Category Archives: WED Blog

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

Windows 10’s Long Goodbye

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Officially, it’s been “out of service” since October 14. And indeed, Windows 10 market share has been falling for some time now, with 11 ascendant. But, in unwinding Windows 10’s long goodbye from the desktop OS scene, there’s no sign yet of a spiraling vortex as the old OS goes down the drain. Remember, too, that older OSes — inlcuding 7,  XP and 8.x versions all show up in a range from just under 3% (7) to under 0.3% (XP, 8, and 8.1). Apparently old OSes never fade away completely…

Unwinding Windows 10’s Long Goodbye via 7

As I think about what’s going on here, I can’t help but use Windows 7 as a lens through which to view Windows 10’s upcoming decline. This actually shows itself quite nicely in a Copilot-generated desktop share graph (source: Wikipedia’s summary of StatCounter data 2015-2025).

2015, of course, was the year in which Windows 10 made its debut. It was also the same year in which Windows 7 transitioned from “mainstream support” to “extended support.” That’s what Windows 10 did this year, in slightly different terms.

Notice the shape of the curve imposes modest steps until the midpoint. It shows more serious declines since then. My gut feel is that Windows 10 will experience a similar fall-off. That said, I also believe the curve will drop more precipitously. That’s because MS has long sworn to limit extended support for 10 to 3 years, whereas it didn’t end ESU for 7 until the 5-year mark (2020) came along.

That would put the half-way mark three rather than 5 years out, with faster dropoffs after that. That said, with RAM and GPU prices currently on a steep rise, the impetus to buy new hardware to meet Windows 11 requirements may have hit a steep wall. Here in Windows-World the path from A to B (or 2025 to the New Year and beyond) isn’t always straight or simple. Let’s see what happens, shall we?

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Notepad++ Update Stalls WinGet

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Ha! I just learned something new. Because Notepad++ uses a Win32 installer, when WinGet tries to update the app, it will hang if Notepad++ is open. That’s how a Notepad++ update stalls WinGet. Fortunately, I was able to get over that hump pretty easily. Let me explain…

Why Say: Notepad++ Update Stalls WinGet?

WinGet stayed on the first update until I realized the program was open. Then I closed it, and about 30 seconds later, progress resumed. According to Copilot, Notepad++ uses a “classic Win32 installer” that’s downloaded and run silently. That installer tries to replace files in C:\Porgram Files\Notepad++, including notepad++.exe. If the file is running, Windows won’t let the installer overwrite that file.

So it waits a while (30, 60 and 90 seconds, according to Copilot) and retries after each interval expires. When the third try fails, the installer reports failure and closes. I was able to close the app before the second try, and then that attempt succeeded, which is how it took a while to complete the update process.

Moral of the story: when certain apps pop up in response to WinGet ugprade it’s a good idea to make sure they’re closed. Indeed, if such updates fail, they’ll most likely succeed if you close them before a retry. And man, isn’t that just the way things work here in Windows-World? Some of the time, at least…

Another Stall, Another Reason…

I ran WinGet again on another PC and once again it hung. But Notepad++ wasn’t open on that PC. So I went digging into the log file named WinGet-2025-12-29-11-42-19.224.log. There, I found a long sequence of the following two information lines (I skipped the timestamp info for brevity:

[REPO] Attempting to open pinning database: C:\Users\ed\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\pinning.db
[CLI ] Terminating context: 0x8a15002b at C:\__w\1\s\external\pkg\src\AppInstallerCLICore\Workflows\UpdateFlow.cpp:be

This started at 11:42:22.609 and ended at 11:42:22.929 (0.320 seconds) and repeated every .002 seconds (160 times). It seems that, for some reason, WinGet couldn’t access its pinning database during that time period. Thus, WinGet stalls until that condition is addressed. Another stall, but another reason, too. Cheers.

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

Thunderbolt 5 Status Approaching 2026

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I’ve been thinking about new technologies lately, and the hurdles that OEMs face bringing them to market. Consider that only 2% of global PC sales are Copilot+ capable (which includes TB4). In that light, it’s not surprising that the market presence of TB5 is easily summarized as “slim to none.” Even so, I wanted to report on Thunderbolt 5 status approaching 2026, and share which laptops and mobos sport this latest, greatest iteration. Here goes…

What’s Thunderbolt 5 Status Approaching 2026?

There is a small number of laptops and motherboards currently available that include (or enable) TB5 support. Thus, for example, one must purchase an ASUS mobo with a TB5-capable header AND an ASUS Thunderbolt EX expansion card, to provide TB5 ports on a desktop PC.

Tasked with finding laptops with TB5 ports, Copilot produces a list of 12 models from 7 OEMs (MSI [3], Gigabyte [1], ASUS [1], Alienware (Dell) [1], Razer [1], Lenovo [1], Dell (Business) [1], and HP [1]). All come with MSRPs that exceed US$2,000. For motherboards, there’s one — and only one — source: ASUS for Z790 and Z890 (Intel) and X670E (AMD) and a hybrid (ProArt Creator). All seem to need the aforementioned expansion card to complete the connection.

Why Is TB5 Uptake Miniscule?

First off, the Intel Barlow Ridge controller is required for TB 5. Apparently, it is ill-suited for use in smaller, lighter laptops because of its space and power requirements. Second, TB5 comes with demanding power requirements (up to 240W passthrough) which requires beefier batteries and power leads to accommodate.

Finally, TB5 delivery issues from demand. And despite its formidable capabilities (120 Gbps video, PCIe 4.0 x4 host interface, DisplayPort 2.1, and up to 240W USB-PD passthrough) there’s apparently insufficient demand to drive it into lots of desktop and laptop designs. Over time, this will change. But for the moment, TB5 looks very much like a killer design looking for market uptake and support.

 

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Undisappearing X13 Gen 6 PING

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I’m getting ready to return the sweet little review unit Lenovo sent me six weeks ago. It’s a ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 (see First Look from November 7). It’s endowed with an Intel Core Ultra 7 255U, 16GB RAM, and an 0.5 GB NVMe SSD. For size and heft, it’s a nominal 13″ ultra-portable (933g/2.05 lbs) that’s easy to pack up and take with you wherever you go. As I was preparing a final once-over, I found myself faced with undisappearing X13 Gen 6 PING. Let me explain…

Why I’m Undisappearing  X13 Gen 6 PING

For some odd reason, Lenovo instituted firewall rules on this eval unit that I’ve never run into before. You can see them in the lead-in graphic where they show — in brief — that for both Private and Domain LAN namespaces, inbound PING is disabled for both IPv4 and IPv6. That means this PC won’t respond to incoming PING requests from the LAN. Sigh.

That’s how Advanced IP Scanner finds PCs (among other techniques). It also explains why IPconfig on the X13 Gen 6 happily reported itself at a private IP address, but didn’t show up in the scans that tool made on my desktop. Sigh again.

This is easily fixed by changing those firewall rules to enable (YES) them, instead of disabling (NO) same. But I wonder: why did Lenovo do this? I can see this applying to boundary devices (e.g. firewalls) and servers, but haven’t really run into it much on end-user PCs. They’s usually safe behind one or more layers of external protection (2 in my case), and don’t get external PINGs. Maybe it’s a “coffee shop” scenario…? But PING is disabled on Public networks anyway. Go figure!

Closing Thoughts on the X13 Gen 6 ThinkPad

As I get ready to box this unit up, and ship it off, I’ve come to some conclusions. On the plus side, it’s light, compact and reasonably capable. I’d be inclined to upgrade the 0.5 GB SSD to 1.0 GB or bigger (with budget 2.0 GB units selling for under US$100 right now, that’s not a big stretch). Otherwise, it’s more than acceptable as-is.

On the minus side, the X13 is a little behind the curve technology wise. Alas,  this model is NOT Copilot+ capable. With its price now over US$1,500 (+US$8.45 at Best Buy, +US$138.22 at Staples) it’s nowhere near as good a deal as a lightweight Snapdragon X-equipped model in that general price range (e.g. Lenovo ThinkPad 7X or Asus Zenbook A14).

Such models usually come equipped with 1 TB SSDs from the get-go, offer better battery life (12+ hours for SnapdragonX models vs. 7-10 hours for the X13), and are on par or better for performance and capability. That said, ARM PCs still have their Windows quirks and limitations, too. Here in Windows-World choosing a laptop always involves certain trade-offs, eh? I’ve come down on the Copilot+ side of things, and remain amazed that less than 2% of new PC purchased globally qualify as such. Given MS’s emphasis on AI, why buy anything else?

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Backup/Restore, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

WinGet Foils MTPW Sneaky Update

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MTPW is the mostly excellent MiniTool Partition Wizard, which I’ve used and recommended for managing disk layouts on Windows for years. I just got bitten for MTPW v13.5 by what I call a “sneaky update” — a move from v13.0 to v13.5 that includes the company’s companion ShadowMaker image backup tool along with MTPW unless you read its update screens closely and carefully. When I followed the update on one laptop (X380) with another (X12Hybrid), I observed that WinGet foils MTPW sneaky update. Let me explain…

Why I  Say: WinGet Foils MTPW Sneaky Update

After I ran the app-based MTPW update, I found it had installed ShadowMake as well as MTPW itself. You can see the “Trial” screen came up with 0 days remaining for use, which makes it:

  • worthless for those who want to try the program out for free
  • require immediately purchase of a Pro version to use
  • earn my ire by installing itself as part of a different update
  • force me to delete an app I never wanted in the first place

Immediately after I’d been bitten by this sneaky update, I saw MTPW pop up in WinGet on  the X12Hybrid. “Hmmm,” I wondered to myself, “Will this also try to sneak MTSM onto this machine?” Nope! It did what it said it would do: updated only MTPW. That’s why I’m glad I tried it on that other machine, and can now warn readers that if they’re using MTPW, they need to use the built-in update carefully to avoid MTSM. Or, like me, they can use WinGet instead and skip all the drama.

Yeah, I know. I should’ve read the install screens more carefully when running the in-app upgrade utility. My rejoinder: MiniTool shouldn’t make it so easy for MTWM to appear on my machine as part of its MTPW update. It’s neither what I expected nor wanted. ‘Nuff said!

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ASUS A14 Zenbook Travelogue

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From December 7 to 16, my wife and I drove to California to pick up son Gregory upon moving out of his dorm on the 11th. For this 10-day odyssey, we took the new Snapdragon X laptop along. This blog post provides a kind of technical ASUS A14 Zenbook travelogue, as we used that machine in the car, and in 7 hotels on our trip. TLDR version: works well, great battery life, and easy to pack and tote. That said, everybody noticed — and missed — touch screen support.

Snippets from ASUS A14 Zenbook Travelogue

Day 1 (Home to Las Cruces, NM): Unbelievably fast Windows Hello facial recognition. Used less than 15% of battery with Kindle Reader in 4-6 hours in the car. Tried to drive interface with finger on screen only to realize this otherwise excellent US$550 lapop does NOT include a touchscreen. No issues using hotel Wi-Fi.

Day  2 (Las Cruces to Phoenix, AZ):  Took less than an hour to fully recharge PC after extended use in car for reading. No 5G support meant I used my iPhone as a wireless hotspot for Internet access in the car. No issues using hotel Wi-Fi, except I had to run thru the hotspot to grab my Hyatt loyalty club info before I could get free, high-perf access. Sigh: it’s always something…

Days 3 – 6 (Los Angeles/Hollywood, CA): Wife Dina and I made regular use of the A14 in the Loews Hollywood Hotel. Easy Wi-Fi access, decent performance for the lo-fi connection (until I figured out we got high-fi because of our room deal). Only had to charge the laptop once during our entire stay. Great battery life!

Into LA, Then Back Home

Day 7 (Hollywood to Bakersfield): The family indulged my burning desire to visit Cafe Pyrenees and tackle more food than you can believe is included in a “dinner setup” (costs US$24.95 by itself). The garlic fried chicken was astounding, and the A14 likewise, with easy Wi-Fi hookups and great web performance.

Day 8 (Bakersfield to Kingman, AZ): The Holiday Inn Express was a big disappointment. The A14 was not: another day of great battery life, easy Wi-Fi hookup, good Web-based Outlook access and performance, and more. I’m now completely comfortable claiming that for light-duty computing (e.g. email, surfing, basic apps and applications) this laptop can run for a long day (12 hours) on battery. Just in case, though, I brought a RavPower RP-PB41 on the trip (its 26,800 mAh capacity can charge the A14 to 100% in about 7 hours: it’s slow because it outputs 5A where the A14 expects 4X that level).

Day 9 (Kingman to Big Spring, TX): We doubled up the driving for a 12-hour day on Dec 15 (we’d originally planned to stop in Albuquerque, NM). The A14 ran all day during our 12:15 drive, with about 17% battery remaining when we pulled into the beautifully restored Hotel Settles around midnight that day. Phew!

Day 10 (Big Spring to Round Rock, TX): The ~5hr drive home drew only about 25% of battery capacity, as I surfed and looked at the 1,015 email messages waiting for me in my inbox at the Webmail server for edtittel.com. I knew the next would be busy as I chewed through that imposing list, to filter the wheat from the chaff.

Final Thoughts and Concerns

Gosh! I’m hard-pressing to ding the A14 for much at all, except for its lack of touchscreen support. Copilot tells me that such capability adds US$75-150 to the cost of a laptop, but I didn’t really stop to check if that was an available option or not when I jumped on its Best Buy Black Friday pricing. As Copilot would have it, buying a touchscreen A14 model would add anywhere from US$259 to US$500 to the US$550 I paid for my current unit at Best Buy. So much for Copilot’s obviously optimistic US$75-150 incremental cost estimate, eh?

All in all, I find this laptop to be eminently suited for mobile, portable use — as long as you have a cellphone that can provide a mobile Internet hookup. Alas, ASUS does not offer an in-PC M.2 slot into which one might insert a 5G card. So it goes, here in Windows-World. Net results: mostly positive, with only a couple of niggles. Love this new laptop: will keep using it as a road machine.

 

 

 

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SAC Gains Gradual Rollout Toggle

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SAC stands for Smart App Control. It appears in Windows Security under the App & browser control heading. Over on WindowsLatest this morning, I read about a new change with mounting excitement. Starting with Build 26220.7070, SAC may now be turned on and off at will. Before this new change, once turned off, reinstalling Windows (clean install) was the only way to turn SAC back on. But alas, it seems that SAC gains gradual rollout toggle, because that feature is not available to me. Look at the lead-in graphic the text under the “Off” toggle on my ThinkPad T14s. It still reads “If SAC is off it can’t be turned on without reinstalling Windows.” Drat!

Not Yet Included, As SAC Gains Gradual Rollout Toggle

As it turns out the same thing is true for my Lenovo X380 Yoga, running Build 26220.7344. Apparently, neither of my qualified test PCs meets the initial gating criteria for the new version of SAC. Sigh.

The clean install requirement (and the one my machines must meet) for turning SAC back on, once it’s turned off, is a kind of deal-breaker for me. I do understand that Windows wants SAC to start with a clean slate. Indeed, that’s why this requirement is exacted. But it seems MS can now get past this immense previous hurdle.

Thus, my question is: When will my eligible test PCs get their turn? Here in Windows-World, answering such questions inevitably means waiting … and waiting … and waiting … until that turn rolls around. If history is any guide, it will take a while. I’ll keep you posted, but don’t hold your breath.

 

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Presence Sensing Pitfalls

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OK, then. I just returned from a 10-day hiatus during which time we drove to California and back. Purpose: to pick up number-one son at college and bring him home for the holidays. When I sat down at my desk, I noticed that the ThinkPad T14s would sense my presence, and start itself up unprompted, even though I was busy on my desktop. This illustrates one of the various presence sensing pitfalls that Windows 11 sets up, and the ThinkPad enables. Let me explain…

Working Around Presence Sensing Pitfalls

In theory, presence sensing uses the PC’s camera to figure out when you’re close by, and to start itself up when you move into some distance from the device. (See lead-in graphic.)  In practice, things are a little more complex and interesting. Why so? Here are some reasons:

  • Inside Settings, if you look for presence sensing through brute force, not much appears. If you search, that leads to Privacy & security > Presence Sending.
  • You can’t get to “Presence Sensing settings” directly, because they appear under System > Power & battery > Turn off my screen when I leave. There’s a section entitled “Wake my device when I approach” with other entailments, too. That’s where the real action is.
  • Looks like presence sensing works best when it’s for a primary machine, but not so much when it’s a secondary beast. I’m turning it off on the laptop for that reason.

Long story short: to defeat the presence sensing (I mostly use this unit via RDP anyway), I had to turn off “Wake my device when I approach.” That not only stops it from firing up while I’m sitting at my desk, it also keeps it from popping up and doing stuff every 30 seconds or so (mildly vexing).

It just goes to show that not all Windows controls are completely intuitive. Nor are they always labeled as you think they should be. I’m convinced that’s why MS had to put a link to “Presence Sensing settings” on the eponymous screen (“Presence Sensing”) in the Privacy & Security silo in Settings. Here in Windows-World, the only way to get where you need to go may be indirect. This is one such path…

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Screen Change Breaks Advanced IP Scanner

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Ooo wee ooo… Things got weird here at Chez Tittel this week. On Tuesday, I blogged about moving my Main display from left-hand monitor (1) to right-hand monitor (2). It gives improved visibility to the notification area. Alas, that screen priority change breaks Advanced IP Scanner, a favorite remote access monitoring and management tool of mine. Buckle up, kids: this is how the weirdness crept in…

How Screen Change Breaks Advanced IP Scanner

It drove me crazy, in fact. After the switchover, if I ran Advanced IP Scanner (I’ll abbreviate it as AIS from now on), it would launch. I’d see the window open briefly, and move to the right of my right-hand screen. Any attempts to bring it back into a visible spot on either monitor didn’t work. And it showed up on the Taskbar thumbnail as an empty white box.

Only when I went back to Settings > System > Display and reset the left-hand monitor as “Main display” did AIS reappear in viewable form. I’ve seen some quirks and oddities in my 30-plus year history with Windows, but this one ranks right up there near the top.

Because I have to choose between using AIS and easier access to the Notification area, I’m going with AIS (and have restored (1) as the main display). Why? Because I’m always messing with other PCs on my LAN and I like to remote into them. AIS makes it dead simple to open a Remote Desktop Connection into them via their current IP address. Local address tables get flaky when, as I often do, I switch units between Wi-Fi and wired Ethernet. So I’m choosing convenience over visibility.

And boy howdy, is that the way things sometimes go here in Windows-World. All I can say is “Happy Friday!”

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Hasleo Backup Suite (Free) Handles ARM PCs

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At the end of yesterday’s hopefully thrilling episode, I said I’d follow up on my experiences with Hasleo Backup Suite. I got it installed on the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s (a Snapdragon X based ARM PC). I’m pleased to report it works as it should. Not only did I make and restore a backup, I also built — and successfully booted into — the program’s emergency disk. So far, looks like the Hasleo Backup Suite (Free) handles ARM PCs just fine. As you can see from its tools menu above, it even includes boot menu placement, image handling of all kinds, MBR and VSS repairs, and more. Good-oh!

Proving Hasleo Backup Suite (Free) Handles ARM PCs

How do I get from saying “it looks like Hasleo works” to asserting that the program actually, definitely does the job? That’s going to take time and repeat experience. I’m setting up a daily backup schedule. I’ll be messing around with its other tools and facilities on an ongoing basis. If something is wonky, that will probably clue me in.

I do have one additional piece of positive evidence about Hasleo, however. User Stigg at ElevenForum.com started a long-running and active thread (33 pages, 645 posts) on July 8, 2023 entitled Hasleo Backup Suite. He reports on “extensive testing of Hasleo Backup Suite over the past months” and opines that “it’s looking very promising.” Subsequent long-term traffic and interactions on the thread bear that out.

Indeed, I am coming around to the idea that Hasleo Backup Suite (Free) is a worthy successor to Macrium Reflect 8 (Free), which is no longer being updated (nor works with ARM PCs — one must purchase a license for Reflect X to gain awesome ARM access). I’ll say this, though: Reflect X is at least twice as fast at backups and restores as Hasleo, so those for whom time is money might want to ante up anyway. ‘Nuff said.

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