Category Archives: Updates

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

Heavy Update Traffic Complicates Fleet Management

October 22, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Wow! It’s been quite a week here at Chez Tittel. It never fails but when I get busy with paying work, the frequency of and/or workload in handling Windows updates goes up, too. Including a loaner unit, I have 11 PCs to take care of right now. And this week has seen a Preview CU for production Windows 10, a release for 21H2 Windows 10, and various updates and upgrades for Windows 11 Insider Previews in all 3 channels (Release Preview, Beta and Dev). Hence my summary, that heavy update traffic complicates fleet management.

When Heavy Update Traffic Complicates Fleet Management, Get Busy!

As I check update history on my PCs, I see one or more items this week on all of them. Around here that’s about as busy as things can get. Fortunately, except for a firmware update issue on a loaner PC — which has nothing to do with MS updates AFAIK — it’s all been pretty routine and trouble-free. All it takes is paying attention and a little time.

I also use a couple of tools to keep up with applications and suchlike as well. PatchMyPC is a free updating tool that keeps up with most of my stuff. SUMo (Software Update Monitor) Lite is a free scanning tool that tells me what else I need to update (but leaves me on my own to get that done). I try to run these once a week, or as time permits. Lately, there hasn’t been much free time to spend on updates, but it’s getting done now, as I think of it.

The “Clean-as-you-Go” Principle

In keeping up with my PCs, I try to do a little bit every time I use them, so I don’t have to deep clean at longer intervals. A little bit of clean-up and update on an ongoing basis works better for me as a maintenance regime that periodic, scheduled (but longer) update/clean-up sessions.

Here in Windows-World, you can pick whichever regime makes most sense for you. I’ve got my routine and I’m sticking to it!

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Update

Windows Updates Gain Expiration Dates

October 20, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Take a look at the web page for this June vintage 19042 Windows 10 preview item KB5003690. As the concluding term in its title states, this item is EXPIRED. It’s also no longer available for download. Revised MS policies mean that some Windows Updates gain expiration dates (or status, anyway) when they reach obsolescence. The lead-in graphic for the story shows the revised KB5003690 title and its EXPIRED status above.

If Windows Updates Gain Expiration Dates, Then What?

It’s not exactly like a carton of milk from the grocery store. You won’t know in advance when any particular KB item might (or will) expire. This looks like the kind of thing that will pop up when you try to access older updates that Microsoft has removed from circulation.

The details of Microsoft’s EXPIRATION NOTICE read like this:

^{NEW 7/21/21}
EXPIRATION NOTICE

IMPORTANT As of 7/21/2021, this KB is no longer available from Windows Update, the Microsoft Update Catalog, or other release channels. We recommend that you update your devices to the latest security quality update. The latest security quality update is cumulative and contains all the addressed issues in this update.

Apparently, the idea is that as certain updates age out, they will no longer clutter up the update universe. WindowsLatest opines this will be a boon to those who might pause or skip updates, by reducing download items and data volume. They also assert that “… older and redundant packages will now expire automatically, which can improve the performance of Windows Updates and reduce update cache size.” Same effect applies to scan time: with fewer updates to look through, scan results should come back more quickly as Windows PCs “Check for updates” in WU.

Less Is More?

Certainly from data management and networking perspectives, reducing the population of update items is a good thing. I’ll be curious to watch for this status to start coming up when checking KB items.

Just for grins I checked a newer Preview update for status. KB5005101 (released on 9/1/2021) remains available, and its Catalog download likewise. Looks like expiration dates don’t kick in until an item — even a Preview item — gets to be four months old, or older. Time will tell if that boundary is flexible, or fixed…

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

Windows 11 Gets New Update Stack Package

October 15, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Last June, MS announced the release of a Windows Feature Experience Pack (120.2212.3920.0) to Insiders in Beta and Release Preview Channels. In yesterday’s Dev Channel Preview Build 22478 release notes, they announced something called “Update Stack Packages.” Let’s call the former WFEPs and the latter USPs for brevity. USPs provide a “…new process for delivering new update improvements to our customers outside of major OS updates…” But if Windows 11 gets new Update Stack Package, what does that really mean?

Sussing Out Windows 11 Gets New Update Stack Package

The key to understanding comes from a sentence in the release notes discussion of USPs. It reads “The Update Stack Package will help ensure that your PC has the highest likelihood of successfully installing new updates with the best and least disruptive experience available.” Sounds like a mechanism to make sure the OS image is free of potential impediments to upcoming updates. Why does this remind me of “servicing stack updates?”

Overall, the discussion of USPs is much like that for WFEPs earlier this year. To wit:

1. USPs are currently limited to “a very small set of update-related system files … developed independently of the OS.” WFEPs have been small and limited since their June 2021 introduction. That said, they focus on “feature improvements to customers outside of major Windows 10 feature updates.”

2. USPs and WFEPs both come to Windows installations via WU.

3. Both seek to sanity-check and test their approach and capabilities with Insiders, but ultimately aim to “expand the scope and frequency of releases in the future” (quote from WFEP June announcement).

Looking for Enlightenment…

What’s really going on here? MS seems to be experimenting with different kinds of update mechanisms independent of “major OS updates.” Given that feature updates are dropping back to yearly frequency, this provides a way to introduce changes more often than that. I’m curious to see either (or both) of these mechanisms deliver something meaty. So far, they’ve been used only for tentative, small-scale updates and changes. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how they behave when they get a more serious workout.

Right now, for both USPs and WFEPs there’s far more fanfare than clarity or understanding. Hopefully time and experience will cure that imbalance and bring some useful demonstrations of what these things are for, and what they can do when exercised more heavily.

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

MS Streamlines Windows 11 Update Handling

October 14, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

MS tracks and delivers changes (and reverse operations) to OS images using “forward and reverse differentials.” This started in Windows 10, Version 1809. Now, MS adds slick optimization that reduces repeat references to objects and instructions. Thus, MS streamlines Windows 11 update handling further. It’s all explained in an October 12 Microsoft Windows IT Pro blog post. That post is entitled “How Microsoft reduced Windows 11 update size by 40%.” It explains how MS further reduced update volume without boosting installation time.

How MS Streamlines Windows 11 Update Handling

In the afore-linked blog post, MS explains its objectives as “reducing the size of Windows 11 updates.” At the same time, the company sought to:

decrease size of network downloads for updates
keep install times unchanged (not slowed)
keep updates compatible with all distribution channels (e.g. WU, WSUS, SCCM, InTune/AutoPilot and so forth). Thus, IT pros need make no config changes.

According to the blog post, “since Windows 10, version 1809, …servicing has used paired forward and reverse differential compression.” What MS did, at a high level, with Windows 11 was to add a catalog to remap virtual addresses when function addresses or other relative references change. This replaces forward and reverse differentials for such addresses with (much shorter) lookup table references.

Such operations are easy to reverse, too. These might be required if an update fails prior to completion. This returns the OS image to a known, working stable state. OTOH, it might be required if the user decides to uninstall or roll back an update.

MS’s analyses show that this new approach provides a “40% reduction in update size.” This means not just smaller updates, but less overall consumption of network bandwidth to transport updates. For software with millions (Windows 11) to billions (Windows 10) of users, this is a big deal. No wonder MS is working to patent this technology…

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

Nvidia Drivers Gain Considerable Heft

October 13, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I noticed early this afternoon that my GeForce GTX 1070 GPU needed a driver update. The lead-in graphic shows the download size for the 496.13 version at 830.3 MB. When expanded and installed, that translates into 1.5 GB in the DriverStore (see RAPR screenshot below). That’s why I claim that Nvidia drivers gain considerable heft. The preceding version, as that same screencap shows, weighs in at a slighty-less-ginormous 1.3 GB. Heft!

Driver Store Explorer (RAPR.exe) shows some big driversizes for Nvidia stuff!
[Click image for full-sized view.]

As Nvidia Drivers Gain Considerable Heft, What to Do?

Clean up old ones, obviously! With that kind of space consumption you wouldn’t want to keep too many of them in the DriverStore. I will usually keep the previous version around for a week or so. I’ve been bitten in the past by new driver issues, and have learned to support rollback long enough to make sure everything’s OK.

I can remember only a couple of years ago, when Nvidia drivers routinely weighed in at 600-800 MB each. They’ve doubled in size since then as more bells, whistles and game tweaks get rolled up underneath their capacious umbrellas. Even then, I advised cleaning up if more than 2 copies reside in the DriverStore, and have personally seen that single cleanup maneuver — namely, removing older drivers from the store — free up 3-5 GB of disk space.

Note: by default, Windows 10 or 11 will allow an arbitrary number of versions of the same driver in the store. For big drivers this can produce unnecessary bloat. As you roll new Nvidia (or AMD Radeon) drivers in, make sure you also take the time to roll old ones out. Cheers!

Note: RAPR Pointer

If you’re not already familiar with the excellent Driver Store Explorer tool (aka RAPR.exe), download a free copy from its Github home page. An invaluable tool that I use myself at least once a month. All you have to do is click the “Select Old Driver(s)” button to clean up obsolete driverstore elements.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Software Reviews, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11

Start11 Gets v0.9 Update

October 7, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Some running Windows 11 who might want an alternative to the native Start Menu. For those folks, Stardock’s latest Start11 release offers a nice option. Please understand this is NOT free software. Those upgrading a Start10 license must pay US$4 for the bits; first-time buyers must pony up US$5. Either way, it’s a pretty good deal IMO. As a long-time user, when Start 11 gets v0.9 update, I pay attention. Others may not be so inclined.

When Start 11 gets v0.9 update, What Do You Get?

Start11 gives users a pretty broad range of functions for a small price. It allows them to make the Start Menu look like the ones from Windows 7, 8 or 10 (and of course, 11 as well). Here’s the UI “pick a version/layout” control:

You can pick from Windows 7, 8 (Modern style), 10, and 11 styles for the Start Menu layout, look, and feel.

You can pick an icon for the start button, and position the start button at left or center in the taskbar (or even up top). As for the taskbar itself, Start 11 offers a number of controls, including blur, transparency and color; the ability to apply a custom texture; right-click menu controls (which bring back the old Windows 10 style right-click pop up), and a bunch of tweaks for taskbar size and position, plus separate positioning controls for primary and secondary monitors. I like it, myself.

Search can be tweaked in a variety of ways, including disabling built-in search. Search result filtering can use icons, search can peruse file contents and well as names, and more.

Alternate Menus Appeal to Some

I know plenty of purists who want to use only native. built-in Windows controls and utilities. I am not such a person. If you are, Start11 will have no appeal to you. But if you’ve got users who want to be productive right away and already know their way around an earlier Windows version, Start11 can be a real blessing.

Right now, I’m running one machine with native facilities only, another with Start10 on Windows 11 (it works), and this one with Start11 set to run in modern layout mode. I’m watching for issues and gotchas, and will keep readers posted. I’m glad I feel comfortable getting around Windows11 using a variety of menuing tools and techniques. I remember being baffled, bothered and bewildered when Windows 8 first came out. Thank goodness, that’s no longer an issue.

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

Brand-new AMD PC Gets No Windows 11 Love

October 6, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then. I’m a little puzzled. Last month, I upgraded one of my desktops to a rockin’ configuration. I did this specifically to prepare for yesterday’s Windows 11 GA date. That PC includes an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, 64 GB RAM, and more. It completely meets the Windows 11 requirements (and PC Health Check agrees with my assessment). But this machine gets nothing like the “Great news” item that appears on my X380 Yoga (see lead-in graphic). That’s right: my brand-new AMD PC gets no Windows 11 love from WU.

If Brand-new AMD PC Gets No Windows 11 Love, Now What?

Because I purpose built the machine for Windows 11, I could use the ISO I grabbed from MS yesterday. I’d mount that image, then run setup.exe to perform an in-place upgrade install instead. I wrote on Monday that it can take a while for machines to get the WU offer at Microsoft’s discretion. Little did I know that my new AMD PC (less than a month old) would fall outside that limit. Go figure!

I have to laugh. It’s always been a bit of a mystery as to how MS opens up availability during a “gradual rollout.” Ditto for the criteria it uses to gradually extend that availability to an ever-increasing population of PCs over time. I expected that new stuff would meet those criteria sooner rather than later. My expectations have been dashed, but I don’t take that personally. I just need to decide what to do.

Upgrade Now Vs. Upgrade Later?

Because there’s no compelling reason for that AMD PC to run Windows 11, I’m tempted to wait and see how long it takes to get an offer from WU. As I observed in my Monday post, “The first machines to get an upgrade offer will be those for which telemetry shows no upgrade problems.” I’ve heard from plenty of AMD owners over at Elevenforum that they’ve successfully installed Windows 11 on such PCs. That includes builds with 5800X CPUs, just like mine.

Thus, it comes down to patience and curiosity. I’ll try to hold onto the former so I can further exercise the latter. But if history is any guide, I probably won’t last much past Halloween before I hitch that machine to the Windows 11 star. Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted.

News of Performance Issues Say: “Later”

Just this morning a number of stories about Windows 11 performance issues on AMD CPUs have surfaced. See, for example this NeoWin item “AMD processors hit by performance issues…” Or this OnMSFT story “AMD acknowledges Windows 11 performance issues…” Looks like the “lack of love” comes out of genuine concerns for less-than-positive outcomes. I bet my status changes after the promised and forthcoming AMD performance patch is out. We’ll see!

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

Windows 11 GA Follies Underway

October 5, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then. I learned something new and interesting yesterday. Thanks to Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet, I now know that October 5 really started at 4 PM Eastern (US) the day before. That meant I was able to try out two new facilities late in the day, as Microsoft got the Windows 11 GA follies underway in earnest. Let me explain…

What Does Windows 11 GA Follies Underway Mean?

GA stands for “General Availability” and represents the timeline entry for an OS release at which point anyone can access it. If they have a legit Windows 10 license they can upgrade to it. They can also now access numerous Windows 11 specific tools through the Download Windows 11 page, including:

The Windows 11 Installation Assistant (for upgrading the machine you’re using)
The Windows 11 Media Creation Tool (for creating a bootable UFD or DVD)
Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) to obtain a mountable multi-image ISO for planned installation or image customization

I’ve already done all of those things, though I haven’t yet used the UFD I built, or put the downloaded ISO to work. Here’s a brief recitation of what happened.

Item 1: Installation Assistant

My first GA upgrade target was my trusty Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme laptop (8th-gen Intel CPU, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe SSD, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot enabled). I’d already made sure it met Windows 11 requirements, but I did hit a snag during installation.

I had Start10 installed on this PC. And when the Installation Assistant got about 80% through with the installation part, it stopped and told me I had to uninstall Start10 before it could proceed. Because uninstalling Start10 itself requires a restart, I knew this meant I had to clear this out and then start over. So that’s what I did.

To my surprise, the Installation Assistant kept the install files so I didn’t have to download them again. This short-circuited the process by a good five minutes. But the second try at install took quite a while to complete — nearly 40 minutes by my clock. My advice to readers: if you’re running a start menu replacement program, uninstall it before you begin the upgrade process. In the long run it will save on time and aggravation.

Item 2: MCT Revisited

The new version of the MCT is named MediaCreationToolW11.exe. At 9,532KB in size (as reported in Explorer) it’s a pretty quick download. I like it that MS is labeling MCTs with the version of Windows they’ll grab for you. Makes them much easier to tell apart. In fact, I usually label them when I download them anyway for that very purpose. Glad to see MS beating me to the punch here.

Just for grins I went through the UFD drill with an older 8 GB UFD I had sitting around. The download part took less than a minute to complete (I have a fast Internet connection, fortunately). Building the on-media image took a little bit longer: a bit under five minutes on a 2016 vintage Patriot Blitz 8GB UFD device. It got renamed to ESD-UDB during the build process (which reflects MS use of the compressed version of WIM for speedier download/smaller disk footprint). Total disk space consumed: 4.16 GB.

Item 3: ISO Download

Because I’m a huge Ventoy fan (and regular user) this method gets me images for all kinds of uses (install, repair, troubleshooting and so forth). That’s why I don’t mess around with bootable UFD devices anymore. MS advertises, and DISM confirms, that this is a multi-part ISO image (7 parts, in fact, as shown in the following screencap):

7 total images, each with its own index, in the official Win11 ISO
[Click image for full-sized view.]

So Far, So Good. What’s Next?

I have now force-upgraded the X1 Extreme (and then installed Start 11, which is supposed to get a major update in a couple of days). I plan to update my wife’s Dell 7080 Micro with its 11th-gen CPU today or tomorrow. I’m going to wait on WU for other Windows 11 ready machines to see when the get “the offer.” Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted as the rollout proceeds. So far, though, it’s been pretty easy and straightforward. Except for the Start 10 surprise in fact, it’s been smooth as glass.

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

What Is Windows 11 Update Entitlement?

September 22, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Things are getting interesting for those who want to install Windows 11 on out-of-spec PCs. By “out-of-spec” I mean devices that don’t meet Microsoft’s Windows 11 hardware requirements. Check the warning that Microsoft insists that users accept before allowing installation to proceed. It appears in the lead-in graphic for this story. I’ve boxed the key sentence in red therein. It reads: “If you proceed with installing Windows 11, your PC will no longer be supported and won’t be entitled to receive updates.” This raises the question in the title — “What is Windows 11 update entitlement?”

Answering: What Is Windows 11 Update Entitlement?

The upshot of this warning has three consequences. First, it means MS won’t block users from installing Windows 11 on out-of-spec PCs. Two, it means MS could withhold updates from those PCs at any time. At least, that’s how I read the phrase “won’t be entitled to receive updates.” Third, out-of-spec PCs running Windows 11 won’t be eligible for MS support should problems present.

This information (and the screencap that leads off this story) comes from The Verge. It is entitled “Windows 11 won’t stop older PCs, but it might make you sign this waiver.” Its subtitle reads “Microsoft reserves the right to deny updates.” The staff obviously concludes that a lack of update entitlement equates to a “right to deny updates.” I concur with this logic.

Right Now, Everything’s OK

The Verge story cites further to a “perfectly good 7th-gen Core i7 desktop gaming PC.” On it, the author has “already installed Windows 11 and [is] running it with no major issues.” This strikes a potent nerve with me. Why? Because I’m typing this story on my production PC. It includes an i7-6700, an Asrock Extreme7+ mobo, 32 GB RAM, and Samsung 1TB 950 NVMe SSD. This machine is also quite able to run Windows 11. That said, it fails requirements checks because of CPU, TPM and Secure Boot support.

Lots of people and businesses have older PCs able to run Windows 11. Some believe they’re being unfairly prevented from upgrading. And again, that’s true right now. But I believe MS has plans for Windows 11 not yet disclosed. As those plans unfold, new OS features and capabilities could call on PC hardware in ways the current version does not. I must guess that such calls would force MS to deny related updates on out-of-spec PCs. If such updates demand certain capabilities, and some PCs lack them, that makes sense. Only time will tell. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

One thing’s for sure. Speaking purely for myself, I have zero inclination to push my luck on this front. That’s why the parts for my desktop hardware refresh to meet Windows 11 requirements are sitting in my office right now. I just need to make time to make that refresh happen. Sigh.

Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11

Windows 11 PC Health Check Publicly Available

September 21, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then: three weeks after a relaunch only to Insider Preview program members, Windows 11 PC Health Check publicly available to all. You can grab it from the Windows 11 home page (scroll to the bottom: it’s a long drive). Or, you can access the download directly from Akamai.

The Version of Windows 11 PC Health Check Publicly Available Is New

I checked, and while the new version info appears in the lead-in graphic for this story, the Insider Preview version is older. It’s numbered 2.8.210826001-s2. As you can see above, today’s version is numbered 3.0210914001-s2. Thus, even Insiders might want to grab and go with the newest (and presumably greatest) PC Health Check

Here’s what the tool says about my Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga, by way of example of a (barely) Windows 11 capable PC:

Note the green checkmark, and supporting details about Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, CPU, RAM and so forth. Good stuff!

The initial version caused enough issues that MS withdrew it soon after it first appeared. Three weeks ago, MS unleashed an improved version on Windows Insiders only. Today’s version is new, and available to anyone who wants to try it out. That’s what sometimes constitutes progress here in Windows-World. I’m glad MS took its time to get it right this time, and hopeful that this tool will serve all users well. Let’s see how it all shakes out, shall we? Cheers!