Here’s something interesting. I’ve got a Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga Slim 7i Aura 15 (aka Model 15ILL9) Copilot+ PC. It’s the Intel follow on to the Snapdragon X models let go earlier this year. In reading over Paul Thurrott’s November 14 review of that unit, I saw that defining a Copilot+ PC high-perf power plan will produce more reliable and faster output, albeit at some cost to battery life. FWIW, this accords with my own observations and experience. But by default, all Copilot+ PCs use the Balanced power plan. It gets better…

Where’s the Copilot+ PC High-Perf Power Plan?

Alas, likewise by default, Balanced is the ONLY power plan defined and available for Copilot+ PCs (and indeed, for most PCs that support the S0 sleep state). What to do? You can create one, but that involves tweaking more than a handful of settings. Wait: there’s a better way.

I went trolling around at ElevenForum.com and found a thread that linked to a Web site named  Windows Answer File Generator. It includes an entry named Windows 10 Power Configuration. Indeed, that script works for Windows 11 as well. So I used it, then downloaded the resulting file named power.bat to the afore-mentioned 15ILL9 Copilot+ PC. It ran within a Command Prompt session without issue, and shows up now as the current, in-use Power Plan:

After running the script, High Performance is the chosen Power Plan.

Good stuff! If you find yourself in a situation where you need more performance or reliability from a Copilot+ PC, this technique and its tool stand ready to help. Do yourself a favor, and give them a try…

Here’s an interesting MS announcement from last week. I saw it, but didn’t read it all the way through. This morning, I read follow-up coverage (e.g. this WindowsLatest story). It’s entitled “How prepare for Windows end of support by moving to Windows 11 today.” Overall, it’s an eminently predictable bit of upgrade rah-rah. But specifically MS sez: Copilot+ PCs 5X faster than 2019 models.  I translated “5-year old PCs” from the original to get this year.

Weighing Copilot+ PCs 5X Faster Than 2019 Models

It just so happens that this cut-off equates to 10th Generation Intel CPUs (e.g. Comet Lake and Ice Lake). It also hits 3rdGeneration AMD Ryzen models (Matisse and Renoir). I’ve got 4 8th Gen Intel laptops here at Chez Tittel. I’ve also worked with 3 Copilot+ PCs (2 Snapdragon X models, and 1 Intel Aura/Lunar Lake model). My own gut feel, and my ongoing observation of resource intensive tasks — such as disk cleanup, updates, upgrades, big installs, and so forth — absolutely agrees with this claim.

If you dig into the October 31 announcement, you’ll find a section entitled “Benefits of upgrading to Windows 11.” Therein, author and MS EVP/Consumer Chief Marketing Office Yusuf Mehdi avers that when compared to Windows 10, 11 is

• more sure and trusted
• better optimized for speed and efficiency
• better at multitasking
• more accessible
• more energy efficient

The 5x speed claim is footnoted to a May 2024 MS Learn item entitled Copilot+ PC performance details. That’s where the 5X claim gets some substance, which turns out to rest on the Cinebench 2024 Multi-Core benchmark. Further investigation shows this to be a 10-minute rendering test using the Redshift engine. Looking at the laptop segment at CPU Monkey, I see the first recognizable Copilot + PC in 17th place, with a value of 1,150 (Apple M2 Ultra (76-GPU) takes 1st place , with a value of 1,918).

Moving Up Probably Means Copilot+

With a handful of older PCs that I’ll need to upgrade in the next year or two, I am thinking about “what’s next” here at Chez Tittel. And indeed, most of what I’m thinking about buying into is Copilot. My first such purchase will probably be a Yoga Slim 7x (blogged July 1, 2024). It’s got a killer screen, runs like a demon, and represents a good value for its cost (~US$1,200 for 16 GB RAM, 0.5 TB SSD, and X1E-78-100 Snapdragon X CPU).

There will be plenty of other models to consider in the months ahead, as the Intel and AMD offerings get fleshed out alongside the earlier ARM Snapdragon X offerings. I’ll be choosing among those, or their successors, in the next year or two as I start upgrade. You should probably be thinking along those same lines. Unless and until something better comes along…

OK, then. As I was gearing up for medical adventures on Tuesday, Lenovo shipped me a new Copilot+ PC. Because I apparently munged my initial login, I wasn’t able to upgrade from Windows 11 Home to Pro at first. A factory reset (described in yesterday’s blog) set things right, and I’m now digging in to see and understand what I can about this Yoga Slim 7 15ILL9 unit. So far, Intel’s initial Copilot+ Salvo seems a little less bodacious than the Snapdragon X ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 I’m getting ready to send back to the reviews team. Let me explain…

Absorbing and Interpreting Intel’s Initial Copilot+ Salvo

We’ll start with the port map (side views) of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15ILL9. You can see it sports 2 TB4/USB4 ports — one on each side — along with a power button, camera shutter, and USB Type A 5 Gbps, plus HDMI and 3.5mm audio jack. Very basic, very simple.

Here’s a more detailed list of its various innards:

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 256V (8 cores/8 logical processors)
RAM: 16 GB LPDDR5x-8533 (2 modules, soldered)
SSD: WD SN740 1TB (NVMe PCIe Gen4 x4; M.2 2242)
Integrated Intel Arc Graphics 140V
Display: 15.3″ 2880×1800 Touch screen
NPU Capacity: 45 TOPS

As configured, it costs US$1,322 at the Lenovo Store. Thus, this is clearly a consumer oriented mid-range laptop. This explains why it isn’t as full featured or snappy as the T14s I’m sending back (it doubled up RAM and offered a 12-core CPU, but lists for US$1,700).

Sorry About the Bloatware…

Unlike most other new Lenovo PCs and laptops I’ve encountered lately, this one comes a bit more laden with bloatware, including:

• Numerous Lenovo helpware items: Hotkeys, Now, Vantage, and Vantage Service (I usually keep Hotkeys and Vantage)
• McAfee Trialware: removed
• WebAdvisor by McAfee: removed

Initial startup also flogged numerous subscriptions including YouTube and other video items, Amazon MusicDropBox 100 TB, and special offers (that’s what Lenovo Now delivers, I’m removing it). I’d rather see this kind of thing as opt-in if I have to see it at all. Thankfully, that’s how Lenovo handled it. If flogging is required, it should be easy to circumvent.

Initial Take on the Yoga Slim 7 15ILL9 Itself

The unit offers a bright, clear display with snappy graphics and handling. By default brightness was set to 13: I had to bump it up to 60-something to see things properly. It’s pretty lightweight, too (1.53kg/3.38lbs) despite the over 15″ display with narrow bezels. The all-aluminum case in gray is sturdy and attractive enough, but not in the same league as the ThinkPad. Wi-Fi7 (Intel BE201 320 MHz) is included in all configurations, too. Chez Tittel is still on 802.11ax, though…

Overall, I like the Snapdragon Yoga Slim 7X  better than this Intel model, but that’s mostly because its OLED monitor pops like crazy. I do think the 12 cores in the Snapdragon X somewhat outperform the Ultra Core 7 256V’s 8 cores, but that could be subjective. I’ll be digging deeper into SSD and USB4 port performance in the future, but so far this offering seems like a pretty good value. See this October 12 NoteBookCheck story for more details on this nice little notebook.

OK, then. It’s been a busy week, but not all work-related. I had a lens replacement (cataract surgery) in my right eye yesterday. Perforce that meant a day off. In the meantime, I’ve been involved in intake on a new Copilot+ PC: an Intel Model this time. It’s a Yoga Slim 7 15ILL9. And indeed, for this PC upgrading Home to Prove proves challenging. I had to perform a factory reset on the PC to get it to work. Let me explain…

Why Upgrading Home to Pro Proves Challenging

Simply put, when I tried to upgrade from Home to Pro, none of the keys I tried would work. In fact, not even an attempt to purchase one from the MS Store did the trick, either. That’s when I knew something with my login wasn’t copascetic. So I used the System > Reset > Recovery > Reset this PC option to restore the OS to its “fresh from the factory” reset state.

This time, when I logged in I duly furnished an MSA into which my login account could be tied. And guess what: that did the trick! I was able to run updates (they hadn’t worked either) and then used a one-time key from Visual Studio Subscriptions (Thanks, MVP Program!) to upgrade from Home to Pro. I’m now logged into the new test PC via RDP which is how I like to interact with my test/review machines.

Introducing the Yoga Slim 7 15ILL9

It’s got an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe SSD, with something new to me: integrated Arc Graphics 140V. Compared to the Snapdragon X ThinkPad T14s I’m getting ready to return to Lenovo, it’s got 8 cores (instead of 12), half the RAM, and a different CPU architecture (x64 vs. ARM64). But so far, it seems to run reasonably well. It got through the Home to Pro upgrade in under 5 minutes, handled WU updates with alacrity, and chuffed through a dozen items via PatchMyPC Home updater in under 2 minutes. So far, so good.

Now that I’ve got the device set up on my network, I can start putting it through its paces. Stay tuned as I start understanding how Intel based Copilot+ PCs compare to their Snapdragon X counterparts. Should be interesting…

When I laid hands on my first Copilot+ PC — the inestimable Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x in late June — I checked DISM /analyzecomponentstore on that machine right away. Unlike other versions of Windows 11, the ARM version of 24H2 showed no such anomalies. But last week, while running a routine cleanup on the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 that represents my current Copilot+ PC capability, there they were. 14 of ’em, as you can see in the lead-in graphic in which ARM 24H2 shows spurious reclaimables. Notice the successful clean-up ahead of that report, which is what lets me label them spurious.

What ARM 24H2 Shows Spurious Reclaimables Means

There’s something odd that happens with certain Windows Updates. It causes dism /analyzecomponentstore to report some number of apparently bogus reclaimable packages as you can see in the graphic above. For x64 PCs that number is usually 13; ARM goes one better, and takes that total to 14.

So far, I’ve seen no actual pathology in Windows 11 related to this odd report. One can make this report go away by performing an in place upgrade repair install (Start > Settings > System > Recovery, then clicking “Reinstall now” under the “Fix problems using Windows Update” heading. But those spurious updates have a way of reappearing after the next CU, so I’ve let go of my OCD on that front and learned to live with this oddity.

It’s been that way for x64 versions of 24H2 pretty much since it first appeared, and even shows up on some of my 23H2 PCs as well (both test and production instances). For a while, I thought the ARM version was exempt. But the lead-in graphic argues otherwise. This comes as no great surprise to me, but I’d hoped that the ARM version of Windows 11 might avoid this phenomenon.

Isn’t that just the way things often work, here in Windows-World? You betcha!