Category Archives: Recent Activity

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Remote Desktop (RDP), WED Blog, Windows 11

Welcome RDP Session Handling Change

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I’m not sure when the change I’m about to document happened, but I just noticed it this morning. Last night before heading off to bed, I put my production desktop to sleep. At the time, I had 3 RDP sessions running elsewhere on my LAN. When I logged in this morning, instead of finding 3 Remote Desktop Connection prompts to re-establish those sessions, I found login prompts on lock screens into those sessions instead. This is a welcome RDP session handling change, as far as I can tell. I’m glad to see it.

Why Say: Welcome RDP Session Handling Change

As you can see, the lock screen snippet in the lead-in graphic shows my LocalOnly account. That’s a — you guessed it — purely local Windows account I use to establish RDP sessions into Windows 11 PCs that won’t let me log in using my preferred Microsoft Account (MSA).

When I saw that show up inside a Remote Desktop Connection session window (or three) this morning, I knew what it meant. It meant that MS kept the remote session ready to re-start, even though the client half of that session (my production desktop) had been asleep. That’s both good and convenient.

Copilot Sheds More Light

Copilot says that recent builds like 26200.6901 (what I’m running on the Flo6 right now) offer persistent RDP sessions across sleep/wake cycles. Instead of summary disconnection — the way things used to work — they now lock open RDP sessions (which is why I had to log back into them) and preserve memory state and open windows.

Good to know! This is what I call a nice surprise in Windows-World. Glad to see that MS has made this change: it makes my job easier.

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11

Beta 25H2 Jump Brings Unexpected Side Effect

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When I saw the news, I had to try it. A couple of weeks back, MS announced that 24H2 users for all versions of Windows 11 except the Dev and Canary Channel could move up to 25H2. So I used the Installation Assistant, and did that very thing for my X380 Yoga install. But, as I’m learning, that Beta 25H2 jump brings unexpected side effect. Namely, as MS drops new Beta Builds (e.g. 26120.6982), my jumped-up Yoga doesn’t partake of such updates. It’s on a higher track.

Why Beta 25H2 Jump Brings Unexpected Side Effect

The base build number for 24H2 Beta versions remains 26120. For Beta installs jumped to 25H2, that base build number advances to 26200, as you can see in the lead-in graphic. Thus, for my Beta Channel test PC the unexpected side effect of the jump-up is to exclude it from updates and new versions that target 24H2 instead. I should have known, but found out when I saw last week’s announcement of Build 26120.6982, visited WU, and didn’t get anything in response to clicking the “Check for updates” button.

Only slowly did it dawn on me that my install is on a different track right now. I’m not exactly sure when I’ll see the next update for this track. I’m guessing I may have put myself on the Patch Tuesday schedule with this change, along with occasional OOB updates and 4th Tuesday items as they sometimes appear.

Here in Windows-World, it can be easy to change tracks, or even to get onto the wrong track. I know I’ve done the former, and time will tell me if I’ve also done the latter. In the meantime, I’ll just keep chugging along.

One More Thing [Added 6 hrs later]

I just ran DISM /online /analyzecomponentstore on this updated PC and guess what? the 25H2 eKB restored the spurious reclaimables that I’d hand-deleted from the 24H2 image. (See this March 21 post for details.) It worked this time, too, just as recited in that earlier post (and again, thanks to ElevenForum user @Bree for figuring this out in the first place).

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

PowerToys Fixes Random Light Switch Toggle

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Just over a week ago, the PowerToys dev team dropped v.0.95.0. Highly touted amidst its new features: a Light Switch toy, which defines the default key combo Winkey-Ctrl-Shift-D to toggle Windows desktops from light to dark mode, or vice-versa. It’s also turned on by default. As I couldn’t help but notice after that, my PC(s) started toggling between light and dark mode with no help from me. Yesterday, the team dropped a new version: 0.95.1. It’s really worth installing because in that release, PowerToys fixes random Light Switch toggle behavior. I’m glad!

Why PowerToys Fixes Random Light Switch Toggle

PowerToys are supposed to work according to the user’s direction, not on their own recognizance. It’s a little disconcerting to be plugging away on one’s desktop and have the mode change whenever it feels like it. The timing was interesting, too: sometimes, it might happen once or twice a day. Sometimes, it would switch back and forth every 30 to 90 seconds. Disconcerting!

It’s easy enough to switch back if this happens to you. Fortunately, the key combo is quick: it’s close together and easy to enter. But better to avoid spontaneous mode switching if at all possible. That’s why I’m delighted to see an update that addresses such behavior sooner rather than later.

What the Release Notes Say…

The first Highlights entry is ALL about Light Switch. It lists 6 different fixes including: turning off enabled by default, not allowing sunset calculations to over-ride Manual time schedule, and renaming “Manual” to “Fixed Hours” mode. There’s even a new off mode that disables the switchover schedule but keeps the key combo working. Here is the new control pane for Light Switch:

I’ve already turned scheduling off because I don’t switch modes by time of day. If you use PowerToys you’ll want to update to v0.95.1. I’m glad to see this fix so soon, because it was a little disturbing.

But hey! “A little disturbing” describes a pretty familiar feeling — for me, at least — here in Windows-World. How ’bout you?

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

Windows Store Auto-Update Policy Change

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Once upon a time — and until pretty recently — Windows users could defer Windows Store updates indefinitely. No more. Starting with version 22309.1401.x which began rolling out in early September 2025, users can only pause updates for a period of 1 to 5 weeks. By the end of that month, this change had reached most Windows users. Why this Windows Store Auto-Update Policy change? Good question! Answers follow, but first check out the lead-in graphic. It shows the Pause updates control in Store Settings, and the permissible intervals (though the 5 week option is obscured, it’s there, I promise).

Why Make a Windows Store Auto-Update Policy Change?

According to Copilot MS instituted this change for 3 primary reasons (my paraphrasis follows):

  • To lower security risks outdated apps can pose.
  • To synch up Store update behavior with the WU pause model that’s long been in effect.
  • To keep users from skipping critical app patches or updates.

Note: enterprise-managed Windows devices (e.g via GPOs or Intune) aren’t affected by this change. Their app update policies work differently, and they continue to exercise full control.

There’s even an MS Support Note to cover this change. It’s entitled Keep apps and games up to date with the Microsoft Store (last updated 9/4/2025). For more details and administrivia, check it out.

Here in Windows World you can duck updates for a while, but you can’t avoid them completely — at least, not without using third-party tools like those mentioned in this WindowsClub roundup story. But that’s a topic for another post, should I find the “round tuit” necessary to bring it up!

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Enduring Windows 10 Hangover

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It’s interesting and perhaps a bit puzzling. For “compatibility reasons” — some having to do with browsing the Web — Windows 11 has long reported itself as a kind of Windows 10. Indeed, one must examine Build numbers, mostly, to figure out which version of Windows is really driving the bus. To see this enduring Windows 10 hangover try this string in PowerShell:

[System.Environment]::OSVersion.Version

You can, of course, get the real skinny by running winver.exe, or a more nuanced Get-ItemProperty command in PowerShell:

Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" | Select-Object DisplayVersion, EditionID, CurrentBuild

You can see the results of these two commands in this blog post’s lead-in graphic. It still shows my production Windows 11 PC (Build 26200) with a Major version number of “10,” while the Get-ItemProperly output shows the “real deal” on this machine.

Will Enduring Windows 10 Hangover Get Fixed?

Now that Windows 10 is past its End of Service date, will MS fix this strange reporting practice? Probably not. There are reasons upon reasons why this reporting quirk is likely to remain unaltered.

The whole compatibility thing is HUGE: lots of driver models, apps and applications, and enterprise tools assume that Windows 10 is the end-all and be-all for modern Windows versions. Indeed, it’s much, much more than a browser user-agent assumption. According to Copilot, “enterprise environments rely on registry keys such as ProductName and ReleaseId for automation,” so “those keys are often left untouched in Insider Builds to avoid disrupting telemetry and deployment pipelines.”

Hence the following, also from PowerShell using this command sequence:

Get-ComputerInfo | Select-Object WindowsProductName, WindowsVersion, OsBuildNumber

Notice that my Production Win11 system reports in this command as Windows 10 Pro, version 2009, with correct build number.

At least, I now know why this apparent misreporting occurs, and understand that it’s for good cause. Here in Windows-World there are plenty of apparent mysteries whose simple explanations lie in the many twists and turns in Windows history. This is one of those, I reckon.

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11, Windows Update

Version Dev Gets No 25H2

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On the last day of September, the Windows Experience blog announced “the availability of the Windows 11 2025 Update (aka Windows 11, version 25H2).” A little careful perusal of this info, and some checking from your humble author shows that availability not only includes production versions. It also includes Insider Preview versions in the Release Preview and Beta Channels as well. By extension that means Dev and Canary Channel fall outside this umbrella. That’s what I mean when I say “Version Dev Gets No 25H2,” as you can see in the lead in-graphic (shows an ambiguous “Version Dev” instead).

Version Dev Gets No 25H2 Means More Than It Says

On my Canary test PC (the stalwart, still kicking 2020 vintage Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Hybrid Tablet) the version line from winver.exe gives things away. It reads “Version Dev” instead of 24H2 or 25H2. Both Dev and Canary Channels fall outside the Windows 11 versions that can upgrade to 25H2 at present. That’s because they belong to a different Windows 11 Build branch, with higher build numbers that bypass 25H2 entirely. That’s probably why MS forgoes 24H2/25H2 nomenclature in identifying the version as shown in the lead-in screencap.

OTOH, I was able to use the Installation Assistant yesterday to upgrade my Beta Channel test PC to 25H2. It shows the latest build status in Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program, as you can see here

But it also shows up as 25H2 in Winver, and up-to-date in WU, as you can see here:It’s all a matter of how close the bits come to matching the currrent production version of Windows 11. Because Canary and Dev Channels are further out, they’re not able to show a 25H2 base. That’s by design.

Interesting that Beta and Insider Preview Channels can move on up to 25H2 though, while Canary and Dev remain in the 24H2 zone. This will be interesting to watch in the months to come. I wonder if Canary will get its own version, or stay lumped in with Dev? We’ll see!

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

Intel DSA Remote Follies

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OK, I found myself in a familiar pickle yesterday. I was working my way through the mini-fleet of PCs (10 units: 6 lappies, 4 desktops) here at Chez Tittel, doing updates and cleanup. I noticed the Lenovo Yoga AIO9i (Copilot+ PC with Intel Core Ultra 7 258, 32GB RAM, etc.) was hanging on the Intel Driver & Support Assistant (DSA). Half an hour in, I gave up and tried re-installing the app. Thereupon I got an interesting error “Cannot install a product when a newer version is installXXXX.” Only slowly did it dawn on me: I had a case of Intel DSA remote follies. Let me explain…

Going Local Fixes Intel DSA Remote Follies

As I figured out, my problem was not that DSA wouldn’t run, nor was it borked. My problem was that DSA didn’t want to run remotely. That is, it didn’t want to run to completion via Remote Desktop Connection from my primary desktop. I was updating the NPU and GPU drivers. So apparently DSA wants to do either or both of those things locally, not remotely.

Once I walked over to the AIO9i, rebooted, and re-ran DSA, everything worked just fine. I’ve noticed over the years that some driver updates work well remotely while others do not — or won’t work at all. On the plus side of this phenom, it always tickles me when DSA updates LAN or Wi-Fi drivers and the remote session dies briefly, then picks back up where it left off and the session resumes.

AFAIK, this issue with NPU or GPU is intermittent. Indeed I’ve never had a problem updating either built-in or Intel ARC GPU drivers remotely, now that I think back on Windows 11 era experiences. Thus, it must be something about NPU driver on a Copilot+ PC that occasionally makes DSA hang interminably.

But hey, it’s just another day’s work here in Windows-World. If you hang one way, you have to find a way to un-hang, and make the update some other way. And so it turned out, yesterday afternoon. Problem? What problem? Operator error, most likely…

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Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

DIMM and Dimmer: My Memory Misorder

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It’s been bothering me for the past couple of weeks. I ordered a pair of memory modules to bump up RAM in the Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra. I used the same part number for what’s installed, thinking that it would guarantee a perfect replacement/addition. So wrong! I just happened to glance at the package the modules arrived in and saw something serious. Doh! It’s a case of DIMM and Dimmer — my memory misorder completely explains everything. Take a look…

Why I’m DIMM and Dimmer: My Memory Misorder

The upper left corner of the package says it all: 96GB kit. I thought I was ordering a 64GB kit and got a 96 instead. No wonder the P3 Ultra wouldn’t POST with those modules in place! Its max RAM capacity is 128GB. With 64 GB already installed, adding 96 takes the total to 160GB, or 32 GB over the top.

I have to laugh. If I take both existing modules out, I can get a 32 GB bump anyway. Or if I replace the too-big modules with what I should’ve gotten in the first place, I can get up to 128 GB, just like I’ve got on my Flo6 desktop.

I’ll have to think about this for a while. In the meantime, I’m laughing at my own idiotic failure to doublecheck what I wanted against what I got delivered to me. Just because I used the same part numbers to place my order doesn’t mean that’s what I got back. Go figure!

Here in Windows-World, things aren’t always as they seem. And sometimes that’s because yours truly isn’t paying enough attention to what’s right there in front of him. Sigh. But at least I now know why the PC wouldn’t POST with all four modules in place. That had been driving me ever so slightly bonkers…

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Turbotax Tribulation and Triumph 2025

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Yesterday was October 15th. Among other milestones, it’s the last day one can submit 2024 taxes upon obtaining an extension for filing. I’d planned to do them over the weekend, but a huge project blew into my life instead. So I ended up having to wait until the very last day to file. So yesterday, I experienced Turbotax tribulation and triumph: let me explain…

Surviving Turbotax Tribulation and Triumph 2025

I’ve been using TurboTax since before Intuit bought them in 1993. In fact, I think my accountant used them on my taxes even before then. And when she retired in the 1990s, she told me “you can do them on your own, if you stick with Turbotax.” She was right. And the program just keeps getting better at dealing with nearly all aspects of tax preparation and filing.

What amazes me most, right now, about this program is the connectors it offers into the accounts from whence most financial data flows anyway. I have a lot of activity from my brokerage account because I’m drawing on retirement accounts. Turbotax logs into the brokerage, sucks over all of my 1099s, and populates all the relevant fields for me. Same with bank accounts and such, too. Ditto for social security.

Because I’m self-employed, I get numerous 1099s from the companies I write for. Last year that included TechTarget, AskWoody, IDG (ComputerWorld), and others. Because I’ve been working for all of them for a while, Turbotax already knows their names, EINs and so forth. All I have to do is plug in the income numbers for 2024.

Shoot! My son’s in college and uses money from a 529(c) his grand-dad left him to cover tuition. Turbotax makes that easy, too.

Same as It Ever Was, But Better…

I remember watching my Dad shuffle mountains of paper to file his taxes when I was still living with my parents until 1970 or thereabouts. It used to take him a full day to work all the way through those papers and fill out all the necessary forms. But because Turbotax remembers what I did last year and automatically carries over refunds left over to cover the current year, I can usually get through the whole shebang in under 4 hours. That’s a big improvement.

Here in Windows-World data sources and sinks are increasingly connected. This can pose security headaches, but gosh: it makes working through complex data analysis exercises easier. Even the data-driven member of the eternal duo: Death and Taxes! Done for another year, hooray…

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

Copilot sez: Enough, or Too Much

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I’ve been excessively busy for the past few days, working on a legal matter. Along the way, I’ve learned a few things about Copilot’s limits. Turns out this tool is extraordinarily adept at running down references and finding sources that document specific quotes. But it’s also inclined to get stuck sometimes if my queries assume too much about what it already knows. That is, echoing William Blake’s Proverbs of Heaven and Hell Copilot sez: Enough, or Too Much?  Thereupon it becomes unresponsive. Yesterday, I had to reboot a machine to bring Copilot back to life. Even ending the task and restarting the app didn’t help. Weird!

When Copilot sez: Enough, or Too Much,
Do This…

So I had to ask Copilot “Why do you choke or become nonresponsive sometimes?” It had 5 answers, at least 3 of which corresponded to yesterday’s circumstances:

1. Overloaded or ambiguous input: Messages (prompts, I would say) are too long, too vague or contain multiple conflicting instructions.

2, Tool or system glitches: Copilot avers it relies on a whole box of tools (it names “search, image generation, memory, etc.”). Should one fail to respond, Copilot has to wait, and may stall while waiting.

3. Safety or Policy Filters: By design, Copilot won’t respond to prompts that violate its safety and policy rules. Good thing, and I hope they’re sufficiently broad and devious enough to foil hackers.

4. Missing Context or References: It’s too easy to assume Copilot remembers and understands what you’ve been asking it recently. TLDR version: not always. Be specific.

5. Complex Reasoning Bottlenecks: Technical, multi-layered tasks require Copilot to find, assemble and structure lots of information. Takes time, enough so that it might seem like forever.

I’m pretty sure yesterday’s hangup was a mix of items 2, 4 and 5. I try very hard not to overload my prompts, and what I work on shouldn’t trigger failsafes — of any kind. But hey, here in Windows-World, hang-up and delays are all part of the daily routine. Yours too, I guess?

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