Category Archives: Cool Tools

Cool Tools, Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

SDIO Replaces Studio with Game-Ready

July 4, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’m looking over what Snappy Driver Install Origin (SDIO) wrought by way of massive driver updates on a couple of Lenovo laptops. I noticed something interesting. Something perhaps even mildly disconcerting, in fact. In updating drivers, SDIO cheerfully replaces Studio with Game-Ready drivers for GeForce GPUs.

I’m not sure that’s what users would want, if informed in advance of this switcheroo. Indeed, I had earlier noticed and reported on SDIO replacing Realtek Universal Audio Driver (UAD) drivers with High Definition Audio (HDA) ones. As with the prior NVIDIA driver types UAD offers things that HDA does not. For example: UAD adds Realtek Audio Console support while HDA is a no-go. Thus, some users wouldn’t want to switch — myself included.

Why SDIO Replaces Studio with Game-Ready

Methinks SDIO’s approach to driver updates is pretty simple-minded. And indeed, the release date for the NVIDIA Game-Ready driver is newer than that for the Studio driver. A simple data comparison makes it “logical” for the younger item to prevail. But IMO that shows other considerations are needed. If you check the lead-in graphic, you’ll see that SDIO recommends Realtek HDA drivers, though I’m happily using UAD and the Realtek Audio console.

This kind of thing needs “exception handling” in SDIO. If it supported rules to over-ride strict date-based selection, it could easily work around the kinds of situations pertaining to NVIDIA graphics and Realtek audio drivers. I guess I’ll file a feature request to see what happens.

Know Your Tools; Work Around Deficits

This illustrates how important it is to observe and understand what tools are doing. When they do something unexpected or unwanted it’s often because the developer didn’t consider certain use cases. By bringing them to developers’ attention and learning how to work around them until they’re fixed, IT pros can keep on keeping on even when their tools don’t always work exactly as they want them to.

That’s life, here in Windows-World. I intend to keep watching, and keep enjoying its eddies and rhythms, for some time to come! Happy 4th of July, too, for those who celebrate this holiday.

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

Snappy versus Vantages Poses Sharp Contrast

July 3, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

In case you didn’t know, I’ve got a boatload of Lenovo laptops here at Chez Tittel (I count 6 in my office right now, with another upstairs). The company is kind enough to loan me the occasional unit (just over half that total) and I’ve purchased many more over the years than are currently on hand. That means frequent driver checks and hunts to keep those units up-to-date. I performed a clean install on the P16 Mobile Workstation last eweek. I also recognize extended procrastination on the X1 Extreme (both are ThinkPad models). Consequently, I’m observing that Snappy versus Vantage poses sharp contrast in items found and updates needed. Let me explain…

Why Say: Snappy versus Vantages Poses Sharp Contrast

For the P16, Vantage found 8 drivers in need of updating after I’d completed the clean install. For the X1 Extreme (running Build 22635.3858) Vantage says “nothing to see here.” From the Snappy Driver Installer Origin (SDIO) perspective, it found 61 drivers to update on the P16 (delta = 53), and 59 on the X1 Extreme (delta = 59). IMO, that’s a pretty sharp contrast. You can see it at work downloading packages prior to installing updates for the X1 Extreme in the lead-in graphic.

SDIO is an open source project, for which Glenn Delahoy is primarily responsible. It’s donation-ware, and worth supporting (I just anted up US$5 and thanked him for his work). I find it to be a reasonably accurate driver scanner and absolutely the least intrusive of all many and various ones I’ve tried over the years.

The download phase takes a while because that many drivers perforce means downloading a number of good-sized driver package files for SDIO to use. On the X1 Extreme, it just took about 15 minutes to download 8.4GB of stuff, then another 20 minutes or so to chunk through the 59 driver installs. I was bemused that each of the CPU’s 12 cores required its own download and install of an”Intel Dynamic Tuning Generic Participant” and another “Intel Dynamic Tuning Processor Participant,” but that’s apparently the way it rolls.

Indeed, there was lots of Intel stuff in the mix (I’d say around two-thirds of the components overall). But the updates went through and produced no blivits (Unknown Device entries) in Device Manager. Indeed, the X1 Extreme seems to be running faster and more smoothly, too. Go figure!

Cool Tools, PowerShell, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Update and Check Windows Terminal Versions

July 2, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

When I checked over the PC fleet this morning WinGet let me know an update for Windows Terminal was pending. It would take the program from version 1.20.11381.0 to 1.20.11781.0. Easy-peasey. But once is was done, I asked myself: what’s the best way to check that the new version is running. Thus, I found myself digging into how to update and check Windows Terminal versions. The lead-in graphic, in fact, shows two ways to version-check, captured from the colorful Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x Copilot+ PC.

For the record those two checks are:

1. Winget list Microsoft.WindowsTerminal shows the current installed version on the PC.
2. Click the down-caret in the WinTerm title bar, then click “About” from the pop-up menu to get the “About” mini-window atop the Windows Terminal application window.

How-to: Update and Check Windows Terminal Versions

The update part is easy using the general WinGet upgrade –all –include-unknown command. But if you want to target WinTerm explicitly, Winget upgrade Microsoft.WindowsTerminal will also work.

One thing to remember, as you’ll see in the next screencap: once you’ve updated Windows Terminal, you need to close the current session, then open a new one. Why? Because the process that’s running the old version won’t quit, and a new process to run the new version won’t take over, until you’ve done the “out with the old, in with the new” routine that this accomplishes. Good stuff!

One more cool little detail: as soon as WinGet updates WinTerm, it bails back out to the command line. That’s so you can close/re-open your session and keep going…

Just another routine day here in Windows-World. I really enjoy working at the command line a LOT more, now that I’ve learned how to jazz things up and make best use of WinGet to keep them current.

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, PowerShell, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Font Handling Works Through Settings

June 28, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then: In the wake of the clean install on the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstatation, I’ve been reworking some of my runtime stuff. Customizing Windows Terminal comes under that heading, near the top of my priorities. To take proper advantage of OhMyPosh, I have to add a so-called Nerd Font to that PC’s collection. Turns out this is way easy in Windows 11 because font handling works through Settings in that OS. Let me show you!

How Font Handling Works Through Settings

Once upon a time installing fonts in Windows meant visiting the C:\Windows\Fonts directory and dropping the various .ttf (typeface) files there. Then Windows could add them to its collection and display them in a variety of forms in the Control Panel element named Fonts.

And indeed, the Fonts CPL is still alive and well. But if you visit Settings > Personalization > Fonts you see the add fonts window there, with its “Drag and drop to install” instruction. Arguably this is exactly the same at using Control Panel > Fonts. But IMO it’s less work and more fun to use. At least it worked quite well for me.

What Came Out of My Visit to Fonts

Thanks to all the files in my personal account folders and their auto-backup to OneDrive, when I set up a new PC with the same MSA, it inherits all that stuff. So as soon as I visited Nerd Fonts, downloaded CakaydiaCove NF, and installed OhMyPosh on the P16, this is what Windows Terminal looks like (it’s using Jan De Dobbeleer’s eponymous theme named “JanDeDobbeleer” in its config file).

Windows Terminal showing winfetch and OhMyPosh at work, overlaid atop the Nerd Fonts download page. [Click image for full-size view.]

FWIW, I use the various Caskaydia Cove NF (Nerd Font) variants in Windows Terminal because they look great with OhMyPosh. But it’s both worthwhile and fun to poke around that collection to find something that you like and looks as good or better.

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

WinGet VPN Update Gotcha

June 25, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’ve seen it before, and I’ll see it again. In running routine WinGet updates yesterday, I noticed that my VPN (Private Internet Access, a paid-for subscription) wasn’t getting handled. I figured out why pretty quickly, too: it was because the VPN was running and WinGet didn’t want to mess with that connection. Although I’ve labeled this as a WinGet VPN update gotcha, it’s evidence of the program’s conservative outlook on interrupting something actively underway.

It’s Not Really a WinGet VPN Update Gotcha

Take a look at the lead-in graphic. You can see that WinGet knows an update is pending. You can also see that WinGet doesn’t apply that update. What you can’t see is that between the winget upgrade command and the following winget list command, I opened PIA (Private Internet Access) and used its internal update function to perform that pending operation. Thus the winget list command shows the latest version number (3.5.7+08120). Indeed it’s the very same version number that shows in the preceding winget upgrade command as “Available.” If you can’t see it on-screen, right-click that graphic and open it in a separate tab (it’s at bottom center).

In working with WinGet over the past few years — it first appeared in May, 2020, and I started using it early in 2022 — I’ve observed that it will often skip over updates when the program involved is running. This happens pretty regularly with web browsers (e.g. Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, in my case), but with other applications, too.

I appreciate this approach because it minimizes the risk of lost connections or data resulting from an upgrade. It can be a little disconcerting when it happens, but quick investigation usually straightens things out in short order. Keep up the good work, people!

AI, Cool Tools, Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Windows 11 on ARM IS Different

June 24, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Gadzooks! It’s been an interesting last few days. Friday morning, a Snapdragon X Elite-based Copilot+ PC — the nifty Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 — showed up here at Chez Tittel. I’ve been working and messing around with it pretty much ever since, amidst occasional bouts of paying work. Among my observations so far: Windows 11 on ARM is different from its x86 counterpart. Let me explain…

Why Say: Windows 11 on ARM IS Different

Take a look at the intro screencap. I ran it on the Copilot+ PC immediately after updating that unit from WU. On an x86 PC, the progress bar would count to 10% on one line, then it would count to 100% on a second line before completing the component cleanup directive (middle portion of the image). On ARM, no such shenanigans. In general also, this also PC runs faster than x86 for all these intense DISM commands. But there’s more…

After I got going on this PC Friday afternoon, I tried to uninstall McAfee (one of the few bits of junk/gunk Lenovo throws onto its laptops these days). The uninstaller got to 10% and sat there . . . and sat there . . . and sat there FOREVER. At the time time, the Start menu became unresponsive, apps and applications wouldn’t load, and the machine in general ran like a wounded animal by fits and starts. WTF?

Then it dawned on me: I checked WU and, sure enough, a CU update for the .NET Framework (KB5037589) had been installed, and a restart was pending. I killed everything else, then restarted the unit to complete that update. Immediately afterward, the PC returned to speedy, fluent operation. I haven’t had a noticeable glitch since then.

My conclusion: if an update on an ARM PC requires a restart, it’s best done immediately after the update finishes installing. I could’ve saved myself oodles of wasted time and wondering what was wrong with the Yoga Slim 7 if I’d done that myself yesterday. Now I know: it won’t happen again. That’s a very different story on x86, where I’ve gotten away with postponing restarts for days sometimes…

More to Come, I’m Sure…

But I’m just getting started with this new AI-enabled PC. I’m sure I’ll have lots more to report in the days and weeks ahead. This morning, I started playing with Copilot and observed that it runs faster, but doesn’t seem any better-equipped to read my mind properly than it was before. I’m still learning how to build queries so I can get good answers. I’ve also tried out the AI-enabled version of MS Paint with varying degrees of success.

Stay tuned as I get myself oriented, and start learning how to take proper advantage of a Copilot+ PC. It should be interesting!

AI, Cool Tools, Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Yoga Copilot+ PC Pops In Unexpectedly

June 21, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

When I sent an email to the Lenovo Reviews team earlier this week, I asked that they send me a Copilot+ PC at their earliest convenience. When “the Boss” told me “You have a package” this morning, I had no idea what it might be. But gosh: it’s a brand-spanking-new Yoga Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 14Q8X9. It’s still booting — during which it clearly recognized itself as a Copilot+ PC — so I can’t even say what’s under the hood just yet. But when a Yoga Copilot+ PC pops in unexpectedly, I’m happy to work through its OOBE and setup stuff. Wow!

Yoga Copilot+ PC Pops In Unexpectedly, Things Get Fun!

OK, I got far enough into booting that I can say a little about what’s what (thanks to System Information in the running OS):

Snapdragon X1E78100 CPU
3K (2944×1840) OLED display (great, sharp colors)
16 GB RAM
512 GB SSD
Windows 11 Home (!)
All 3 USB ports (2 left, 1 right) are USB 40Gbps

From what I can see about pricing on the product page, my unit as configured would cost US$1,200.00 (in round numbers). If I were buying one, I’d definitely spend the US$69 to bump it up to 32GB RAM, and US$45 to take it up to a 1TB SSD.

Apparently, I’ve got a lot of work to do on intake. I’ll be upgrading this to Windows 11 Pro, mostly so I can use RDP to get into the machine from my dual-screen desktop.

First Impressions

As with the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i that preceded it, the Yoga Slim 7 shows up in plastic-free packaging. It took less than a minute to unbox and put things together. Interestingly, the unit wouldn’t boot until I plugged the brick into an AC outlet, and hooked it up. Normally, Lenovo sends review units out with a full charge. But not this time — probably because they put it in the pipeline for shipping as soon as I requested the unit on Wednesday. Again: I’m stunned and thankful.

The unit lives up to its slim moniker, but feels sturdy and high-quality in the hand. According to its product page, it weighs 2.82.lbs/1.28kg: but it feels both light and powerful. The deck and outer surfaces are all a wonderful dark shade of midnight blue.

An Upgrade Wrinkle…

Interestingly, I couldn’t use a MAK Windows 11 Pro key to upgrade the unit (maybe that one doesn’t include ARM coverage?). I had to burn one of my MVP Windows 11 Pro retail licenses to get the upgrade through the Activation center in Settings. It shows the same screen as when using Recovery to perform an in-place repair install (unsurprisingly). I’ll report back in when this finishes.

Soon, I’ll also be able to report in on the Yoga Slim 7’s Snapdragon specific AI-based Copilot features. That should be a total gas. Right now, I’m still in the intake process, getting ready to put this PC through its paces. Stay tuned!

My next move will be to box up and send back the truly terrific Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i I’ve had since late April. It’s been a great (and powerful) PC especially for VMs in Hyper-V. I’ll be sorry to see it go. But I promised to send it back as soon as another USB4 capable unit showed up here at Chez Tittel. That means an outing to the FedEx storefront at 183A and 1431 later this afternoon. Good-oh!

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

Teams Classic Lingers On

June 18, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, we’re up to version 1.7.00.15969 for Teams Classic now. Amidst a whopping 8 (!) updates that showed up for my production PC this morning, I couldn’t help but notice two versions of teams. If you look at the lead-in graphic, it provides clear evidence that Teams Classic lingers on … and on … and on. Sigh.

As WinGet starts updating the second Teams item is clearly labeled “Classic.” [Click image for full-size view.]

Why Is It That Teams Classic Lingers On?

The end of support for Teams Classic has been pushed out at least once that I know of. It now stands at July 1, 2024, according to the MS Learn article “End of availability for classic Teams client.” As far as I can tell the side-by-side appearance of Teams (New) and Teams (Classic) is only an issue on Windows 10, not Windows 11. Too bad that’s still where most of the users are, eh?

To answer the preceding question/heading, “I’m not sure.” The afore-linked MS Learn item still says “Microsoft [will be] attempting to uninstall the class Teams client 14 days after the installation of new Teams.” Gosh, I’ve tried to force this three or four times now in the past 14 weeks or so, and it has never stayed off my system for more than a week afterward. And that includes manual uninstalls using WinGet to target Teams Classic directly, to wit:

WinGet uninstall Microsoft.Teams.classic
Someday, perhaps soon (early next month?) it may disappear for good. Can’t wait to see what happens next!

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

EFI Boot Logo Follies

June 14, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

It’s been an interesting last couple of days. I really like the boot logo from the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i. It’s popped up often as I’ve been reviewing it since the end of April. But I’ll be darned if I can find or extract that file from the UEFI image. Along the way, I’ve indulged in all kinds of fascinating, down-the-rabbit-hole EFI boot logo follies.

You can see some evidence of this in the high-relectivity photo from my iPhone. It shows me shooting the logo from the Yoga’s initial boot screen. It’s been a gas. But so far I’ve been unable to grab the bitmaps that animate this logo during the boot process.

Where My EFI Boot Logo Follies Have Led…

I started down this trail by using MiniTool Partition Wizard to examine the contents of the EFI partition on the Yoga. Alas, nowhere did I find a neat, discrete bitmap (or set of bitmaps, as the runtime animation strongly suggest must be buried in there somewhere).

Next I tried my luck with the HackBGRT, specifically designed to use the MS Paint app to drop another bitmap into UEFI to take over for the existing one. Despite my hopes it would let me see (and grab, even) what was already in there, no such luck.

My search for copies of this file online have gone unsatisfied. I’ve dropped a request to the reviews coordinator at Lenovo, but have gotten no response. I’m going to ping one of their SMEs and see if they can talk to the UEFI builders and help me out.

All I Got Was a Lousy T-shirt … err iPhone Grab

Amusingly enough, the iPhone snapshot I took of the logo shows me taking that picture. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t reproduce such an amateur, ghastly image here in the blog. But it captures perfectly the “chase-my-tail” exercise I’ve been going through trying to lay hands on the original Yoga Pro 9i boot logo. It’s right there. I can see it every time I boot. But that’s as close as I can get right now…

Simon Allison Comes Through!

When I checked into LInkedIn this morning, the former Windows Insider MVP named above posted a link to the graphic. Now you can grab it, too. Here’s what it looks like (and THANKS, Simon):

This doesn’t show the animation (you’d need the full set of images for that). But hey: there ’tis as a profound demonstration that we’re all better together than separately.

Benchmarking, Cool Tools, Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

USB4 Means Yoga Pro 9 Stays On

June 13, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I have to apologize to the review team at Lenovo. I’d told them I’d be sending back their splendid Yoga Pro 9(i) last Friday. Then I got an assignment from AskWoody to write about external, USB-attached NVMe (and other SSD) storage devices. So of course I had to a buy a current-gen 40 Gbps USB4 drive enclosure. Also, its inbuilt USB4 means Yoga Pro 9 stays on here at Chez Tittel while testing is underway. Sorry, Jeff and Amanda: I need to keep this beast a bit longer…

Why USB4 Means Yoga Pro 9 Stays On

Short answer: it’s my only PC/laptop with USB4 capability. And I want to research and write about same. And on the Yoga Pro 9i the first thing I observe is that while it has two USB-C ports, only one of them supports 40 Gbps throughput (the other is USB-C 3.2 and tops out at half that). This makes a big difference in read/write speeds. Ditto for cables: for best results you need a cable marked 40 Gbps or Thunderbolt 4, too. The device info for the MAIWO 40Gbps enclosure shows what needs to appear for fastest I/O:

The salient info is at the bottom: 40Gbps. It also detects a Gen3 NVMe SSD.

Over the next 10 days or so, I’ll be comparing enclosures, drives, and cables with related measurements. This should be interesting. But for now, let me observe that I paid US$70 for a 40Gbps NVMe enclosure yesterday. When I bought the previous generation (20Gbps) enclosures, the cheapest ones cost US$120 or thereabouts. It’s good that the technology is getting both faster and cheaper. I’m very interested to see how quickly Macrium Reflect can back up the Yoga Pro 9i with a fast SSD and this fast enclosure. Should be fun!

Top of the Heap? You tell me…

FWIW, Cale Hunt over at WindowsCentral just anointed the Lenovo Yoga 9i as the #1 best laptop for 2024. I’ve found it to be pretty stellar in my 5 weeks working with it so far. It’s been great at handling complex programs, lots of VMs, and both compute- and graphics-intensive workloads. Too bad it came out before Copilot + PC requirements were known. It’s close, but not quite at that level. Sigh.