummoxed. I just upgraded PowerShell from version 7.3.3.0 to 7.3.4.0. It’s the latest stable version, as you can plainly see at GitHub. But even after updating, that preceding version still shows up using winget list powershell. An explicit uninstall request reports “No installed package found matching input criteria.” Hmm; WTF? I can only call this a PowerShell update oddity version confusion problem!

If you look at the left-hand tab in the lead-in graphic, you’ll see two versions of Powershell, one numbered 7.3.3.0 and the other 7.3.4.0. But when I try to uninstall the older one, winget can’t find it. And indeed when I try to open it in the right-hand tab, it comes up at the current (latest) version. I’ve seen something like this before, so I start thinking about causes and workarounds. Read on to see how I resolved this one…

Resolving PowerShell Update Oddity Version Confusion

I’m of the school that says if you can’t do it one way in Windows, you can almost always find another. If I poke around in my file system searching on “pwsh.exe” (the name of the powershell executable file), I see an app-based instance of the 7.3.3.0 version in ProgramFiles\WindowsApps. And sure enough, inside Settings → Apps, I find three (count ’em) versions of PowerShell. Here’s a snap:
AFAIK, I only need the middle one, so I right-click to uninstall the other two. When I’m done, I check Windows Terminal, and it tells me I need to reset my default profile. I do, and choose version 7.3.4.0. When I open a new Terminal window and run winget list powershell again, it shows only a single (and correct) version. Problem solved!

Now, all I have to do is figure out why the winget uninstall didn’t work, but a manual uninstall inside the Apps widget in Settings did the trick. I’m gonna have to think about that for a while… Stay tuned!

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

Installing Updates Silently (or Not)

Leave a comment

In dealing with the never-ending story of Windows OS and app/application updates, I sometimes marvel at the obvious and visible role that certain installers play in that process. Fortunately, some tools — like PatchMyPc — make a virtue out of “silently installing” such things, too. The arrival of a new Intel Bluetooth driver this morning on some of my PCs prompted the observation that installing updates silently (or not) has real value. For me, at least… (see lead-in graphic for my inspiration).

Why Installing Updates Silently (or Not) Matters

It’s all about the user interactions. Some installers demand that users respond to their requests for permission and acknowledgement before they’ll proceed. This morning’s Bluetooth item, for example, required no less than four mouse clicks to go through its paces.

This matters because it makes life interesting for admins who have to automate updates via scripting and automation. It also explains the broad appeal of a product like RoboTask and AutoHotKey (see this Windows Report story for some useful coverage of this topic). Capturing mouse movement and clicks and replaying them becomes a vital ingredient in turning something done “by user, by hand” into something that can run as part of a general scheduled update process. But in general, such things are best avoided if possible.

Going Down the Rabbit Hole…

Switching over to silent updates can be challenging, though. Take a look at this Spiceworks forum thread that walks readers through the requirements involved in working with Chrome templates and Group Policy Objects (GPOs). It’s kind of scary, but also pretty fascinating. There’s a lot of research and, sometimes, effort involved in putting complete update packages together for automated deployment. That’s the kind of stuff I like to observe, and learn from, when I have the chance.

 

 

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

Windows 10 PowerToys Registry Preview Issue

Leave a comment

I’m not sure if what I’m seeing is general to Windows 10, or specific to my two remaining Windows 10 installs. But I’m seeing a Windows 10 PowerToys Registry Preview issue here at Chez Tittel. Don’t take it wrong — the tool works just fine. But you can’t use its built-in “Open file” button, nor the “Ctrl-O” key combo to open a registry (.reg) file. Instead, only a right-click on a .reg file in Explorer (or equivalent, such as VoidTools Everything) will do the trick.

What’s with the Windows 10 PowerToys Registry Preview Issue?

I wish I knew. Everything works as it oughter on Windows 11. As far as I can tell, the issue applies only to Windows 10. Given that there’s a relatively easy workaround, I’m guessing there’s some kind of simple gotcha preventing the Explorer hook-up in Windows 10 for Registry Preview “File Open” from working.

I’ve already tweeted @ClintRutkas, fearless team leader for PowerToys about this. Hopefully, that will help spur corrective action. But it reminds me that it’s always interesting to take new software facilities for a spin. Despite internal testing’s best efforts, stuff like this often pops up when more general releases occur.

Don’t Stop Your Own PowerToys Investigations

Please note that the issue — and Registry Preview itself, in fact — pops up only in the latest version. And, as you can see below that version number still starts with a leading zero. By convention, that means this is still a pre-release version out on extended beta test. These things happen with such software, for sure. But it’s fun to find one yourself now and then — just be sure to report in with your findings. Cheers!

Windows 10 PowerToys Registry Preview Issue.version-info

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Backup/Restore, Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Reboot Releases Macrium Backup Volumes

Leave a comment

If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you know I experienced a drive crash earlier this week (see “Bye-Bye Seagate…” for details). In the wake of that failure, I had to recover the very data volume that failed from a Macrium Reflect backup. That went off without a hitch. But I hit a snag when I attempted to unmount the volume, which normally requires only right-click menu navigation. Eventually I figured out — and confirmed — that a Windows reboot releases Macrium backup volumes.

An example of a mounted backed-up volume appears above; the normal menus below.

Normally, a two-step cascade provides easy access to unmount a Macrium backup volume. Not that time!
[Click Image for Full-Sized View.]

I’m Glad Reboot Releases Macrium Backup Volumes

After I’d finished grabbing the two folders I really needed from that backup I tried to unmount the volume and drive letter Reflect created to grant me access to its contents. No dice. When I right-clicked the Macrium Reflect entry, the all-important next-level “Unmount Macrium image” item shown above did not appear.

Geek that I am, I attempted to unmount it at the command line. But I couldn’t get PowerShell or Command Prompt to give me the details I needed to make that happen. (I simply couldn’t figure out how to get a GUID or other key drive ID details.)

I reasoned to myself: “Because Reflect mounted the volume, it must surely get unmounted if I reboot the PC.” And indeed, that’s exactly what happened. When I rebooted the PC, the volume that Reflect had mounted appeared no more.

As you can see from the preceding screenshots, it was just a momentary glitch. I mounted a different volume to shoot those images. This time, the right-click menu worked perfectly to dismount from the second image what shows up mounted (boxed in red) in the first image. Go figure!

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

Bye Bye Seagate STL1000LM014

Leave a comment

Yesterday, I was bopping along and working away. Somewhere after lunch I noticed my D: drive had gone missing. I’ve been working feverishly to try to resuscitate that volume, but it ain’t coming back. Good thing I back it up frequently. I just restored the folders I care about most from that backup (and know where to find more, if I need them). So now, it’s time to say: Bye bye Seagate STL1000LM014.

Impacts from Bye Bye Seagate ST1000LM014

A bit of surprise and upset was my first reaction. But then, I looked at the manufacture date: 2014. Hmmm … let’s see … that’s 8-9 years ago. So, actually, not too surprising. I spent a couple of hours trying to recover the drive. But it won’t read in Windows for more than a minute or two before it falls over and throws a “failed USB device” error. So, I’m retiring this drive from service. I wasn’t able to recover its contents or restore it to working condition using Disk Management, MiniTool Partition Wizard, or SeaTools. That means it’s time for it to go.

It’s already been replaced with a different 2.5″ drive. It was mounted in a pop-out drive cage, which made it easy to remove the dead drive and drop in a live replacement. This time around, I’m going with a Seagate ST2000LX001FireCuda 2TB model, manufactured in 2020 or thereabouts. It should last for a while yet (at least 5 more years if the previous iteration is any guide). I think I’ll be OK.

Thank God for Good Backup!

I’m so glad I made the old D: drive part of my daily backup routine. I didn’t lose more than a day’s work. Now, I have to clean up the backup definition and make sure I’m still covered when the next drive fails. As they often say here in Windows-World: it’s always something!

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

Happy World Backup Day 2023

Leave a comment

Courtesy of NeoWin, I’ve just learned that March 31 is World Backup Day. There’s even a website at — you guessed it — worldbackupday.com. Sponsors include Amazon, Mega (file download service provider), iStorage and Backblaze (online backup/storage providers) and mijn.host, along with the World Backup Day organization. There’s even a pledge: “I solemnly swear to backup my important documents and previous memories on March 31st. #WorldBackupDay.” Indeed, let me wish all readers a happy World Backup Day 2023.

Note: the intro graphic comes from the WorldBackupDay.com home page, and is intended to motivate people to back up their stuff. I can only endorse this proposition. I myself learned the importance and value of backups in 1990 when a 300MB SCSI drive on a Mac died on me, and lost me a book I was writing at the time (and more). It was a disaster! But I learned my lesson, and I’ve lost nothing important since to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

What Happens on World Backup Day 2023?

Ideally, everybody makes sure they make a backup of everything they want to keep, or protect against damage, loss or breach. Personally, I back up my production PC daily (including the system drive, plus two smaller drives where I keep all ongoing project work).

But there’s more:

  1. You must know how to restore the backups you make.
  2. You should make yourself familiar with rescue or repair media so you can boot and restore a backup even on a PC (or other device) that’s not booting normally. Some backup packages require separate bootable media for each protected PC (I have a tray full of teeny-tiny Mushkin Atom flash drives for just that purpose).
  3. You should practice a restore occasionally. I end up using restore capabilities at least once a month myself — mostly because of self-inflicted issues arising from experiments — so I’m always ready to rock’n’roll.
  4. Ideally, you should keep one or more backups offsite or online. That way if a meteorite takes out your home or office, you can still get back online by restoring to a different PC. I keep two backups in the cloud: one on OneDrive, the other in Norton Backup.

My basic guiding principle is that anything worth storing once is worth backing up at least twice (as just described). Thus, let me repeat the salutation “Happy World Backup Day 2023” and gently urge you to backup, backup, backup. Cheers!

(Free) Backup Software Worth Using

My go-to backup solution has long been Macrium Reflect Free (I also use the paid version). But its maker, Paramount Software, has announced its discontinuing that version at the end of 2023. I’m casting about for a replacement, given that something free is important for me and my fleet of 10 PCs (6 of which are loaners from Lenovo for testing purposes). I’m digging into stories like this one (and more like it) at PC World “The best free backup software and services…” and Lifewire‘s more comprehensive coverage to find a Goldilocks solution that’s “just right.” Stay tuned…

 

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin