Category Archives: Device drivers

Device drivers, Networking, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

Disappearing Printer Gets IP-based Fix

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This weekend, we went out looking at new housing developments. To prepare for our quest, I went to print street addresses for model homes in Liberty Hill and Georgetown (two small towns north of here). But when I tried to fire off a print job to the Samsung networked printer next to my desk, Devices and Printers told me it was offline. I’ve learned to recognize it as a sign of driver corruption, so my disappearing printer gets IP-based fix. Let me explain…

Why Say: Disappearing Printer Gets IP-based Fix?

My Samsung ML 2850 is old enough that it does not support the Microsoft Universal Print drivers. I have to load a bespoke device driver to make it work. In turn, that means automated discovery of this network attached printer doesn’t work right, either. That’s why you see the IP address info for the device below in the lead-in graphic (courtesy of Advanced IP Scanner). I use the Add a Printer option that depends on its IP address instead.

The drill is familiar and runs something like this:

1. Notice the Printer is offline
2. Basic troubleshooting doesn’t help
3. Right click the icon in Devices and printers, select delete
4. Use the Add a printer dialog to start the process going
5. Click the “Printer I want isn’t found” option
6. Click the use IP address or hostname on the next pane
7. Use the printer’s IP address to install the current driver

This actually takes longer to explain than it does to execute. But it does work, and it seems I have to do this once every three months or so. I guess that’s the outcome of using a 10-year-old printer (that still works like a champ, BTW). Windows has left it behind, but it still keeps chugging along. Kind of like your humble author, I guess…

Windows 11 Proves More Friendly

Just for grins, I tried discovering the Samsung ML 2850 from a Windows 11 host on the same network. At first, it couldn’t see that device, either. But when I clicked the radio button labeled “My printer is a little older. Help me find it.” the Samsung device did turn up. I had to know enough to select the Microsoft PCL6 Class driver (which handles the interface between the Samsung and the Universal Printing stuff). But once I did that, everything worked as it should. Seems like MS has made Windows 11 rather more printer friendly than I expected (and friendlier even, in this case, than Windows 10). A pleasant surprise indeed!

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

Calc Key Follies Fixed

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Here’s an interesting one. I have a Microsoft Comfort Curve 4000 ergonomic keyboard (and two more in my parts closet: I LIKE them). Lately, though, when I press the “Calculator” (Calc) key on the very top row of long, narrow silver keys at furthest right something odd occurs. Calc shows me a “blank face,” as you can see in the lead-in graphic. Basically it’s just a big blue block of nothing much. Attend, and I’ll explain I I got these Calc key follies fixed.

For the record, I don’t *want* to see the blank face of Calc. I want to see the keypad so I can use the darn thing, like so:

Multiple Methods Get Calc Key Follies Fixed

I discovered these methods partly by searching the web, and partly by experimentation. There are three of them, to wit:

Method 1: Close Calc, then hit the Calc key again. This one’s my favorite so it’s my go-to now. It involves the lease effort and goes fastest.

Method 2: Open the Calc app from the Start Menu. Even though pressing the Calc key shows a blank face, visiting the Calculator app through Start always works. It takes added mouse clicks, though. Until I figured out Method 1 by experimentation, this was my go-to method.

Method 3: Go to Settings > Installed Apps, click on the ellipsis for Calculator, Click the Advanced Options button, scroll down to Reset, then click the Repair button. That’s 5 mouse clicks and a bit of scrolling. Waaaaaaay too long for me, but it does do the trick. But then the question is: why does this condition keep coming back, even after an app reset? I think I know the answer: read on, please.

Special Keys Require a Custom Driver

The Comfort Curve 4000 keyboard has a whole row of elongated, narrow silver keys that use special, driver-based, context-sensitive macros. These do things like jump to the home screen, open a search window, open email, access the volume controls (up and down), and so forth. And yes, at far right you can see the Calc key that’s been acting up lately. They occupy the top row from left almost to the numeric keypad at right, as shown here:

My best guess is that something in the driver is losing its proper connection to the Calc app so that when the key is pressed once, it gets close to launch but not all the way there. Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to get the Calculator working as I’ve described.

But gosh, aren’t these little foibles fascinating? It’s a bit of a pain to run into them, true. But it’s a blast to figure out what’s happening and why, and then to find fixes or workarounds. Just another day here in Windows-World!

 

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

SDIO Replaces Studio with Game-Ready

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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.

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Reboot Clears Little White Box

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Here’s an odd one. Yesterday afternoon — right after updating the beta NVIDIA app, in fact — the right-hand display on my production PC starting showing a  blank area at its dead center. It appeared to be about 100 pixels wide and 15-20 pixels deep. It wouldn’t go away, no matter which apps I opened or closed. Happily, a reboot clears little white box this morning, so it appears it was temporary.

When Reboot Clears Little White Box, Then What?

Of course, I’m pretty sure the box wasn’t actually white. I set my desktop background to solid white routinely, because it supports the best screenshots for my writing work. I’m pretty sure it would have reflected whatever the desktop looked like in that region.

My best guess is that the screen simply wasn’t updating that rectangular region, and it was displaying its default appearance. Hence its color, which matches the desktop background (see lead-in graphic). Whenever the graphics driver was updating the screen, it skipped whatever range of addresses that box represented for each update, like it wasn’t even there. Which is sort of true, but also annoying.

Seems like yesterday’s driver update may have dropped those addresses. In retrospect, I should have tried the graphics driver reset shortcut (WinKey+Ctrl+Shift+B ) to see if that brought the box back to life. A reboot also resets the graphics driver, among many other things that may have been unnecessary. But it did the trick.

And boy howdy, that’s how the mop flops here in Windows-World this morning. It’s always an adventure!

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

Snappy Misses Realtek UAD Drivers

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My attitude toward Windows Update driver tools has changed a lot over the years. I’ve tried a lot of them. Indeed Tim Fisher’s “Best free” Lifewire guide mentions no fewer than 8 (May, 2024).  I’ve come to rely on an Open Source tool named Snappy Driver Installer Origin for driver checks and updates. But this morning, I noticed that Snappy misses Realtek UAD drivers — its “Universal Audio Driver” versions that work with newer devices– and wants to use HDA (High Definition Audio) drivers instead.

If Snappy Misses Realtek UAD Drivers, Then What?

I’ve long turned to the French website Station Drivers as my “driver source of last resort” when other sources come up dry. I don’t know where or how these guys get their downloads, but they usually have the very latest (and always virus-free) versions of device drivers available. Thus, for example, my updated UAD driver was version 9464.1 dated May 6, 2024.

As you can see in the lead-in screencap, Snappy correctly identifies that my aging SkyLake i7 Asrock Z170 Extreme4+ mobo has a Realtek audio device that needs a driver updates. But it insists that such a driver be the High Definition Audio (HDA) variety. That actually works, but not with the Realtek Audio Console (which pairs with UAD drivers by design).

So what I do when I see Snappy recommend a driver I don’t want is simple. I elect not to install it. Instead, I use it as a warning to update the UAD driver, then head on over to Station Drivers to see if what they’ve got for download is newer than what I’ve got installed. In this case, it turned out to be version 9464.1 (available) vs. 9618.1 (installed). Fixed that in a hurry, I did!

Supplement Tools with Experience

This is a general approach that works well with Windows maintenance of all kinds. Once you learn the foibles and limitation of your chosen tools, you can also learn when and how to over-rule them. That’s what I did with the Realtek UAD drivers this morning. As these opportunities present, I urge you to follow suit, because that sometimes the way things go here in Windows-World.

 

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog

Reboot After NVIDIA 552.22 . . . Or Else!

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I updated my production desktop with its RTX 3070 Ti GPU yesterday. When that process completed, the installer asked me if I wanted to restart now or wait until later. Because I was busy working, I elected later. Then in the usual crush of a frenetic afternoon, I completely forgot that reminder. It came back crashing down upon me this morning when I noticed that graphics performance was discernibly laggy. “Aha!” I thought to myself: “The reminder should have said ‘Reboot after NVIDIA 552.22 . . . or else suffer the consequences.”

Why Reboot After NVIDIA 552.22 Update?

That was the question I asked yesterday when the installer gave its reminder. I got my answer this morning when I noticed that graphics performance was visibly slower than usual. Turns out that while the 552.22 release notes don’t explicitly say “You must reboot upon installing,” it’s considered a best practice to do so when updating a big, complex driver like the one that drives a relatively modern GPU.

That’s probably why the installer asked me to reboot when it finished. I got my demonstration this morning, after forcing my system to sleep at 4-something AM this morning when I saw the monitor was on after wandering around on a predictable nocturnal mission.

Next Time, I’ll Do It When I Quit for the Day

Upon reflection, I now realize something obvious. When I got up from my PC in the evening, with no intent to return until the next morning, that would’ve been the ideal time to reboot. As it is, I had to wait around 90 seconds, all told, for the machine to shut down, restart and reboot to the desktop. Tolerable, but not the smartest way to take the NVIDIA installer’s apt advice.

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, USB devices, WED Blog

Windows 11 Wi-Fi 7 & USB4v2: What’s Up?

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On January 8, 2024 Wi-Fi 7 went public. That’s the same day the Wi-Fi Alliance introduced its Wi-Fi Certified 7 program. USB4 version 2.0 goes all the way back to October 18, 2022. But only with the release of Insider Preview Canary Channel Build 26063 in February 2022 did MS start testing support for related Wi-Fi 7 drivers. (USB4 version 2.0 has been baked in since Build 23615 in the Dev Channel, released January 11, 2024.)  Neither has appeared in a production version of the OS. Thus, a valid question for Windows 11 Wi-Fi 7 & USB4v2 has to be: What’s going on? TLDR answer right now is “Not much just yet.” There are lots of good reasons why so please let me explain…

What’s Afoot with Windows 11 Wi-Fi 7 & USB4v2?

One way to look at this is from a market availability standpoint. Precious few devices for sale right now support either or both of these standards. As I write this item, I see exactly 2 network adapters (one USB, the other PCIe x4) that support Wi-Fi 7.Ditto for  Wi-Fi 7 routers. I can’t find any laptops that offer built-in support for either standard just yet. Many new models are promised later in 2024, and could change that.

Though it’s being proclaimed as something of an oversight  it’s really just a function of supply and demand. (See this Tom’s Hardware news item by way of illustration.) Basic economics and recent history with Wi-Fi 6 and USB4 version 1.0 show that it takes about two years for these new standards to make their way from introduction and into more general adoption. I don’t see this latest iteration as terribly different.

Shoot! I didn’t lay hands on my first PC with built-in USB4 capability until the Panasonic Toughbook FZ-55 showed up here at Chez Tittel late last year. Just before Christmas, in fact. If it takes that long to hit my hot little hands again, I’m looking into late 2025 before a personal encounter might happen.

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Keyboard Driver Issue Kills Productivity

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Think about how you type on a keyboard. Now, consider these words: fully, password, assign, connect. What they have in common is doubled letters. When I type them, I strike the doubled key very quickly then move on to the next letter. The speed at which the keyboard allows this to occur is called the “key repeat rate” aka “repeat rate.” Yesterday, some kind of keyboard driver issue kills productivity. It imposed an apparent 1-second delay between repeats. Indeed, I could barely function at the keyboard!

If Keyboard Driver Issue Kills Productivity, Then What?

A little quick online research informed me about repeat delay and repeat rate. Indeed, it came courtesy of a tutorial from long-time friend and TenForums/ElevenForum colleague Shawn Brink. It’s entitled Change Keyboard Character Repeat Rate in Windows. Its header graphic appears as the lead-in image for this blog post, too.

First, I discovered that both the repeat delay and the repeat rate weren’t working at all. I had to wait about a second to hit any key a second time, and have it show up on the display. Next, I  learned that the Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center wouldn’t let me adjust either rate directly. And finally, upon checking existing Registry settings, they should already have been working properly.

Title Says Driver, Fix Replaces Driver

All these bits of evidence told me the driver itself was broken. So I returned to MS support to download a new version of the MKC (Mouse and Keyboard Center) version 14.41, 64-bit. After the install, I had to reboot my PC. When it came back up, I jumped immediately into Notepad. Once again I could type words with doubled letters. And when I pressed and held any letter key, it would quickly start pumping out copies until I lifted my finger. Back in business!

They say, it’s the little things that get you in the end. Here in Windows-World they also get you at odd and random times, too. Like yesterday when MKC went south. So it goes…

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

NVIDIA Drops New Driver Batch

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As I work through the Windows news each morning, I check X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Facebook and Mastodon by way of social media. I also check in on WinAero, WindowsLatest, MSPowerUser, Ghacks, Thurott and Windows Central as well. Today, most of them told me something like NVIDIA drops new driver batch 551.23. And indeed, I found Game-ready and Studio versions for consumer grade GPUs, as well as Quadro (551.23 aka Release 550) among the pro lines. You can see the Studio version from GeForce Experience in the lead-in graphic above.

Fast facts on this latest version:
1. Target Directory: C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation\
Downloader…
2. Filename: 551.23-desktop-win10-win11-64bit-
international-nsd-dch-whql-g.exe
3. Download size: 519KB (downloader only)
4. On-disk file size: 1.93 GB (all files downloaded & expanded)
5. Download & install time: ~3:30 (average across 5 PCs)

Why NVIDIA Drops New Driver Batch 551.23

Most often updates follow close on the heels of new games (or game features). Sometimes, they pop up to support new NVIDIA GPU offerings. It’s the latter this time, with the release of the game- and AI-ready RTX 4080 SUPER at CES on January 8, 2024 (also includes 4070 Ti SUPER and 4070 SUPER in that mix).

Heh! I’m not sure I’m ready to fork over the long green needed to buy into the latest NVIDIA generation, but it’s nice to know they’re out there when I build my next desktop. I usually buy either a 4070 or 4070 Ti model because I can’t really justify the price/performance tax that a top-of-the-line model adds to my build costs. But gamers everywhere will probably be fighting off a new case of techno-lust.

Drivers Downloaded and Updated

Amidst my modest fleet of about one dozen PCs (8 laptops and 4 desktops), there are 7 machines with NVIDIA graphics cards of one kind or another. I’ve got the updates running on all of them right now (except for the desktop my son is using away at college, so I’ll mention this to him the next time we talk). By the time you read this, they should all be updated.

If you’ve got an NVIDIA GPU in your neighborhood, now you know there’s a new update out there, too. Three cheers for the 551.23 release!

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 11

Adding Ancient Dell Printer Gets Interesting

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Oho! How the time flies by when I’m not looking. I tried to install my Dell color laser printer — Model 2155cn — on the Toughbook FZ-55 this morning, only to get the “Driver is unavailable” error in Printers & scanners again. “Hmmm…” I wondered: “How old is that thing anyway?” Turns out it made its debut in 2011, and I bought it in 2012. Like the original Apple LaserWriter I bought in the late 1980s (and kept until I bought this one) this is one indestructible beast. Thus, I must observe that for Windows 11, adding ancient Dell printer gets interesting. Simply put: Windows no longer includes these drivers in the OS distribution!

How Adding Ancient Dell Printer Gets Interesting

So now I finally understand why I’m seeing this error in Settings. You can see it, too, in the lead-in graphic. Amusingly enough, it shows up right below the device info for the 2155cn that I just installed minutes ago, courtesy of the Dell 2155 Application for Windows, which I found at the Dell Support pages. Dell calls it the 2155cn/cdn Color MFP Software Suite and Driver.

When I look at the list of supported OSes, 11 is absent — though it does mention 10, 7, Vista and XP. It bears a release date of March 2014, too. This information, along with the settings error message, is what finally clued me into what’s going on here. This darn printer is so OLD that MS doesn’t find it necessary to include its drivers amidst the thousands of newer devices it does support. This explains what was going on for my post from last week Dell Printer MIA.

Here Comes Nothing, Printer-Wise

Interestingly, MS is switching over to the Mopria printing protocol, under the umbrella of Universal Print. It will no longer provide new drivers from printer makers starting next year (2025: see this fascinating PC World item “MS is killing 3rd-party printer drivers in Windows 11“).

So, pretty soon this won’t matter. For older printers — like the Dell 2155 cn — the only option will be downloading from the maker’s website. For newer printers that are Universal Print/mopria-savvy, things should “just work.” Maybe I need to buy a new printer so I can see about that! LOL…

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