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Buying New(er) GPU For RyzenOfc

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Back in late 2021/early 2022, I bought a pair of motherboards for side-by-side PC builds. One for me, one for my son to use at home. I also bought an NVIDIA 3070Ti GPU so he could game away. But that latter plan didn’t turn out because his PC case — an Antec A201 — was too small inside for that GPU. We stuck with our older 1070Ti models because they fit. Just recently, I’ve been working to get Secure Boot running on those PCs. I wasn’t able to get it up on Flo6 (my office desktop, now in a bigger case) until I swapped the 1070 GPU for that 3070 model. I still haven’t been able to get back to UEFI on the upstairs model (his former desktop). That’s why I’m buying newer GPU for RyzenOfc (desktop machine name). Let me explain…

Why Buying Newer GPU For RyzenOfc Could Help

The older 1070Ti has Pascal generation firmware, while the newer 4070 has Ada generation firmware. The 1070 firmware is 11 years old, or thereabouts, and lacks features and capabilities that newer firmware environments — including UEFI, TPM and Secure Boot — need. Copilot put a feature table that lays things out nicely for easy perusal and comparison.

Basically, I was unable to get past the graphics output protocol (GOP) phase during boot-up with the 1070 installed. The PC froze there every time. I could still get to Windows (straight to the lock screen, in fact) but I never could see the Asrock initial boot-up logo, nor could I use Del or F2 to get into UEFI.

Can’t Do Secure Boot Except via UEFI

That last little bit is a dealbreaker. If I can’t get into UEFI, I can’t turn secure boot on. Nor can I load the default Secure Boot keys, essential to resetting TPM to let the whole Secure Boot infrastructure get put in place. Bit of a problem, that…

So I ordered a used compact NVIDIA 4070 GPU to replace the 1070Ti. It’s due in next week. And I’m betting a reasonably substantial sum that when I pop the new GPU into the PCIe x16 slot the 1070 currently occupies, I’ll be able to get through Secure Boot installation.

We’ll see: I’ll report back then. Stay tuned, and check your own PCs for status. On older builds you, too, may need to start making some changes. In PowerShell, Confirm-SecureBootUEFI  shows “True” if it’s on, “False” if it’s off. Likewise, Get-SecureBootUEFI -Name db will show you if you have the new UEFI CA 2023 certificate installed or not (the old 2011 certificates expire later this year, so it’s time to get ready).

Here in Windows-World the old saw from Roseanne Roseanna-danna often applies: “It’s always something!” And indeed, this time it could be something somewhat costly, as well. Sigh

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

Catching Up Can Be Hard to Do

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I’ll admit it. I’m lazy. When I hooked up the Lenovo ThinkCentre Neo 50q Tiny PC a couple of weeks ago, I cheated. How? By hooking up the power, networking, video, keyboard, mouse and camera that had previously been driving the ThinkStation P3 Ultra Gen 2 mini-PC. Yesterday, I had some free time so I unhooked the former and reconnected to the latter. Given the hiatus a storm of updates followed (as expected). When I checked Reliability Monitor (ReliMon) this morning, I found a couple of unexpected errors for the Lenovo TSSIOMonitor (aka Super IO Monitor). When I asked Copilot for help reading those tea leaves, its response: “Catching up can be hard, especially after a prolonged idle period.”

Why Catching Up Can Be Hard

As I look at ReliMon for yesterday afternoon, I see a steady stream of updates and installs that start at 3:38PM and run through 4:09PM (60 in all). According to Copilot, TSSIOMonitor.exe is a Lenovo executable that’s constantly monitoring hardware. Its job is to throw errors when things don’t look or work correctly.

One potential cause of the error is when sensor data is invalid. Another is when driver data doesn’t match what the monitor expects. That’s precisely what happens when chipset drivers update, ACPI tables get rebuilt, embedded controllers reinitialize, and Super I/O registers may be unstable. Basically, the monitor was  using stale data to analyze a fresh situation, and erroring because of inevitable mismatches. Good to know.

Copilot Offers Insight, But I Must Assess Same

I’m getting used to asking Copilot to opine on system stuff when I need help understanding what’s going on. It certainly has more access to deep Windows arcana that I do, but I do notice occasional hiccups and hallucinations as it recites specific details. Indeed it sometimes goes off on tangents that don’t relate to my specific situation, but do play into the general circumstances and experiences around it.

This time, Copilot’s explanation makes good sense. And it helps me understand why such errors might occur when they did. It’s even comforting for it to tell me what I already knew: that a one-off or two-off error while a bunch of updates are underway isn’t terribly concerning. But we both agree that if it kept on happening (TSSIOmonitor.exe has been quiet ever since updates finished) there would be cause for concern, and possible action.

What Ronald Reagan said about nuclear arms monitoring apparently also provides to ingesting information from Copilot: “Trust, but verify.” Words to live by, here in a brave new AI-informed Windows-World.

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

Fixing WinKey+X Menu Change

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The Win+X menu — that little power‑user gem tucked behind the Start button — is a Windows feature you don’t think about much until it breaks. When it does, the symptoms can be maddening: missing entries, wrong icons, dead shortcuts, or menu items that don’t launch. I recently went through a repair of the Win+X system on my production desktop. That process revealed just how many layers contribute to this simple menu. Here’s a recap of how the issue was resolved in fixing WinKey+X menu change.

Getting Started: Fixing WinKey+X Menu Change

The first clue was that the Win+X menu wasn’t launching Windows Terminal correctly. Instead of opening a PowerShell or Terminal instance, it either did nothing or threw an error. That pointed to a problem in the Win+X shortcut groups. These reside beneath the user profile at:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\WinX

Windows organizes these shortcuts into GroupN folders (N = 1-3). Group3 is where Terminal and PowerShell entries live. When I opened that folder, those shortcuts were either missing or pointing to stale AppX registrations. This can happen after uninstalling or repairing Windows Terminal, or some profile migration wherein AppX package identities change.

Making Shortcuts Happen…

The next step meant rebuilding shortcuts manually. Windows Terminal doesn’t include .lnk files. Hence, I created fresh ones by right‑clicking the desktop and choosing New → Shortcut, and pointing them at the program. It lives under WindowsApps and includes current version info in its actual filename.

Because Windows Terminal’s AppX path changes with every update, hard‑coding its location isn’t smart. Thus, I used the stable execution alias: wt.exe

Once the shortcut was created, I renamed it to match canonical Win+X naming conventions:
Windows Terminal.lnk
Windows Terminal (Admin).lnk

Then I moved them into the Group3 folder. At this point, the shortcuts existed, but they were MIA on the menu. That’s because Win+X system caches entries and doesn’t refresh automatically. I forcibly rebuilt that cache by signing out and back in. After the next login, the menu finally displayed the new Terminal entries — but the icons were wrong.

What About Them Icons?

This led to the next discovery: Windows Terminal’s icon is stored inside its AppX manifest, not in a traditional .ico file. To fix them, I edited each shortcut’s properties and pointed the icon field to the stable Windows Terminal executable under Program Files. That exposed the correct embedded icon. Once updated, Win+X  displayed the proper visuals.

The final step was cleaning up legacy entries. A repaired Microsoft Account caused Windows to resurrect old Win+X shortcuts from a now-defunct installation. Removing stale .lnk files from Group3 eliminated duplicates and restored the menu to a clean state.

By the end of the trail, Win+X worked again: correct icons, correct commands, and a clean set of shortcuts that launch reliably. The repair reinforced something I’ve seen before in Windows troubleshooting . A system often holds onto old paths, old identities, and old assumptions long after underlying components change or go away. Fixing things means understanding where Windows stores its info, and updating each layer one by one.

If your Win+X menu ever starts acting strangely, a careful rebuild of Group3 shortcuts may be exactly what brings it back to life. Here in Windows-World you can always try. It might work. And if it doesn’t, there’s always something else to try instead.

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WinGet Weirdness Finally Whacked

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Every once in a while, Windows throws you a problem so strange, so deep in the plumbing, that you can’t help but treat it like a spelunking adventure. Over the past week, I’ve worked through one of those rare cases. Copilot ultimately helped diagnose it as a completely broken WinGet (aka Microsoft.AppInstaller) stack. Apparently, it came from corruption inside the WindowsApps directory. That’s the protected, TrustedInstaller‑owned home for all MSIX/AppX packages. I worked through a recovery  process that touched ACLs, reparse points, Safe Mode, user‑level activation, and the PATH environment itself. Ultimately and fortunately, it ended with WinGet weirdness finally whacked.

Getting to WinGet Weirdness Finally Whacked

The symptoms were deceptively simple: WinGet wasn’t recognized, App Installer wouldn’t register, and the user‑level WindowsApps folder lacked key shims. Alas, the root cause was far deeper. The system‑level C:\Program Files\WindowsApps directory had partially corrupted ACLs, preventing enumeration that blocked TrustedInstaller from working. Even elevated tools couldn’t see its innards.

The breakthrough came in Safe Mode, where Windows releases some of its usual locks. Using takeown and icacls, I forcibly reclaimed ownership and permissions long enough to inspect the directory. Hundreds of previously invisible entries suddenly appeared — confirmation that the ACL choke point had finally broken open.

From there, I rebuilt the directory’s security model: restoring SYSTEM and TrustedInstaller with full control, removing inheritance, and returning ownership to TrustedInstaller. With the system-level store healthy, I exited Safe Mode (after discovering that msconfig, not BCD, was trapping the machine there) and rebooted into normal Windows.

Repairing WinGet/Microsoft.AppInstaller

Next came the App Installer repair. The system package was still resident, but user-level registration was MIA. I downloaded the official MSIX bundle, reinstalled it, and then manually re‑registered the package using its AppxManifest. That restored the user‑level WindowsApps directory and recreated the shims — including winget.exe.

But one last puzzle remained: even with the shim present, Windows still didn’t recognize the command. The culprit turned out to be the PATH. During the earlier corruption, Windows had silently dropped this critical entry:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WindowsApps

Without that, no packaged app alias can resolve. Adding it back with setx, signing out, and signing back in finally brought the entire chain back to life. winget -v lit up instantly.

In the end, the repair touched nearly every layer of the Windows package‑servicing stack: NTFS ACLs, TrustedInstaller ownership, AppX registration, user‑level activation, and environment variables. It was a rare, deep, and oddly satisfying recovery — the kind of fix you document not just for others, but for the story it tells.
And now WinGet is fully operational again.

I’m celebrating the occasional “happy ending” that’s so rare in Windows-World. If you’re lucky you’ll never have cause to do likewise. But if this ever happens to you, here’s a trail of breadcrumbs to lead you out of that forest…

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NVIDIA Enters Windows on ARM Field

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Here’s an interesting bit of news: AI heavyweight NVIDIA enters Windows on ARM field, as discussion of its N1 and N1X SoC offerings proliferate. These stories are popping today (Jan 20) but rumors have apparently been flying since last year. I got my info from WinBuzzer, but other key stories from TechRadar, DigiTimes, Tom’s Hardware, and more, are also worth a peek. Qualcomm’s exclusivity looks ready to expire, and x86/AMD64 CPUs likely to get even more competition soon.

As NVIDIA Enters Windows on ARM Field, Here’s What’s Known

The initial offering involves two “system-on-a-chip” (SoC) architectures known as N1 and N1X. According to WinBuzzer (confirmed at other sources) “the N1 designation likely targets desktops while N1X focuses on notebooks…” Deeper technical details are still emerging but here are some broad possibilities:

  • 20-core ARM CPU designed with MediaTek
  • 10 Cortex-X925 performance cores
  • 10 Cortex-A725 efficiency cores
  • NVIDIA Blackwell GPU
  • Built on TSMC 3mm process
  • NPU delivers up to 1000 TOPS for AI
  • Includes 128GB RAM shared between CPU & GPU

That certain raises the bar from where things stand with either generation of Snapdragon X processors (shipping X1 variant since last year, X2 planned for Q126 delivery).

Things Could Get Interesting…

The big news here, of course, is that NVIDIA is building in GPU capabilities that match their current discrete and laptop 5070 class devices. Qualcomm’s offerings have delivered sufficient computing power and astounding battery life. But their Adreno GPUs are underpowered for serious gaming, 3D modeling, simulations, and other display-intensive workloads.

Looks like NVIDIA is throwing down a gauntlet in the Windows marketplace. This should make life interesting for everybody, including prospective buyers, but also intel, AMD, Qualcomm. The biggest PC OEMs are already on board. Look out Windows-World, here comes another 800lb gorilla!

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CrapFixer Gives ASUS A14 Low Bloat Rating

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One of the “interesting parts” of new machine intake is the process of removing things the system maker installs that you don’t want. This is often called “debloating” or “degunking.” I’m adding this to my intake process going forward, and reporting on it today, because I’m mostly convinced that the GitHub CrapFixer project does a good job of taking stock and reporting on unwanted apps (among many other things). I just ran it on my newest Copilot+ PC, and I’m pleased to report that CrapFixer Gives ASUS A14 low bloat rating. I’ll explain…

How CrapFixer Gives ASUS A14 Low Bloat Rating

I’m basing my “low bloat rating” on the information that appears in the lead-in graphic. It’s the CrapFixer “Analyze” output that shows up under the “APPS ANALYSIS” heading. Indeed, there are 17 entries there. BUT inspection reveals that none of these items come from third parties: they are items included by default in a normal Windows 11 installation.

That ties into the definition or bloatware or crapware that I think makes most sense. That definition: software apps from third parties that at least some user neither want nor need on their PCs. Frequent examples include:

  • Trial AntiVirus Suites: McAfee, Norton, Trend Micro, etc.
  • Cloud Storage trials: Dropbox, Box, etc.
  • Media/entertainment trials: Netflix, Spotify, etc.
  • Game trials or freemium games: Candy Crush, Hidden City, etc.

The ASUS A14 Zenbook includes none of these, except stuff that Microsoft bundles with the OS. That’s about as low as bloat gets. For the record, my recently-added Lenovo ThinkCentre Neo 50q gets the same rating, for the same reason.

Here in Windows-World bloatware is not uncommon on new PCs and laptops. It’s nice when little or none presents. And both ASUS and Lenovo make third-party offers available for owners thru their update apps (MyASUS and Lenovo Vantage, respectively). But they don’t preinstall them on their PCs. Good -oh!

 

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ARM Desktop: Neo 50q Pros and Cons

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OK, then. I’ve been playing and working with the Lenovo ThinkCentre neo 50q for a couple of weeks now (see my Jan 9 first looks post). Now that it’s been in harness for a bit, I can speak more to what this tiny PC can — and can’t — do. I’ll lay out this ARM desktop (Neo 50q) pros and cons for your consideration. Let’s go…

Considering ARM Desktop: Neo 50q Pros and Cons

The lead-in graphic speaks indirectly to one of my profound reservations about this otherwise nifty mini-PC: the CPU is too under-powered for it to qualify as a Copilot+ PC. Note the model appears as X126100. Its NPU is rated at 45 TOPS but it’s neither a Snapdragon X Elite nor X Plus model. Thus, it doesn’t make the grade, and ships without the Copilot AI namespace, and does not appear on the Microsoft Copilot Plus list. This quibble boils down to: why acquire an ARM desktop if it’s not Copilot+ capable? Good question!

Neo 50q Pros

That’s where the pros for this unit come into play — namely:

  • Compact form factor: works well for small footprint workspaces
  • Incredibly quiet operation: I’ve heard the fan come on only a handful of times in two weeks. When it does it’s still pretty quiet.
  • Low power draw: the overall PC sips rather than sucks power (5-9 W at Windows desktop, 10-18 W normal load; 26 W peak)
  • Instant-on startup: ARM works well with Modern Standby so the unit wakes in 2-3 seconds. Boot & restart times are also  speedy.
  • Enough oomph for everyday computing: handles office apps, surfing & email, Teams & Zoom sessions with aplomb
  • Enterprise-friendly security capability: Pluton support, hardened drivers, Secure Boot & Modern Standby make Neo 50q a good fit for managed environments and secure for standalone use
  • First ARM desktop available, and reasonably affordable at US$589 (does need monitor; mouse & keyboard included)

Neo 50q Cons

Let’s contrast this to the Neo 50q’s various cons — to wit:

  • No Copilot+ capability may deter some users, but only 2-5% of PCs sold today meet those requirements
  • USB-C port does not support Thunderbolt 4 or USB4
  • Limited upgradeability: RAM is soldered. only 1 M.2 slot, no PCIe expansion
  • ARM still imposes some compatibility and performance limitations: some apps won’t run while others run more slowly
  • ARM Adreno GPU limits graphics so it won’t handle serious games nor heavy creativity workloads

Net-Net: Good for Students & Office workers

I give the Neo 50q lots of points for cute, quiet, low power and minimal maintenance requirements. But it’s not a powerhouse by any stretch. It fits well into dorm rooms, home offices and business workspaces for people who need basic computing services. The Neo 50q won’t serve well for those who need more horsepower, who write code or create/edit videos. It can’t (and won’t) do much AI stuff of any kind.

All in all, it’s a niche product that fills that niche well but can’t wander outside those narrow boundaries. Given that the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini X — a real Copilot+ mini-desktop — lists for US$1365, the next step up is a pretty big one. This will make the Neo 50q very appealing for some, and not at all for others. For myself, I like it very much for what it is and can live with what it isn’t.

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Intel Graphics DSA Update Weirdness

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It’s strange. I just got a notification on the Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Hybrid tablet that Intel DSA had 3 updates pending: Bluetooth, Graphics and Wi-Fi. Of the three, BT and Wi-Fi went swimmingly. The graphics update, however, hung in unexpected ways. That’s how I found myself fixing Intel Graphics DSA update weirdness minutes ago. The trick is fortuitous, as I’ll explain…

Overcoming Intel Graphics DSA Update Weirdness

I have kind of a built-in timer when it comes to waiting for Windows installs to finish up. If an installer shows a progress bar, and I see no progress at all for 5 minutes, I start getting antsy. At 10 minutes, I pull the plug and kill the installer to see what happens.

Killing an installer may take varying degrees of effort. The Intel Graphics installer was well-enough behaved to respond to the “close window” controls at its upper right corner. In other, more stubborn cases, I’ve been known to resort to Task Manager, where I’ll find and kill the installer process itself. Sigh.

Imagine my surprise when the DSA installer reported success in installing the new Graphics driver. Seems that their current installer had finished, but simply neglected to update the UI to report said progress.

As Luck Would Have It…

My impatience spurred me into doing exactly the right thing. I’ve had other Windows installers hang, where killing the installer meant I had to start over and install again. In some more extreme cases, I first had to clean up the leftovers from the hung installer before a new install would work. That’s where a tool like Revo Uninstaller (in “Hunter Mode”) can be helpful: if you can find a UI trace left behind –such as the DSA notification tray icon — you can use it to help you clean up.

All I can say is “Thank goodness no cleanup was needed.” Here in Windows-World, when things get messy, they can really suck up some serious time. I ran into that last Monday, when WinGet in my primary MSA got profoundly bollixed. Go figure!

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Odd Restart Following KB5074109

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Yesterday was Patch Tuesday. This morning, I checked over the fleet to make sure all had gone well. With one exception — the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen1 — it had. But the P16 showed me a restart behavior I’d never seen before.  Indeed, I can only observe this machine experienced an odd restart following KB5074109. Let me explain what happened…

Delineating Odd Restart Following KB5074109

Some of this oddity is no doubt self-induced. I fired off the restart command in Windows Update through an RDP session. That closed the remote desktop session on the client. On the P16 host, the logged-in Windows session kept running. The desktop stayed visible, and the Start menu popped up in response to the usual cursor activity. But apps didn’t work, and I couldn’t open settings to fire off the restart command again. Even more interestingly, the power button in the Start menu didn’t work either. How to force a restart?

WinKey-X let me open an administrative Windows Terminal session. From there I used shutdown /r /f /t 0, where /r tells Windows to restart, /f summarily kills any open apps that might otherwise block restart (seemed like a good idea to me, given circumstances), and /t 0 tells shutdown to do its thing right away (in 0 seconds, that is).

That did the trick! The P16 transitioned into an “Updates underway” screen that let me know the pending updates were being applied. Then it restarted, finished the post-GUI update process, and took me to the desktop.

How do I know it worked? Edge popped up the now-customary post update browser window as the P16 finished booting to the desktop:

Problem solved, I guess. I’m not sure what caused this strange behavior. I didn’t see this on any of my other updated PCs or VMs, But then I didn’t have RDP sessions open into them at the time, either. Just another niggling little mystery here in Windows-World. Just another normal day…

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Diving Into Recovery Media Rabbithole

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I went down a number of dead ends yesterday, trying to restore WinGet to proper operation on my Flo6 AMD desktop. One of the more interesting and frustrating alleys I banged around in involved building bootable recovery media for Windows 11. At first,  I tried to get Copilot to steer me through, but found myself wandering in circles. So I turned to the built-in RecoveryDrive.exe tool. Diving into recovery media rabbithole took longer than I wanted, but gave me what I needed. I’ll explain…

Diving Into Recovery Media Rabbithole Requires Escape

Copilot had me formatting two partitions (UEFI: 1024MB; NTFS: rest of UFD), copying files, creating boot configuration data, and more. Only problem I had was that creation and management of the runtime environment ramdisk kept falling over sideways.

After my third failed attempt to create such a drive from scratch, I turned to the built-in Recovery Drive facility inside Windows 11 itself. (Visit Settings, search for “recovery drive” and it’ll take you right there.) This took a long-ish while to complete (about 45 minutes, all told). But it did what I needed it to do, and let me attempt AppX provisioning and repairs on a quiescent Windows image. That didn’t work out so well for me, but it did make it possible for me to learn some new PowerShell and Command Prompt tricks. I even got a couple of chances to dig into Safe Mode boot on my production desktop.

File layout for the Recovery Media looks like a typical Windows Setup disk (it can do that, too).

Desktop Fights Alternate Boot-ups: I Fight Back

At first, I was a bit stymied by the unwillingness of the Windows repair boot screen to field function keys (F1 for UEFI, F11 for boot menu, and so forth). But after a while, I learned how to work around those hurdles. Msconfig came in handy for getting into Safe Mode, while various flavors of the shutdown command let me access UEFI, alternate boot options, troubleshooting menus, and more.

The day was not a total loss, but it did throw me behind schedule on some project work. Today, I’m nosing the grindstone as I start to catch up. And isn’t that just the way things too often go, here in Windows-World?

 

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