Category Archives: Thoughts & concerns

Copilot+ PCs, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

Pondering Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU Strategies

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I’m confused. Intel has recently announced a massive uptick in its latest series of CPUs. Let’s call them Core Ultra Series 2 items, in keeping with Intel’s own nomenclature. Why am I pondering Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU strategies? Because of  the ratio of Copilot+ capable packages as compared to those that do not meet those requirements.

Teasing Out Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU Strategies

Here’s a breakdown of what’s currently “in the family” of Intel Core Ultra CPUs. The number of members in each category is in square brackets to the left of the colon:

200U Series  [4] : Aims at ultra-portable devices
200H Series  [5] : Designed for high-perf laptops
200HX Series [6] : For high-end gaming laptops
200S Series  [11]: Targets desktop systems
200V Series  [10]: Meet Copilot+ requirements

Think about it: it’s a family of CPUs with a total of 36 members in all. But only 10 of them meet or exceed Copilot+ requirements. That’s just under 28%, or less than one-third, of that entire group. My question is: what does this ratio tell us about Intel’s thoughts on Copilot+ vis-a-vis the entire market for new PCs?

Understanding Intel’s Planning and Posture

Two good places to start are:
1. Mobile Processors (Series 2) Product Brief: describes and points to all of the Mobile CPUs in the family (e.g. U, H, HX and V).
2. Desktop Processors (Series 2) Product Brief: Ditto for the 11 members of the 200S desktop series of CPUs in the family.

I’m going to float a possibly absurd hypothesis: Given that less than one-third of its latest offerings support Copilot+ requirements, it looks like Intel thinks that Copilot+ PCs will make up about one-third of expected market demand for such devices. And yet, Microsoft seems to make Copilot+ PCs the impetus and cornerstone for its “2025 year of the refresh” messaging.

But with 2 of every 3 new CPUs from Intel outside that envelope, I’m inclined to think that plenty of new PCs running Windows 11 — arguably, a substantial majority — won’t be able to exploit features and functions available only on Copilot+ capable units. I have to imagine it’s about price points and specific demand niches where AI-enabled and -driven features don’t (and won’t) play.

I have to believe Intel doesn’t see Copilot+ PCs as its only, and perhaps not even as its primary focus. Is that different from Microsoft’s vision for the future of Windows 11 computing? I think it is. My primary evidence is that Intel built 26 CPUs across ultra portable, high-end gaming and high-performance laptop categories, as well as a substantial desktop category, none under the Copilot+ umbrella.Indeed, how it unfolds will be extremely interesting to watch, as market uptake indicates if Intel’s strategy is sound.

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

Lenovo Q3 Results Support Refresh Year Notions

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The world’s biggest PC maker — Lenovo, that is — just reported results for the third quarter of its fiscal year (ended Dec 31). It shows approximate growth in revenues and profits over Q3 for the previous fiscal year. One phrase from the report (PDF) caught my eye: “Commercial sales benefited from the Windows 11 refresh, with premium workstation sales spearheading demand recovery…” Hmm, could it be possible that these Lenovo Q3 results support “refresh year” notions for 2025? You bet!

How Lenovo Q3 Results Support Refresh Year Notions

Back on January 6 I posted about the MS supposition that AI additions to Windows 11 plus Copilot+ PCs could turn 2025 into The Year of the Windows 11 Refresh (that’s a link to their blog on this topic as well as a good summary). As the biggest player in the PC market, Lenovo’s latest quarterly numbers certainly plays into this picture. And it does so in a way that speaks for the “refresh year” idea, rather than against it. Could MS actually have a clue?

I cribbed the lead-in graphic for this story from Paul Thurrott’s coverage of this topic: Lenovo Revenues Jump 20 Percent to $18.8 Billion. It shows how the number have fared over the past 5 quarters, with a dip from Q1 to Q2 in that series, but steady growth and recovery since then.

What Else Could Speak to Refresh?

It is interesting to see how next-ranked PC players numbers either further support this notion, or call it into possible question. Copilot says that means HP, Dell and Asus (Apple holds spot#4, but I’m pretty sure they’re not much into playing the Windows 11 refresh game).

HP’s Q4 24 results show a 1.7% jump YoY (nowhere near Lenovo’s ~20%), but they do cite “steady progress in Personal Systems and Print.” Dell’s overall revenues and earnings declined over 2024, as did the number of units it shipped that year (39.1M vs. 61.8M for Lenovo, 53M for HP, and 17.9M for Asus). Asus was up 8.8% YoY in PC sales, and their strong showing in PC sales helped contribute to their success.

Nothing Entirely Clear Yet, Yea or Nay

Lenovo’s results are the only ones that mention the refresh phenomenon explicitly. But if it pans out further, I expect we’ll hear more from other OEMs, too. Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted.

 

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

Waiting On Next NVIDIA Studio Driver

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Oho!  A new NVIDIA Game-ready driver is out. As you can see in the lead-in graphic this one’s numbered 577.42. But if you’ve been reading this blog of late, you already knew that both the January 30 Game-Ready AND Studio drivers gave my dual monitor rig fits (get the gist from this Feb 5 item). Hence, my response to the new driver is below tepid. Instead, I’m waiting on the next NVIDIA Studio Driver to come along. I hope my optimism that it might fix dual monitor gotchas is justified. We’ll see…

Why I’m Waiting On Next NVIDIA Studio Driver

The January 30 update included both Game-Ready and Studio driver version. Alas, both also exhibited the same unwanted behaviors on my dual-monitor setup. The left-hand monitor didn’t want to wake up from sleep, and I had to use a combination of two techniques to bring it back to life:

  1. Use the WinKey-Ctrl-Shift-B key combination (shortcut) to reload the graphics driver
  2. Use the Ctrl-Alt-Del “three-fingered-salute” to bring the desktop back to life

Shoot! I like it a lot better when I just hit a key, or click the mouse, and the PC wakes up on its own shortly thereafter. Neither of the preceding 572.16 versions were so obliging, which is why I rolled back to version 566.36. I don’t plan on updating until a new Studio version comes out (and I’ll be sure to back up 566.36 for re-use, should I need it back).

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

Ongoing Win11 DISM WinSxS Cleanup Issues

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I’ve been writing about this since late 2021 or early 2022 — within months of the initial preview release for Windows 11. Something in the update environment produces ongoing Win11 DISM WinSxS cleanup issues. That is, running /analyzecomponentstore keeps popping up reclaimable packages even after /startcomponentcleanup reports cleanup success. Right now, I see this in almost every version of Windows 11 I have running, which includes:

  • Windows 11 23H2 Production (Build 22635.4435: 13 items)
  • Windows 11 24H2 Production (Build 26100.2161: 2 items)
  • Windows 11 Beta Channel (Build 222635.4435: 13 items)
  • Windows 11 Canary Channel (Build 277729.1000: 0 items)
  • Windows 11 24H2 Copilot+ PCs (26100.2033:  2 items)

You can see this at work in the lead-in graphic. Notice the initial reclaimables count is 16 at the top of that screencap.  After running cleanup, then analyzing again,  that count drops to lucky 13 instead of zero as one might expect. (Note: you may need to right-click the image and open it in its own tab to see that 13 value.) I’ve seen that count as high as 14 and as low as 1 or 2 in various Windows 11 builds over the past 3 years.

Fixing Ongoing Win11 DISM WinSxS Cleanup Issues

As Windows 11 issues go, this one is quite benign. I’m pretty sure that’s why it has been allowed to pop in and out of various Windows versions pretty much since the get-go. That said, one can fix this if one must (and you OCD types know who I mean). How do I know? I’ve done it myself…

You can perform an in-place upgrade repair install to make this issue go away. But it takes time (30 minutes  and counting on my Windows 11 PCs) and the issue keeps coming back after you apply upcoming Cumulative Updates. That’s why I don’t bother with fixing this myself (except when I need pristine screencaps for writing work) anymore. If you must zero this out, use Settings > System > Recovery, then click the “Reinstall now” button under the “Fix problems using Windows Update” heading. Easy-peasey!

There is a spot of forward-looking cheer, too. The current Canary Channel build (277729.1000) does NOT have this issue. Maybe when production catches up that far, it won’t continue. Fingers crossed…

 

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Copilot+ PCs, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

Snapdragon X DevKit Is Cancelled

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In hindsight, it’s no surprise. I signed up — and paid ~US$975 (including sales tax) — for the Qualcomm Copilot+ PC package they offered to the public in mid-July. Initial ship date was late August. Then, it slipped to late September. Finally, it was promised for mid-January, 2025. That’s when I asked kitmaker OEM (Arrow Electronics) for a refund. Last week, Qualcomm sent email  cancelling the project and refunding all orders. Ouch: the Snapdragon X DevKit is cancelled. Over. Kaput. No refund yet, either.

Why Snapdragon X DevKit Is Cancelled

For more info, read this October 18 Windows Central story Qualcomm cancels Snapdragon X Elite devkit… In an email, Qualcomm said the kit failed its “usual standards of excellence.” It cancelled the project and promised refunds for all. But gosh: they used my money and that of thousands of other would-be kit buyers for a long, long time before they killed the golden goose.

I’m not just disappointed that my planned purchase evaporated. It’s frustrating that they waited so long to cancel. I’m also ticked off that they’re still holding my money. When I cancelled my order on October 11 (see this X (Tweet) item), they promised a refund in 10 days. That’s today, generously allowing an extra day for order database updates. It’s not yet the end of the day, so it still might show up. But it hasn’t hit PayPal yet, as I write this.

I’m not holding my breath. I’m not happy, either. But that’s the way things go for those who, like me, want to stay on the edge and buy into emerging computing platforms and technologies. In the meantime, life goes on here in Windows-World, one day at a time. Sigh again…

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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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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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Networking, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, Troubleshooting, WED Blog

Pondering Post-Hurricane Internet Outages

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The old saying in my home state of Texas is “If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes. It’ll change.” Things took a turn for the worse on Monday and Tuesday, when Hurricane Beryl tore through the Gulf cost then Houston. At one point, over 2M locations (households or businesses) had no electricity. That number is still about 1.2M as I write this screed according to PowerOutage.us. One unexpected effect caused most Internet Service in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio to fail from about noon Tuesday until after 7PM that day. As a member of an affected household, it has me pondering post-hurricane Internet outages.

Fortunately, our 5G service stayed up and continued to provide Internet access. So I was able to limp along during the outage, using my iPhone 12 as a hotspot for minimal connectivity. Failing over from a nominal GbE link to something that delivers 5 MBps if we’re lucky stings, though.

If Pondering Post-Hurricane Internet Outages, Think Failover

Until last year, I had a Inseego MiFi M2100 mobile hotspot through my Verizon account. I kept it around as a fallback when the pandemic hit, because we had to have Internet access, guaranteed, while my son was attending high school remotely. He’s off to college now, and we’re doing our best to cut recurring expenses — like most American families nowadays. So we dropped the hotspot when we switched over from Verizon to Spectrum for cellphone service last year. The iPhone isn’t quite as robust as the MiFi device, but it does the job in a pinch.

Looking at news coverage of Tuesday’s Internet outage, Spectrum is quoted as saying it arose from “a third-party infrastructure issue caused by the impact of Hurricane Beryl.” My guess is that an Internet POP/peering location got flooded, or lost power, and backup generators couldn’t or didn’t pick up the slack. The afore-linked story also tells me that the affected area also included Laredo, San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley, and Corpus Christi.

Resilience Matters

As somebody who makes his living at least partly thanks to Internet access — I use it for research and learning, for business communications, to obtain and deliver work assignments, and a whole lot more — ongoing access is essential. I’m glad I could use the iPhone as a failover device, but it definitely battered my productivity.

It’s enough to get me thinking about doubling up on fiber-optic coverage, and bringing in the AT&T Uverse fiber service alongside Spectrum’s CATV-based GbE service for redundancy’s sake. The question then becomes: it it worth the extra expense? I’ll have to think on that…

 

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WordPress Link Access API Hack

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Whoa! I just got messages from a colleague on LinkedIn, and have confirmed for both that social media platform and Facebook, that something wicked this way comes. That is, it seems there’s a WordPress link access API hack that enables malicious redirection whenever a link compaction program calls my site for link info. You can see what this looks like in the lead-in graphic. To mangle Talking Heads my reaction is “That’s not my beautiful site! Those aren’t my URLs.” Ai-yi-yi!

Fixing WordPress Link Access API Hack

Scan, remove bad references. remove any suspect WordPress elements. Put a security scan service in place to prevent recurrences. That’s what my Web guy is working on right now. For whatever odd and obviously invalid reason, I thought my WP service already covered all these bases. Now that I know that’s untrue, it will get fixed as soon as that work gets done.

Wow! What an astonishing PITA for something so modest and focused. It seems that several configuration files got modified through a vulnerable plug-in and included references to malicious URLs as of 5/21. We’re changing all the passwords, fixing what’s wrong, and cleaning up the mess. I’m hopeful things will be back to normal by tomorrow.

Going forward, we’ve added explicit ongoing security scans, and regular reviews of software selections, patch levels, and protective software to the mix. Hopefully, this won’t happen again. But if you see something odd any time you access one of my posts or Web pages, do like MS MVP Simon Allison did, and let me know right away that something seems funny or broken. Every little bit of insight and info helps!

Note Added 6/5 2:40 PM

The URL/API portion of the site has been replaced, and no more malicious or suspect URLs get generated. The issue is apparently fixed, but we’re still scanning all files in the entire site to make sure no other unwanted content/malicious payloads are lurking anywhere. All’s well that ends well, but the road goes on forever and the party never ends…

 

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Default Browser Reset Rankles

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It just happened again. I clicked a (safe) URL in an email message and found myself inside Microsoft Edge. Because my personal practice and preference is to run Chrome as the default, this was a back-handed way of telling me that my default browser had been reset. It probably came from some new VM I set up and filtered back into my MSA via OneDrive. Or I could’ve agreed to something in Edge to make that happen. However this change occurred, any surprise default browser reset rankles when it happens. I don’t like it.

Here’s Why a Default Browser Reset Rankles

I get used to things working a certain way on my desktop. When an update or a settings change affects that same old, same old, I get a little disturbed. Upon investigation, such things are mostly my own doing. I think what bit me this time I that I set up a VM a couple of days ago and just let all the standard defaults — including Edge for the browser — go through unaltered. It didn’t hit me in the chops, though, until I clicked a URL In an Outlook email yesterday  after which it opened in Edge. Ouch!

The right thing to do, obviously, is for me to use one MSA for work, and another MSA for testing and experimentation. I think I can avoid the issue through proper practices going forward. But it still rankles when a change in one place trickles down into the same change somewhere else.

Work Away from Unwanted Surprises
IS Working Smarter

As the old saying goes “Work smarter, not harder.” I will do my best to take that old saw to heart and make sure to steer clear going forward. Just another day here in Windows-World, and another case of IDKYCDT via OneDrive. Sigh.

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