Category Archives: Cool Tools

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

P1 Gen 6 Post-Sleep RDP Fail Fixed

September 22, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’m still breaking in the Lenovo P1 Gen 6 Mobile Workstation here at Chez Tittel. It’s pretty much where I want it right now. Indeed, its 13th-gen Intel i7-13800H 20-core CPU is nothing less than awe-inspiring. This week I had enough spare bandwidth to notice that while I could easily remote into the unit right after a reboot, it became unavailable to RDP after falling asleep. As soon as I disabled sleep while plugged into A/C power, I found this P1 Gen6 post-sleep RDP fail fixed. The corresponding Power & Battery Setting shows in the lead-in graphic above.

Getting to P1 Gen 6 Post-Sleep RDP Fail Fixed

Fixing things was the easy part. Figuring out what was wrong took a while. I was able to ping the unit’s LAN address, but Remote Desktop Connection (and the Remote Desktop app) stubbornly refused to let me access the PC.

Having been down this road before with other PCs, I soon realized that:
(a) RDP connections worked right after any reboot
(b) those same connections quit working after waking from sleep
I don’t know what it is about PC sleep behaviors but they can sometimes be mysterious and opaque. I’m just glad the simple, obvious solution — disabling sleep on A/C power — does the trick.

What About PowerToys Awake?

This situation actually reminded me that I hadn’t yet installed PowerToys on the P1 Gen6 laptop. Having now done so, I have to believe my access issues are over with Awake enabled and on the job. Just to be doubly darn sure I set it to “Keep awake indefinitely.” Now when I try to RDP into this laptop, it should be ready, willing and able to accept that connection. Let’s see!

Note added 2 Days Later: I’ve been running the P1 Gen 6 for a couple of days now without further remote access issues. Looks like the fix really is in. Good!

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, PowerShell, Updates, WED Blog

Update Trick Delivers Clean PS 7.3.7 Install

September 21, 2023 Ed Tittel 4 Comments

OK, then, Here’s an interesting way to handle the September 19 update for PowerShell, from 7.3.6 to 7.3.7. Indeed this specific update trick delivers clean PS 7.3.7 install. I’ve run into minor glitches on previous up-versions, because I was using PowerShell to update itself. It would show cancelled as its final update status, as the old runtime had to fall over to get itself out of the way for the new one.

You can see this at work in the lead-in graphic. It shows the Installer running to update PowerShell as a pop-up within the PS windows itself. In fact, it runs to completion without issues. Why? Because I closed the open default PS session and ran the PS update inside an Administrative Command Prompt session instead.

Which Update Trick Delivers Clean PS 7.3.7 Install?

Because PS essentially interferes with itself if it runs the upgrade from one version to the next, the trick is NOT to use PowerShell. That’s why I switched to Command Prompt instead, and ran the upgrade there. No strange behavior, no “Cancelled” status at the end, nothing weird at all, in fact. You can see a new PS session window at right here with the new 7.3.7 version clearly identified (the left-hand side shows the complete PS upgrade in Command Prompt):

Once the update is finished I used the Command Palette to open a PS session split-right, which shows the new version running.

I’ll have to remember this for future PS updates. I’ve just used this technique on a half-dozen test PCs and it works like a charm!

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

Snappy Driver Installer Worth Considering

September 20, 2023 Ed Tittel 2 Comments

I know. I know. Lots of Windows experts and pundits, including at AskWoody, TenForums and ElevenForum, don’t recommend or support driver update tools. That said, I find Snappy Driver Installer worth considering anyway (at least, the Origin fork). Let me recite some recent experience. Then I’ll enumerate the reasons why I’m so grateful for Snappy Driver Installer…

Why Say: Snappy Driver Installer Worth Considering

First let me explain why I’m grateful for this tool and its labor-intensive project. Almost alone among such tools, Snappy Driver installer (SDI) is open source (GNU GPL v3.0 license). Most decent driver update tools cost upwards of US$30 per year, some more than that.

Just this morning, Norton (still running it on my production PC, but I plan to bid it adieu with my next desktop build) told me I had 14 drivers out of date. It costs upwards of US$60 to add its driver scanning functions (and a bunch of other stuff, too) to its ~US$90 annual subscription fee. I’m not interested in paying more, thanks, but I was glad to learn I had some drivers out of date.

Firing up SDI for the first time is interesting because it needs more just under 37GB of driver files to offer a complete collection of stuff from which to work. Even so, the tool is smart enough to focus only on driver packs (7ZIP files of related drivers) that a target PC needs. For this target PC, that involved just a bit over 3 GB across 8 different archive files. SDI was able to handle all the out-of-date drivers on its own, in about 30 minutes (most unattended, while I did something else).

SDI Benefits and Features (IMO Anyway…)

Snappy Driver Installer is free. It’s easy to maintain a portable version on a UFD you can use for all your Windows PCs. It works with all current Windows versions (I’ve used it across the range of Windows 10 and 11 editions and builds).

For me, SDI does the job nicely and keeps my PCs current without annual subscription fees. And because I routinely shoot an image backup before mucking about with drivers, I can say no such update has ever hosed one of the PCs under my purview.

Like I said at the outset: SDI is worth checking out for yourself. You just might find it useful. Your call…

Note: For timing purposes I fired up SDI on another test PC to see how long it takes to grab the whole collection of driver packs. Right now, it’s 115 minutes in at 50% done. That means it could take as long as 4 hours to complete. It’s clocking between 18 and 85 Mbps as it runs, so it’s apparently throttled deliberately and carefully. Final runtime came in well under 3 hours (just over 155 minutes, or 2:35).

Wait! There’s more: Version forks and controversies

I got a tweet today from David Ballesteros. He let me know there are dueling versions of SDI, including the one formerly linked above (I removed it as I’ll explain). Another is called SDI Origin, which gets an interesting description at MajorGeeks.

WARNING!!! Malware is reported in the SDI fork. Thus, many online posters say — no surprise there — use SDI Origin instead. I’ve not run into any of said reported malware, adware or other potential gotchas, but my PCs are pretty armored up.

Just to be on the safe side it seems like SDIO (SDI Origin) is the best version to use. That’s why I killed the link to the other fork (but it’s easy to find online). And as I look at the filenames on my home drive for Snappy I see I wound up with the Origin version in both subfolders anyway (directory root is named SDIO).

As you can see in this properties Window, even my original exe file is named “Snappy Driver Installer Origin.” Reinforces the old saying: it’s better to be lucky than good. Phew: might’ve dodged a bullet!

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

Snipping Tool Gains OCR Text Grab

September 18, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’s a good one. In the latest builds of Windows 11 Canary and Dev (25951.1010 and 23545.1000, respectively) Snipping Tool gains new functionality that’s both interesting and useful. In those versions Snipping Tool gains OCR text grab capability. You can see it at work in the lead-in graphic.

Exploring How Snipping Tool Gains OCR Text Grab

The secret to this functionality is the text grab button at the top of the toolbar (center of image, lightly highlighted in off-pink). It looks like several lines of text inside a box, to wit:

Not as pretty when magnified, but the intent is pretty clear.

When you use the text grab function in Snipping Tool, you get buttons to “Copy all text: and “Quick redact” (blocks out sections of text with dark overlays). OTOH, if you right-click inside the selected text area inside such a snip you get a pop-up menu with Copy text, Select all and Redact text buttons.

It’s all good, and this capability is quite welcome. Indeed, I have to ask: why didn’t MS add this years and years ago? I’ve had to turn to other tools for this capability in the past. Nice to have it built right into Snipping Tool now. Good stuff!

It’ll be a while before this goes into general availability, though. I’m guessing this won’t make it into production until the 24H2 release comes out next year. We’ll see: I’ll track this and keep you posted.

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

Interesting OMP Winget Gotcha Is Easily Fixed

September 15, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I have to laugh. When I opened Windows Terminal/PowerShell yesterday morning, I got a notification that a new version of OhMyPosh (OMP) was available. So naturally, I tried to see the update. When that failed, I tried to update OMP directly, and that failed, too. But thankfully, this interesting OMP gotcha is easily fixed. I’ll explain …

But first take a look at the lead-in graphic above. It starts with the notification. That happens when loading PS causes the OMP environment to start up, too. But running winget upgrade shows an issue with accessing the winget database. Ditto for trying an explicit, directed upgrade on the string “Oh My Posh.” What to do?

OK, Here’s How Interesting OMP Winget Gotcha Is Easily Fixed

First, the fix: I went to GitHub, where developer Jan DeDobbeleer always maintains a current version under its “Latest” link. For the record, I downloaded and installed his install-amd64.exe file there and the upgrade completed without a hitch.

But what went wrong with OMP in the first place? I sent Jan a Twitter (X) message and he replied: “Yes, unfortunately winget, just like the Store, is slower in processing new versions.” I took this to mean the changes were already posted to the manifest database, but that those changes had not yet been committed.

It’s Just a Matter of Time

And indeed, I just checked one of my other test PCs with OMP installed. Running winget just now, it shows — and stands ready to — upgrade OMP to the latest version. Looks like the notification beat the update yesterday, but they’re now back in synch. Here’s visual proof:

This morning’s check works as expected. Database is caught up!

And boy howdy, as we say here in Texas, isn’t that just the way things sometimes go, here in Windows-World. You bet!

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

Where Is AI Taking Windows 11?

September 11, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

There’s a fascinating story in WindowsLatest this morning. Entitled Microsoft’s AI could supercharge your Windows 11 desktop backgrounds, it describes fancy means for animating the desktop. The idea, apparently, is to create an illusion of depth and add visual interest to ordinary usage scenarios. Sounds cool and perhaps even compelling, but it has me asking: “Where is AI taking Windows 11?”

Answering: “Where is AI taking Windows 11?”

The afore-linked story mentions other, more significant (IMO) uses of AI as well, including Bing and Edge, Windows 11 (e.g. CoPilot), Azure and more. Frankly, I’m a little surprised that desktop backgrounds warrant mention in that same league. Indeed, I’d like to suggest some other and perhaps more helpful ways to use AI in Windows 11 that could really help power and professional IT users on that platform:

An AI-based tie-in betweeen Power Automate and PowerShell, or an AI-based PowerShell assistant. I envision something like an over-the-shoulder agent observing patterns of use, and suggesting faster and better ways to do the same things, or providing canned scripts or packages that take over such jobs over time.
A series of AI-based system monitors for Windows 11 “behavioral areas” such as security, performance, disk structure, OS image management and optimization, and OS and application update handling. The first topic above could be of great benefit to all these things.
Components of the Microsoft 365 environment, including OS, VMs, Office components (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) are already undergoing “AI enrichment.” Improving ease of automation via macros and scripts, especially for repetitive tasks, would be fabulous.

Deciding Where AI Comes Into Play

As the technology becomes more familiar and its uses better understood, I’m sure we’ll see more and better ways to put AI to work at all levels of computing and user interaction. Personally, I’m in favor of AI-assisted user empowerment across the board — that is, from boosting what everday or casual end users can do (and get done) all the way up to those who work in data centers and other tech-heavy environments where the cloud and its supporting infrastructure come from, and sophisticated, distributed applications and services reside and operate.

Who knows where this will take us in a decade or more? Indeed, it’s sure to go further from today’s vision of computing than we can probably imagine. Waaaaaaaaaay beyond desktop backgrounds, to be sure…

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

MS Recasts Printer Driver Requirements

September 8, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Very interesting! There’s a September 6 update to MS Learn Windows device drivers docs. Therein, MS recasts its future printer driver requirements (End of servicing plan for third-party printer drivers on Windows.). For those who manage and use Windows printers, it’s worth a read.

Driver Standards Explain How MS Recasts Printer Driver Requirements

The change comes courtesy of the the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). Originally developed by IBM, IPP is explained in an MS Print support app design guide. Indeed, IPP may be “[u]sed from a client device to interact with the printer to retrieve and set printing preferences and to send the document to be printed.”

Long story short: support for IPP and Mopria standards is a good thing. They make vendor-supplied printer drivers and software unnecessary — at least, for printers that support those standards. And FWIW, IPP and Mopria work on Android, while AirPrint does likewise for iDevices.

That explains the MS timetable in its “end of servicing plan”

September 2023: MS announces end of servicing for third-party printer drivers
2025: No new printer drivers from WU
2026: Printer driver ranking always prefers IPP drivers
2027: Third-party print driver updates disallowed (except for security-related fixes)

IPP Has Been There All Along…

Check out this sub-Window. It comes via Control Panel → Programs and Features → Turn Windows features on or off. It shows built-in IPP support in Windows 10 and 11. See “Internet Printing Client” (box is checked) under”Print and Document Services”

Internet Printing Client checked means IPP is active.
If not, do check it.

Using TCP/IP addresses for networked printers, I’d been unknowingly using IPP for years . Thanks to MS’s updated printer driver architecture, I needn’t use device-specific drivers and software, either. Good stuff.

Indeed, my 2014/2015 Samsung (now HP) and Dell (Brother, actually) printers already use IPP. Most printers made in 2014 or later will do likewise. Good stuff!

Here are additional resources that readers may find helpful.

OpenPrinting Driverless Printers: Vendor makes and models for IPP and/or AirPrint capable printers.
Wikipedia: Mopria Alliance: Info about this trade association. Founded by HP in 2013, it includes global print device makers backing open print initiatives and standards.

Cheers!

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

So Long SUMo & KC Softwares

September 7, 2023 Ed Tittel 12 Comments

Dang! I’ve been through this same situation before with a terrific software update monitor. For the past 3 years or so, a favorite go-to tool in my update arsenal has been KC Softwares Software Update Monitor, better known as SUMo. It looks like it’s time to bid them adieu. As shown in the lead-in graphic’s termination notice, I find myself saying “So long SUMo & KC Softwares.”

After So Long SUMo & KC Softwares, Then…?

Let me tell you how I found out things were shutting down with Kyle Katarn’s operation. I found an oversight in SUMo a few minutes ago. Seems that it’s once again recommending a beta version of DropBox as an update target. The program’s automated “find the highest numbered update” algorithm does that sometimes because beta versions are usually higher-numbered than the most current production ones.

My usual practice for the past year and more has been to send the developer a Twitter (X) message to tell him this needs checking and possibly also fixing. This time, when I attempted to send him a message the application responded “You can no longer send messages to this person.” In turn, this led me to kcsoftwares.com, where I found the termination message you see above. Sigh.

Remembrance of Things Past

Back in 2019, I wrote about an older update monitoring tool, likewise pulled from the market. This was back when Windows Enterprise Desktop was still under the TechTarget umbrella (title: Missing Secunia PSI). Long story short: I used Secunia PSI from 2010 to 2016 with great pleasure and success. When it, too, was withdrawn from the market I had to scramble to find a replacement.

That’s what I’ll do now, too. Stay tuned: both the hunt and its results should be quite interesting.

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

Intel Fixes PROSet Problem

September 6, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Back on August 18, I reported that version 28.2 of Intel PROSet didn’t support Windows 10 22H2 for some reason. Because I was away from my desk from August 25 through September 4, I only discovered today that Intel fixes PROset problem. According to the properties for the 64-bit executable, it dates back to August 4. That said, today’s download and install works. Indeed, it threw no “version not supported” error message as shown in the earlier post.

When Intel Fixes PROSet Problem, Then What?

This time around, the update worked as expected. The readme.txt file still omits Windows 10 22H2 as a supported version, but the exe file now works properly on my machine. Sigh.

This has me wondering: Did Intel fix something on the sly, or did I simply try to run the wrong exe file last time around? I’ll never know, but I’m glad the update now works as it should. I no longer get nagged when I check updates for something I thought I couldn’t fix on my own.

It’s Still a Mystery to Me…

Looking back at my earlier post, the error message says nothing about which version of Windows it expected to find. I suppose I could have jumped to the conclusion that 22H2 wasn’t supported because it doesn’t appear on the supported version list.

As before, readme.txt calls out Windows 10 21H2 and 1809 but does not mention 22H2. I wonder now if I mistakenly tried to run the 32-bit PROSet executable instead of its 64-bit counterpart. That could provoke the same kind of error message as before. When I try to run that version now, it tells me “Another version is already installed…”

Such surprises can be educational. They teach me that my diagnoses may not always be the correct ones, no matter how plausible the supporting evidence may seem. Indeed, that’s the way things go in Windows-World sometimes, as I know only too well.

Bottom line: I’m glad the update worked this time. Though it may actually have been a self-inflicted problem, PROSet now shows version 28.2.0.2 on my desktop. Call my Windows 10 PC updated, even if I’m not sure exactly what went wrong on August 18.

As you can see at lower left, this running PROSet instance self-describes as 28.2.02 — the latest version.

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

UUPDump.Net Is MIA

August 24, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Well, well, well. I just learned some interesting and useful stuff. But alas, one of my favorite Windows image resource websites is down. That’s right: UUPDump.Net is MIA. According to a handy website I discovered “Is It Down or Just Me?” — the source of the foregoing lead-in graphic — it’s experienced 2 outages that lasted at least 4 hours each in the last 24-hour period. Indeed, it’s currently unavailable. Sigh.

Why UUPDump.Net is MIA Matters…

UUPDump.Net represents a very slick bit of reverse engineering. Essentially, it captures and replays all of the traffic between the WU servers and a client seeking to download some specific Windows image (10 or 11, Home or Pro …, and language). It’s even smart enough to run DISM on a base OS image to add-package in updates and so forth so you can get to specific Build numbers higher than the OS baseline itself (e.g. 22621.2215 on Windows 11 production, or 25831.1010 on Windows 11 Canary Channel Insider Preview). And because it grabs all of its files from Microsoft servers, it’s as safe as they are.

Long story short: I use UUPDump.net when I want to match a Windows image to a specific (and usually pretty recent) Windows 10 or 11 Build on a specific PC or VM. It’s incredibly handy, and serves equally well for in-place upgrade repair installs or clean installs. So when it goes missing, that’s a problem — hopefully, a temporary one.

More Web Status Checks

I also found ip-lookup.org to be helpful in checking on UUPDump.net. As the next screencap shows, it provides an IP address for the website. I can also confirm for myself that the address is not working by typing an “IP URL” into Chrome — namely https://135.181.139.104. This confirms the site is unavailable with a “This site can’t be reached” error message.

Gosh! I hope UUPDump.net comes back up soon. I’ll struggle along without it for now. But I’ll be glad when it comes back to life.

One More Thing: I went to the wayback machine to see if a recent snapshot of the site would work in lieu of the actual site itself. It might! I’m grabbing the stuff for the latest Canary build right now as an experiment. It’s quite a bit slower, and it falls over just after the language selection phase. Doesn’t look like this works. Again: too bad!

Note Added 8/24 ~3PM Central Daylight Time

UUPDump.net is back up. The outage graph at IsItDownOrJustMe says there have been four outages in the last 24 hours, each of 4 hours’ duration. Zounds!