Category Archives: Cool Tools

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Visual Studio Subscription Shenanigans

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I’m happy to admit it: one of my fave bennies for the Microsoft MVP program is another year’s worth of Visual Studio Subscriptions, with access to downloads and keys. The downloads include any major version of Windows 10 or 11 you might care to name, plus the full line-up of MS 365 and related products and platforms. That said, finding my way into the walled garden sometimes leads to various Visual Studio Susbscription shenanigans. Let me explain…

Detailing Visual Studio Subscription Shenanigans

I started out with this program back in days of yore, when it was called MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network). That said, it’s been some time since the VS Subscriptions switchover occurred. Indeed, Copilot just told me it happened in 2015. Ever since that switchover, I’ve had to learn to navigate inside the massive collection of pages under the visualstudio.com umbrella. It’s been an ongoing learning experience, in fact.

A couple of years back, I switched the MSA that’s associated with my MVP identity from one email address to another. It took months for that change to fully percolate into all modes of access. That made VS Subscriptions a little too interesting. Then, Microsoft rolled its Windows Insider MVP program — which had been separate since starting up in 2016 or thereabouts (I got elected in 2018) — into its general MVP program as of January 1, 2024.

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

I’ll crib from Tom Petty to reveal that my old VS Subscription timed out with the end of the Windows Insider MVP program. I didn’t get inducted into Microsoft MVP (Windows) status until May, 2024. Thus I was on the sidelines for access from January through much of May this year. Now, I’ve been back in for the past month to 6 weeks. I’m finally able to access all aspects of the subscription, and delighted to be where I am. These days a VS Professional single-user subscription costs around  US$1,200 per year: it’s very nice to have.

Lately, I’ve been using VS Subscriptions to grab various Windows 10 ISOs. I’m down to one physical PC running that older OS, so I’m building some VMs to participate in its newly-reactivated beta program. The downloads and keys are ultra handy for standing up (and blowing away) temporary OS instances. I just use a MAK (multiple activation key) and keep on trucking. Good stuff!

If you’re a developer or just need access to “a little bit of everything” inside Windows-World, Visual Studio Subscriptions is worth buying. How do I know? I paid for it from the early 2000s until I made it into the MVP program. There used to be a 3-year-at-a-time discount available for subscriptions, but you had to go through a reseller to get that. Copilot says there’s a good chance you can still do this now.

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

Start11 v2 App Launch Fails

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Here’s something interesting to ponder. I’m running Stardock’s mostly excellent Start11 v2 start menu replacement on a couple of Windows 11 PCs. One them runs Insider Preview on Canary Channel build 27686.1000. When I upgraded version 2.0 to 2.1 this morning, I couldn’t get the Start11 app itself to open from the Start menu. Click the icon, and nothing happens. Right-click the icon and select “Run as administrator…”: likewise nothing. Gosh, that looks like Start11 v2 app launch fails completely, doesn’t it? Not exactly, as it turns out…

Poking Around the UI When Start11 v2 App Launch Fails

Then I right-clicked the name underneath my avatar image on the right-side of the Start menu (which comes from Start 11 v2). Notice that the highlighted option at bottom reads “Configure Start11.” That’s the secret to launching the Start11 app itself, even though its app entry is currently unresponsive.

I found a Stardock webpage entitled Start11 Changelog. It shows the latest version of Start 11 v2 is 2.1 which dropped earlier this week on 8/20/2024. It’s a long one! Reading it over just now, it says “ARM support is now in all versions” (good to know). But I see nothing that indicates the Start11 app won’t launch when called explicitly. In fact, I see nothing that says this reading back into the changelog as far as I’d care to go (half-a-dozen screenfulls).

What About V1?

This is what makes things interesting. If you click on Start11 in the app list on the Start menu, it launched that app immediately. I’m a little non-plussed that a right-click manuever is needed on v2 to launch the app, but not in V1.

So I installed v2 on another test PC — the brand-new Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra that showed up here last week. Guess what? Opening the app works fine on that machine (as does the right-click trick as well. Something is wrong with the install on my Canary channel test PC, it seems. I’ll report into the Stardock Forums and see what they say. Stay tuned…things might get stranger still. We’ll see!

One More Thing…

On the P3 Ultra I noticed that Start11 shows up in WinGet. So I updated all outstanding items on the Lenovo ThinkPad X380 (my other Start11 v2 test PC). Then I tried the old uninstall/reinstall maneuver on that PC. WinGet happily uninstalled the program, but I had to redownload and re-key the new instance from the Stardock website. But when I was done, the app once again worked as it was supposed to. Looks like the first upgrade broke something. Solved!

 

 

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

Windows Sandbox Imposes Interesting Limits

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I read the other day in The Register that MS had dropped a new version of the Windows Sandbox. So naturally, I started messing around with it. I had to abandon a wild idea of using a Sandbox created environment as a base for WinGet export/import operations, too. I’ll explain why shortly. But I gave up because the Sandbox imposes interesting limits on its use, thanks in no small part to the absence of both WinGet and the MS Store from its runtime environment.

If Windows Sandbox Imposes Interesting Limits, Then What?

As you can see from the lead-in graphic, the Windows Sandbox is now available (and gets updates) from the Microsoft Store. One must still use Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features on or off to enable and install Sandbox. But after that, the Store takes over keep it up-to-date. Good stuff!

I quickly discovered that neither the MS Store nor WinGet were available inside the Sandbox. They also resisted my efforts to install and run them. That pretty much nixed my thought to use a Sandbox to make an export template. It’s hard to use WinGet export when the base command is itself MIA. Had to laugh, though…

Let Copilot ‘Splain It for Ya…

On a whim, I turned to the resident AI chatbot to help me understand what was going on. Here’s how it responded to the prompt: “Why is MS Store missing from Windows Sandbox?”

The Microsoft Store is indeed absent from Windows Sandbox. When you’re working within the sandbox environment, software remains “sandboxed” and runs separately from the host machine. Unfortunately, Windows Sandbox doesn’t include the Microsoft Store app or WinGet by default. To install applications, you’ll need to download the latest WinGet package from the WinGet releases page on GitHub1. If you’re specifically interested in using Microsoft Store apps within the sandbox, you can explore alternative virtual environment solutions that allow you to download apps from the Store2. Keep in mind that beginning with Windows 11 version 24H2, inbox store apps like Calculator, Photos, Notepad, and Terminal are also unavailable inside Windows Sandbox, but support for these apps will be added soon3

That pretty much put paid to my templating efforts, but it also taught me a thing or two about what Sandbox can and can’t do. I need a VM to make my vision a reality and will try that approach next. FWIW, I did try to bring WinGet into the Sandbox but kept running into underlying dependencies, also missing. Ultimately, it was more time and effort than I wanted to expend, so I decided to go the VM route instead.

It’s another case of “try it out, and see what happens” leading to a valuable learning experience here in Windows-World. Great fun, too!

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Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

Halfway Chrome Update Foxes Downloads

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Here’s a new one on me. I was trying to grab an email attachment last night from my webmail client and got stuck in a twist. These items normally take an ICS (Internet Calendaring and Scheduling) extension. Repeated downloads included same, but ended with the CRDOWNLOAD. I slowly figured out Chrome couldn’t correctly conclude its normal download process. Further, it seems a halfway Chrome update foxes downloads until it’s complete. Let me explain…

Why say: Halfway Chrome Update Foxes Downloads

If Chrome is running while it auto-updates, it requires user intervention (permission, really) to relaunch. That’s when it finishes its update process. This is depicted in the lead-in graphic, where the user must click “ReLaunch” (weird intercap, BTW) to finish things up. I guess this prevents losing user data on unsubmitted input pages or forms.

As fate would have it, the Chrome instance I was running was waiting for me to ReLaunch to complete its update process. Until that happened, every download failed to complete and ended in the CRDOWNLOAD file extension. As soon as I finished the update, those files disappeared from my download folder and left only a single, correct, valid and working ICS file for my use in Outlook.

Before this happened, I had no inkling this kind of thing was possible. Now I know, and understand that it’s yet another interesting side-effect of self-update behavior. In Windows, things can get a little strange when programs have to change themselves, and then need to transition from “previous version” to “current version” status. This is just another odd and indicative case in point.

Note: Report on recent missed posts

Those of you who follow this blog will note I’ve missed some days lately. Last Thursday, I took the day off to celebrate my birthday. Yesterday, I had a medical appointment occasioned (at least, in part) by all those accumulated birthdays. Indeed, in the months ahead I’ll be missing more days, as I go in for lens replacement surgery to “fix” my cataracts. I’ll keep writing around those little bumps in the road, but wanted to explain recent and upcoming interruptions in my usual daily output. Your good thoughts and wishes will also be gratefully accepted!

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

First Look: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6

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Well, then. A scant few days after I requested access to the business side of Lenovo’s current Copilot+ PCs, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 showed up via FedEx. In fact, the driver was blocking my driveway when I returned home from a visit to the eye doctor on Wednesday. Work life and deadlines being what they are, I’m just now getting around to intake, setup and fooling around with this new machine. That means it’s a first look Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 report.

The First Look: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6

I really like how Lenovo has totally minimized packaging. There were two papier-mache molds to cradle the laptop, a single cardboard box for the brick and power cord, and a paper-covered twist-tie for the latter, all inside a small cardboard box. A folded set of start-up instructions occupied less than a typical 8.5×11″ sheet of paper. Plus an environmentally friendly fiber (paper) bag to protect the laptop inside its cradle: 5 items in all. Great!

Lenovo has also completely digitized its user manuals now, and they’re readily available through the Lenovo Vantage app. Here’s a nicely labeled “front view” of the screen and deck of the T14s.

First Look: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6-frontview width=

It’s easy to see what is where in this text-free diagram.

Here’s how this unit came equipped:

  • CPU: Snapdragon X Elite X1378100 3.4 MHz Oryon processor
  • RAM: 32 GB of LPDDR5X-8448MHz memory (soldered)
  • SSD: 1 TB PCIe Gen 4 M.2 2242 (!) NVMe SSD
  • Display: 1920×1280 (Full HD) touchscreeen
  • Windows 11 Pro version 24H2 Build 26100.1150 (after update)
  • Other cool/interesting elements: Windows Hello IR camera, fingerprint sensor, presence sensing, intelligent cooling
  • 2xUSB-C (USB4 40Gbps) ports, 2 USB-A (5Gbps) ports, lock slot, nano-SIM tray, HDMI, mini-RCA audio jack port
  • Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 Wi-Fi 7 network adapter (GbE requires USB dongle for wired connection)

Bluetooth on this device works like a champ. Got my Logitech Ultrathin Touch mouse hooked up right away, ditto for the iPhone 12. I used a Thunderbolt 3 dock to link up a recovery disk UFD and an external USB4 NVMe in a fast enclosure. Surprisingly, it shows support for 40Gbps capability all the way down the device chain:

That’s pretty good,  for 4-5 year old Thunderbolt 3 dock. I’ll follow up with throughput and backup times in an upcoming post.

So far, so good…

I’m still getting things set up and configured the way I like them. But this is a sweet little unit, if somewhat chunkier and less vivid that the stunning high-res OLED display on the Yoga Slim 7x it’s replacing. I do like the added RAM, the inclusion of Windows 11 Pro (I had to upgrade from Home on the other unit to use RDP), Wi-Fi 7, and a bigger SSD (1.0 TiB instead of 0.5 TiB). More  will follow as I have time, but I very much like what I see, and what this laptop can do, so far. Stay tuned: more is coming…

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

Finally Windows 10 Copilot Is Here

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I’ve been waiting for some time for the Copilot facility to make its way onto my Windows 10 desktops since last November. That’s when MS made the first Preview available to versions 21H2 and 22H2. Since then, I’ve read numerous other announcements of its increasing spread and reach into the dominant Windows desktop OS. But not on my PCs or VMs, it seems. That all changed when Copilot hit the MS Store a couple of months back. Now, finally, Windows 10 Copilot is here for anybody who wants it — including me!

Finally Windows 10 Copilot Is Here
… and RUNNING!

I’m absolutely delighted to be able to interact with Copilot in a clear and well-understood way. That it’s now “just another app in the Store” makes it ever so much more approachable and easy to install and run. The only minor glitch I’ve run into from this Copilot avatar is obtaining version info. There’s supposed to be an about field under the App Settings heading. But I get an Edge page of app info instead, sans version number.

That’s OK though: I can visit the app’s Store page or use WinGet list Copilot to elicit that info. As you can see, the latter command provides that info on demand, no scrolling nor much reading needed:

There it is in clear form: my Win10 production PC is running the latest and greatest 1.0.4.0 version of Copilot (from the MS Store).

Copilot on 10 versus 11

So far, I really can’t tell much (or any) difference between Copilot on the two prevailing Windows OS versions.  Even on the brand-new Copilot+ PC that showed up at my doorstep yesterday: a ThinkPad T14S Gen 6 there aren’t easy, available ways to take advantage of the unit’s AI-oriented CPU, GPU and NPU capabilities just yet. Can’t wait to see how that will all unfold later this year, though, when 24H2 comes out “for real” — and hopefully, with readily usable Copilot+ features and functions. We’ll see: I’m certainly standing by!

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Fighting MS Phone Link

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It’s been an interesting morning. I’m heading to a medical appointment this afternoon to tackle a recent vision problem. So I’m going through new patient intake for a specialist first visit. Part of that intake asked for photos of my medical insurance cards. So natch, I wanted to transfer them from my iPhone 12. “That’s easy,” I thought, “I’ll use the Phone Link app.” Famous last words: once I got it set up and running, it lacked phone/file access. So I plugged a Lightning-to-USB cable between the P16 and the phone and got it handled. But I found myself fighting MS phone link for much of that way.

Fighting MS Phone Link: One Step Forward,
N Steps Back

Getting the phone link working was a bit more challenging than I’d expected. Because I’d set this phone up with the P16 long, long ago, I struggled to make a connection at first. I ended up scrubbing the device definitions inside Bluetooth on the PC/Windows side, and forgetting the PC on the iOS side. Only then was I able to set up a new, virgin working connection via Phone Link.

Then things got interesting: I could see notifications and phone stuff, plus music files, but no photos (or other file system stuff). I eventually used the USB-A to Lightning charge/data transfer cable to create a file system connection between the two devices. After another round of permissions (let the PC see the iPhone, let the iPhone see the PC), it showed up in File Explorer on the P16. Then I was easily able to move my ID card photos from phone to PC.

Once iPhone shows up as a drive-level volume in Explorer, everything else is just navigation.

Eventually, I got what I needed. But wow! It took me an hour or so longer than I planned to get through all this stuff. And I won’t even bother to mention the weird behavior from the so-called Patient Portal in providing my medical history. That’s a whole ‘nother can of worms altogether. But it’s not Windows related as far as I can tell so I’ll skip those gory details. But hey: it really is just another day in Windows-World. Sigh.

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

WinGet Updates PowerShell, Error Aside

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I have to chuckle. There’s a new PowerShell 7.4.4 out. I just used WinGet to update my production PC and it applied the update package. But when it got the end of the update, it reported “Installation abandoned” and ended the WinGet update session. Because 7.4.4 came when I closed, then re-opened, Windows Terminal it looks like WinGet updates PowerShell, error aside. You can see the sequence in the lead-in graphic.

WinGet Updates PowerShell, Error Aside

Notice that a “Cancelled” item shows up below the “Installation abandoned” notification. I’m guessing this last item refers to jumping out of the WinGet update sequence, because you see a normal command line prompt (spiffed up, thanks to Oh-My-Posh).

And sure enough, running WinGet upgrade –all –include-unknown finishes up the remaining items that appeared below PowerShell in the update list. In the next screencap I show a two-pane Windows Terminal session. On the left, you see the sequence of update packages installed; on the right, you see the PS Version is now 7.4.4.

To the left you see WinGet at work; to the right a newly-opened PS session says it’s v7.4.4. [Click image for full-sized view.]

One more thing: the final item in the upgrade sequence on the X1 Extreme was Winget itself (which appears as Microsoft.AppInstaller inside the upgrade list). At its conclusion, WinGet closes things out a bit more reasonably. It says:

Successfully installed. Restart the application to complete the upgrade.

Cancelled

I think that confirms my suspicion that the cancelled item refers to the WinGet session itself. It even throws a couple of Ctrl-C (^C) characters to make sure things get closed out. Here’s a screencap:

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Cool Tools, Device drivers, Insider stuff, Remote Desktop (RDP), Security, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

Getting Past Crowdstruck Requires Access

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Last Friday (July 19), cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike pushed an update to its threat sensors. Ultimately, that ended up with over 8 million Windows PC unable to boot, stuck on a BSOD for invalid references in a kernel-mode driver. Behind the scenes, all kinds of companies from hospitals, to government agencies, to airlines, and more, found themselves unable to use updates machines after a post-update reboot. What really caused the heartburn? Getting past Crowdstruck requires access to affected machines on a one-at-a-time basis.

If you look at the BSOD screencap at the head of this blog post, you’ll see a driver named csagent.sys. This is the CrowdStrike Agent driver which runs at kernel mode by design. That ensures it can’t be easily accessed or tampered with by hackers. But when something runs as a kernel mode driver it must be rigorously and thoroughly tested and vetted, or it can crash any PC on which it runs. Errors, in short, cannot be tolerated. Oops!

Why Getting Past Crowdstruck Requires Access

Part of the Crowdstrike software run as a Windows kernel-mode driver. That means it has the same level of access as privileged parts of the OS itself. If any of this code throws an error — as Crowdstrike has publicly admitted its update did — Windows crashes itself. That’s by design,  out of an abundance of caution to avoid loss of data or other damage to affected systems.

Here’s where things get interesting. Windows can’t boot and run until the offending driver is removed. In turn, the affected PCs must boot into safe mode or a recovery image. Either can operate on the damaged Windows image, remove the bad driver, and stand Windows back up again. This is easy when admins or IT pros have physical access to affected PCs. Indeed, Copilot recommends using the “three strikes” method to get into Windows recovery. (Three consecutive boot failures autoomatically triggers Windows alternate boot.) Then, using WinRE (or Windows itself in safe mode, from the Advanced Boot Options), repairs can go forward.

The problem is that many, if not virtually all, of the affected machines stayed down, stuck in a “boot loop.” They remained that way because their operators DIDN’T have physical access to those PCs. I’ll bet that most of them had to be teleoperated through a KVM device that can work around PC  problems that extend all the way down to the hardware level (outside the scope of normal remote access and RDP). This kind of thing doesn’t scale well, either, so it takes time to work through hundreds to thousands of remote PCs (think of the PC behind the counter at AA or Delta, where the gate or ticket agent is completely clueless about boot-level Windows repairs).

An “Interesting” Problem, Indeed!

Far too many cybersecurity and IT pros found themselves in the grip of the old Chinese curse (“May you live in interesting times”) after the *291* driver for Crowdstrike  tried to run on Friday. Organizations that prepare and drill for these kinds of outages were doubtless at an advantage in already knowing how to broker and run boot repairs remotely. I can only imagine the hair-pulling that went on at other outfits less well-equipped to handle this outage.

Here’s a moral to ponder for those who run remote Windows PCs where physical access is impossible, difficult or impractical: Can your remote management infrastructure and automation work with a Windows PC that’s not booting, and won’t boot until it’s restarted in some special way? If your answer is “yes,” you’re probably over the Crowdstruck hump already. If your answer is “no,” you’ll probably make that a top priority as soon as you can kick-start and repair all remaining affected Windows nodes. In the meantime, my deepest sympathies…

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

Copilot+ PCs Bring Better USB4 Support

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When I went to build recovery media for the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x Copilot+ PC last week, I dropped a Belkin TB3 dock into one of its 3 USB-C ports. Why? Because I needed a USB-A port into which to plug the Mushkin Atom UFD I targeted for that purpose. The lead-in graphic shows the dock at the “other end” of USB4 host router 1 (right-click the graphic and open in its own tab to see the whole thing). The next screencap shows the Hardware tab from Properties for that recovery drive (E:). Thus, I claim that Copilot+ PCs bring better USB4 support because until USB4 hubs and devices appeared in settings, users had to run a separate (and less informative) Thunderbolt app from Intel to see what was what. This has improved!

Copilot+ PCs Bring Better USB4 Support.e-drive-hwprops

The Mushkin E: drive is an older USB 3.0 Atom device.

So What If Copilot+ PCs Bring Better USB4 Support?

Though I’ve yet to see any laptops or PCs endowed with USB 4 2.0 (you can see version 1.0 in the lead-in graphic) this is now part and parcel of Windows 11 as well. It will also allow channel speeds to double from 40 Gbps (which 1.0 supports) to 80 Gbps (2.0 only, and primarily limited to video links). This probably doesn’t matter much right now, given that these top-of-the-line versions aren’t yet widely available. But for those who need the speed, this will matter once the peripherals and docks gain USB4 2.0 support.

I’ve got a Qualcomm Copilot+ Developer Kit SFF PC showing up here at Chez Tittel in the next day or two (today, even, maybe). I’ll be quite curious to see what Settings > Bluetooth & devices > USB > USB4 hubs and devices has to tell me about what’s inside and the docks and other devices I plan to hook up. Indeed, I’m going to start with a Lenovo P27u20 monitor, with its integrated TB4 docking capability. Hopefully, it will not only provide a great display, but also the means to hook up my keyboard and mouse. Stay tuned! These USB4 adventures will continue…

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