Category Archives: Win7View

Notes on Windows 7, Win7 compatible software and hardware, reviews, tips and more.

Insider stuff, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

Post Dev Channel Upgrade Drill

Leave a comment

As somebody who’s been in the Insider Program for Windows 10 since October, 2014, I’ve been through hundreds of Insider Preview installations and upgrades. That means I have a pretty well-defined drill through which I take my test PCs once an upgrade is in place. In today’s item, I’ll take you through my Post Dev Channel Upgrade drill as an illustration. That’s because I just finished upgrading to Build 21318.1000, released Friday February 19.

High-level View: Post Dev Channel Upgrade Drill

Viewed at a high level, those post Dev Channel upgrade steps might be described as follows:

    1. Check the environment, restore tweaks, make repairs
    2. Clean up post-upgrade leftovers, esp. Windows.old
    3. Perform other routine cleanups
    4. Check for and install software updates (non-Windows)
    5. Use Macrium Reflect to make a pristine image backup

In general, the idea is to make sure things are working, clean up anything left behind, catch apps and applications up with Windows, and make a snapshot to restore as this release baseline, if needed.

Step 1: Check & Restore or Repair Anything Out of Whack

YMMV tremendously during this activity. After many upgrades, I’ve jumped into File Explorer Options (Control Panel) to make file extensions visible again, show hidden files, and so forth. MS is doing a better job with this lately, and I don’t usually have to do this with Insider Preview upgrades (though it does still happen for standard feature upgrades).

For a long, long time I had to go into Advanced File Sharing to loosen “Guest or Public” and “All Network” network profiles on the Lenovo X220 Tablet to get RDP to work. Because I use RDP from my production desktop to access and work on my arsenal of test PCs, this is pretty important — to me, anyway. The last few Dev Channel releases have NOT had this problem, I’m happy to say.

I run Helmut Buhler’s excellent 8 Gadget Pack on my Windows 10 PCs. That’s because its CPU Usage and Network Meter gadgets provide helpful dashboards. The former is good for CPU and memory usage and system temps; the latter is great at showing network activity and base addressing info. Very handy. But each time an upgrade is installed, Windows 10 boots it off the desktop. Buhler has written a handy “Repair” utility that I run after each upgrade to put everything back the way it was.

Step 2: Clean up post-upgrade leftovers

You can use the built-in Disk Cleanup utility, run as admin, to take care of most of this. I personally prefer Albacore/TheBookIsClosed’s Managed Disk Cleanup (available free from GitHub). Why? Because he tweaked the UI so you can see all active controls in a single display window, and select all the stuff you want gone in a single pass. Here’s what that looks like to make it visually obvious why I prefer this tool:

Post Dev Channel Upgrade Drill.mdiskclean.exe

Notice you can see ALL options eligible for selective clean-up in a single display area in Managed Disk Cleanup. I like it!

Step 3: Perform other routine cleanups

I still use Josh Cell’s Uncleaner utility to clean up temp files and other leftovers after an upgrade. If I’m feeling ambitious I’ll run the DriverStore Explorer (RAPR.exe) to identify and remove duplicate device drivers, too. Once upon a time I would run Piriform’s CCleaner as well, but I’m less than happy with that software now that the maker has started including bundleware in the installer. I haven’t found another tool I like as much as the old version.

Step 4: Update Third-Party Software

You can use a tool like KC Softwares SuMO or Patch My PC Updater to suss out most of the items in need of update on Windows PCs. SuMO is a little better at its job but costs about US$35 for the PRO version (does automatic updates for most programs, but sometimes vexing to use). PMP Updater is free, fast, and entirely automatic but doesn’t update everything. Sigh. I use PMP Update on my test machines, and SuMO PRO on my production PC myself. I’m doing this on the theory that it’s best to have everything updated before making a pristine image backup, as I do in the next step.

Step 5: Make a Pristine Backup

With everything upgraded and updated, and all the dross cleaned up, it’s the perfect time to make a fresh image backup. I like Macrium Reflect, mostly because it’s faster and more reliable than the built-in Windows 7 Backup and Restore utility (which MS itself has recommended against since 2016). And indeed, it’s faster at backing up and restoring than most other utilities I’ve used, and also includes a bootable rescue flash drive utility you can use for bare metal and “dead boot/system” drive repair/restore scenarios.

Please note: Macrium Reflect is MUCH faster than using the rollback utility to return to a lower-level OS image from a higher-level one. That’s why I feel safe getting rid of the Windows.old folder as part of my cleanup efforts. I know I’m not going to use those files anyway…

OK then, that’s my drill. I’m sticking to it. Hopefully, you’ll find something in there to like for yourself. Cheers!

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

DISM Trumps SFC To Fix Hung Execution

Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting observation straight from TenForums. Occasionally, the System File Checker (SFC) will hang when run. That is, it will grind forward to some percentage of completion, and then sit there indefinitely, making no further progress. If that happens to you on a Windows 10 PC, it’s OK to terminate the process (enter Ctrl-C at the command line or in PowerShell). In such cases, DISM trumps SFC to fix hung execution. Let me explain…

How DISM Trumps SFC to Fix Hung Execution

To unpack my assertion, please understand that when SFC finds an error it cannot fix, it more or less stops where it is. The Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool, aka DISM, can replace the files in Winodws 10’s cross-linked code repository WinSxS. By doing so, it will often fix the errors that SFC cannot surmount successfully.

The syntax for the specific DISM incantation is most often:

DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

Other variations for offline images, or that use something other than local files already known to Windows 10 are documented at MS Docs. There you’ll find a helpful article entitled “Repair a Windows Image” that take you through various elaborations that may sometimes prove necessary. Using the Source: attribute can get particularly interesting, especially if you’re working from a WIM or ESD file that is home to two or more Windows images.

If SFC Hangs, DISM /RestoreHealth Often Sets Things Right

As it did for the person who posted about SFC difficulties at TenForums, this approach will often (but not always) make things right. You can’t know until you try. But the thing to remember is that if SFC hangs or fails, your next step should be to try this specific DISM command.

In my personal experience, this has fixed half or more of such issues when they’ve come up. If the odds come up as they should, this approach will also work for you. Try it, and see!

[Note Added Feb 16 afternoon]:
Go Ahead: Skip SFC, Run DISM First

Members of the Insider Team responding to this post informed me that “On Win10 it’s recommended to run DISM first.” This is explained in an MS Support Note entitled “Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files.” And sure enough, in reading over that article it informs readers “If you are running Windows 10 … first run the inbox Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool prior to running the System File Checker.” I’m not sure what “inbox” means in this context, but the order is clear and unmistakable: DISM first, SFC second.

I’ve been following typical advice from TenForums and conventional wisdom for so long, I neglected to read up on SFC in putting this story together. Live and learn: now I know to reverse the order and run DISM first. Hope this helps others, too!

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Recent Activity, Software Reviews, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, WED Blog, Windows 10

Voidtools Everything Finds Files Fast

Leave a comment

I know plenty of purists who won’t use third-party Windows tools if a Microsoft-supplied tool or facility will do the job. I am not such a person, and I’m happy to use third-party tools that either do things that Microsoft doesn’t do, or do as well as they do. Because Voidtools Everything finds files fast, it’s part of my standard Windows 10 desktop runtime. Oh, and it’s free, imposes little overhead, and — in my experience — runs faster and works better than Microsoft search. I usually get what I’m after before I’ve finished typing my input string.

Because Voidtools Everything Finds Files Fast, Use It!

The Everything FAQ provides a peachy overview of the tool, and explains its speed, behavior and workings. That said, Everything is primarily a name search tool for files and folders. It provides only limited visibility into file contents (that’s a search tool of a different stripe). The developers say that Everything takes about 1 second to index a fresh Windows install (about 120K files) and a minute to index 1M files. It really is fast, based on personal experience. It can also access files on FAT volumes, network storage, and flash devices (but minor configuration wiggles in Tools → Options → Folders are required, shown below).

FAT-derived volumes (like those on SD cards and UFDs) don’t show up by default in Everything. But they are easy to add.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Working Search for Everything It’s Worth

OK, bad pun, I know. But you can use boolean operators and wildcards in Everything much like you do at the Windows command line. Everything also supports advanced search for more complex search strings that also include the program’s content search functions (warning: these are slow because Everything does not index content in advance). For me the Advanced Search window provides the complex functions I need. Check it out:

Advanced search offers a variety of pattern definition and matching functions. Works like a champ, too!

If, like me, you have lots of storage and millions of files at your fingertips (right now, Everything says it’s indexed 1.4+M objects for me), Everything is handy and useful. If you try it out, you’ll probably end up keeping it around and using it regularly. I use it dozens of times a day, every day myself.

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

X380 Yoga 21301 Installation Issues

Leave a comment

I’ve been struggling since last Thursday to get the latest Fast Ring version — namely, 21301.1000 — installed.  That’s right, I’ve got “interesting” X380 Yoga 21301 installation issues running hot and cold right now. So far I’ve seen at least 4 different error codes, all of which hit at about the 48% mark after the first reboot. I call this the “post-GUI” phase of Windows 10 installation, because it occurs after the WinPE environment takes over the install process following that first reboot.

Diagnosing X380 Yoga 21301 Installation Issues

I’ve just confirmed that these issues persist in the latest CU 21301.1010,  as well as in 21301.1000. I’ve been using the MS tool setupdiag.exe to get to the bottom of things. But because it finds the NT driver as the culprit for the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_
EQUAL and the bugcheck 0X0A error, that puts the onus on MS to fix something beyond my control. You can see this in the setupdiag output in the lead-in graphic for this story.

I can tackle and fix lots of Windows 10 drivers. But as I understand it when the NT driver (shows up as lowercase nt in the screencap) is mentioned, it’s general indicator. According to dbgtech.net, “the error might be caused by a device driver, a system service, a virus scanner, or a backup tool that is incompatible with the new version.”

Coming Up Dry Is No Fun at All

I’m running Defender on this PC so I’m pretty sure it’s not involved. I’ve stripped my services down to the bare minimum. Macrium Reflect is my backup too (and still working on the X220 Tablet that has managed both of these recent updates/upgrades). The same device drivers work on 19042.746 on my other nearly-identical X380 Yoga PC (only difference: Toshiba SSD vs. Samsung).

I’m still looking for enlightenment, but not finding any. Last time something like this happened, I just had to wait for a new Fast Ring/Dev Channel release, and it installed just fine. Here’s hoping!

[Note Added Feb 12] 21313 Brings Success!

I’d been contacted by a member of the Windows Insiders team as a result of sharing a link to this post on the Windows Insider MVP Yammer community. I was informed that a future Dev Channel release would fix my problem. As I learned earlier this afternoon, 21313 installed without difficulties. Seems that this PC got bit by a known bugcheck error.  It’s the first item on the Fixes list in the 21313 release notes. This has been a known issue for some time, and is apparently now fixed. Woo hoo!

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

UFD Failure Presents Strange Symptoms

Leave a comment

I had one of my 16 GB Mushkin Atom USB Flash Drives (UFDs) fail on me this weekend. Alas, it happened in the middle of a boot-into-restore operation on my Lenovo X220 Tablet.  Because I didn’t think I’d built Rescue Media, I stuck the UFD into the machine while that process was underway. After the restore ended,  because that very same UFD failure presents strange symptoms I blamed Reflect. Wrong!

When UFD Failure Presents Strange Symptoms, Then What?

As is my usual practice when a device presents odd behaviors or symptoms, I go into diagnostics mode. When I dug into the drive using MiniTool Partition Magic (MTPW), I could see 5 NTFS partitions on that device. Each was a miniscule 3.8 MB in size. But no set of contortions would return that device to operation. Diskpart didn’t do it at the command line, nor was MTPW able to return it to working order. When I inserted it into Disk Management, I got the ultimate judgement on its condition shown in this story’s lead-in graphic: “Bad Disk.” That seemed to sum things up pretty nicely.

This is the second UFD I’ve had fail on me in the past 5 years or so. I just counted 28 of them here in my office, in sizes ranging from 8 GB to 128 GB. I use them all the time. The smaller ones are usually bootable with OS images, rescue media, or repair tools. The larger ones act primarily as portable storage for project work when I go on the road. And apparently, they do fail from time to time.

Macrium Reflect Forum Sets Things Straight

I hope I can be forgiven for initially wanting to blame Reflect for trashing the UFD. It did go south on me in the middle of a Macrium operation, after all. Then, I learned more about how Rescue Media works, courtesy of MR forum regulars “Froggie” and “jphughan.” Now, I am inclined to agree with their analysis that the UFD’s failure was coincidental.

Let me explain: it seems that when invoked using the “boot to restore” operation, jphughan told me “the WIM file inside the Rescue Media cached build folder — but that is a folder on (by default) your C partition.”  Given that member jphughan has 8.5K posts on the forums and has reached “Macrium Evangelist” level, I’m inclined to believe he knows what he’s talking about.

And in fact, I saw my system go into Recovery from the usual boot drive (a Plextor SSD) on that PC. Turns out that there’s a sub-older inside C:\Boot that’s named Macrium. It in turn has folders for the drivers it needs, various Windows 10 Assessment and Deployment Kit elements (aka WA10Files) folder, where the all-important boot.wim file for the WinRE version that Macrium uses to boot its Rescue Media resides.

Given that the UFD doesn’t function properly, but the system not only booted and ran its restore, this is the only way to explain how that process occurred. Thus, I concur with my informants from the Macrium Forums that (a) restore ran from the C: drive and (b) the UFD was either dead or died somewhere during the reboot process that proceeded just fine without its help or involvement.

Just goes to show that coincidence is a powerful force, but one that can be reasoned past when needs must.

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Hardware Reviews, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10

Insane GPU Prices Make Recycling Old Tech Sensible

Leave a comment

It’s time for me to refresh my desktop PC. The old motherboard runs a Z170 chipset with a Skylake I7-6700 processor. The former made its debut in August 2015 and the latter one month later. If memory serves, I built this machine in mid-2016. That makes the technology more than 5 years old, and the PC closing in fast on that age. I’ve been planning a new build for a while now. I just went back to check parts prices. For me, given a still working Nvidia GTX 1070 card in the current build,  today’s insane GPU prices make recycling old tech sensible.

What Insane GPU Prices Make Recycling Old Tech Sensible?

If memory serves, I paid around US$500 for my GPU when I bought it over 5 years ago. Guess what? That same card costs costs US$500 now! A more modern Nvidia 2070 card goes for around US$1,000. And the latest generation, top-of-the-line 3080 cards cost US$1,800 and up. I’m serious: these prices are really nuts!

Wait and See Is All I Can Do

I’d already planned to re-use my case. Other items in my planned bill of materials include a Ryzen 5 5600X 6-core CPU (US$420), Noctua NH-U12A cooler (US$150), MSI Meg X570 Unify mobo (US$400), 32GB (2×16) DDR4-3200 (US$155), 2xSabrent PCie 4.0 M.2 1 TB SSD (US$340), and a Seasonic Platinum PX-850W PSU (US$170). Total price, sans GPU: US$1,635. That’s more than I spent on my last build, but includes two fast, sizable SSDs and a beefier power supply.

As for a new GPU, it’s on hold until prices come down. I can live with the 1070 GTX until 2070/3070 prices recede from 4 figures. Or, I can wait for a windfall — or a wild hair — and take the plunge at another time. There’s no hurry.

For the moment, I can really and truly assert once again that current GPU prices are just crazy. Sigh. It’s always something, right?

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Recent Activity, Software Reviews, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, WED Blog, Windows 10

TreeSize Offers Valuable System Volume Information Insight

Leave a comment

The JAM Software program TreeSize is a great visualization tool for examining (and pruning) Windows disks. For those disinclined to buy a full-blown copy, the TreeSize Free version (shown in this story’s screencaps) will suffice. These days, in fact, I recommend TreeSize over the older Open Source WinDirStat project. Both provide colorful, easy-to-read tree map diagrams for disk space consumption. But WinDirStat hasn’t been updated since 2016, and JAM is keeping up with TreeSize in all of its current manifestations. Certainly, there’s no disputing that TreeSize offers valuable System Volume Information Insight.

And, in fact, WinDirStat doesn’t shed much light on the contents of the System Volume Information (SVI) folder found in every NTFS volume. TreeSize, OTOH, tells you quite a bit about where the space in that folder is going and can help guide at least one easy clean-up maneuver.

In the paragraphs that follow, I’m going to follow up on my January 13  “restore point failure” story. In this story, I’ll show both before and after screenshots (in reverse order).  The lead-in graphic for this story shows what a pared-down 2.2 GB SVI folder looks like. It’s the “after” shot, taken after I turned off restore points on my production PC and instructed the System Protection control panel widget to delete all existing restore points. Why keep them if you don’t plan to use them ever again? Gone!

The next screenshot shows the “before” state for that folder. Note its size is 13.8 GB and the primary items shown are all restore points ranging from 3.1 to 2.5 GB in size. Deleting them reduced the size of this folder by 11.6 GB — a pretty substantial disk space reclamation.

TreeSize Offers Valuable System Volume Information Insight.before-restore-point-delete

Pretty much all you can see in this before SVI shot is a handful of BIG restore point files.
[Click image for full-sized view]

How TreeSize Offers Valuable System Volume Information Insight

Simply put, TreeSize makes file and folder information available for the contents of the SVI folder. Digging into the “after” display, one can mouseover any item therein. This provokes an information display a couple of seconds later. This appears as a pop-up windows that provides information including Name, Full Path, Size, Allocated, % of Parent allocated, Files (count), Last modification timestamp, Last accessed timestamp, and more. This information is quite informative and can be helpful.

In looking at the “after” shot at the head of this story, you can see that SVI includes folders for a variety of MS apps, Office.OneNote, Windows Photos, Skype, Office.Sway, and a whole bunch more. I’ve never seen this level of detail for SVI before. You can even zoom in on individual items to see what’s inside them, if you like.

IMO, TreeSize Free is a great tool for all kinds of uses. In this case, I’m glad that it confirms significant space savings thanks to turning off restore points and deleting existing saved restore points. Good stuff!

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, WED Blog, Windows 10

19043 aka 20H1 Early Tryout How-to

Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting experiment for those with a spare test machine handy.  Note that this machine must run Insider Preview Beta or Release Preview Channel Build 19042.782 with KB4598291 installed. I found a handy collection of DISM commands from poster “moinmoin” at DeskModder.de. If run in an administrative Command Prompt or PowerShell session, the PC will advance to 21H1, as shown in the lead-in graphic for this story. It serves, therefore, as a 19043 aka 20H1 early tryout how-to for adventurous insiders.

Working Through 19043 aka 20H1 Early Tryout How-to

Essentially, the following sequence of commands does piecemeal what a full-blown enablement package does behind the scenes. In fact, DISM runs a series of .mum files, which are XML files that provide instructions to the Windows Update Installer for performing specific updates. Honestly, I’m not sure how “moinmoin” figured this sequence out. I’m guesssing he worked from analysis of other, earlier enablement packages. But that sequence worked on my Lenovo X380 Yoga test machine, which had been running 19042.782 for a few days.

Please, look below for the sequence of commands. Warning: Those using German versions of Windows should get them from the original post. I’ll provide instructions on how to modify the command text for other languages afterward. It’s safe to assemble, then cut’n’paste these commands one at a time in PowerShell. That’s how I “upgraded” my Lenovo test PC, in fact.

Putting DISM Commands together

In fact, all these commands start with same master prefix string. Simply append the other sub-strings and fire them off at the command line to do your thing.

That master prefix string is:

Dism /Online /Add-package:C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\

The 8 suffix strings are (do not grab the numbers and the period that follows them — they’re to help you find stuff, not for command-line use):

1.microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.782.mum
2.microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~10.0.19041.782.mum
3.microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-wrapper-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.782.mum
4.microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-wrapper-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~10.0.19041.782.mum
5.microsoft-windows-updatetargeting-clientos-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.782.mum
6.microsoft-windows-updatetargeting-clientos-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~10.0.19041.782.mum
7.microsoft-windows-updatetargeting-clientos-21h1-ekb-wrapper-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.782.mum
8.microsoft-windows-updatetargeting-clientos-21h1-ekb-wrapper-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~10.0.19041.782.mum

Even for German (and other languages) the first command above stays the same. The German version of the second command above reads

Dism /Online /Add-package:C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~de-DE~10.0.19041.782.mum

Note that the bolded language code for German German de-DE is embedded near the end of the string. To invoke the proper files for other languages substitute your language code where it appears. For example, a French speaker in France would use fr-FR, and a French speaker in Belgium fr-BE, and so forth. This applies to elements 2-8 for all languages, and is performed using string substitution on the German language version of the commands.

Necessary Precautions Beforehand

It’s probably wise to make a backup of your test PC’s OS image before you try this sequence of commands out. Also, make sure you have a working, bootable USB flash drive from which you can restore that backup. That way, should the worst happen, and your PC get bricked by the updates, you can boot to the UFD and restore the backup without too much muss, fuss, or lost time. Just because it worked on my Lenovo X380 Yoga doesn’t mean it will also work on your test PC. Better to have the backup and restore tools and not need them, than to not have them and suffer from their absence. Enjoy!

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

Using Windows 10 Generic Keys

Leave a comment

Sometimes, a Windows 10 PC requires a clean install. It might be because of disk failure or corruption, malware infestation, or any of a host of other good reasons. As long as Microsoft’s Activation servers (or your own KMS) recognize that PC, you needn’t worry about finding or obtaining a valid OS key. Instead, if prompted to supply a key during the install process, you can furnish a published generic key for your chosen Windows version. Using Windows 10 generic keys is perfectly OK, as long as MS already knows you have a valid license.

When Using Windows 10 Generic Keys, Use These!

You can find generic Windows 10 keys in many places with a simple search. I like the list at TenForums, because it’s simple and comprehensive. It also comes in the context of a peachy list of tutorials that explain how and when to use keys correctly. The lead-in graphic for this story is a snippet from its generic key table. That tutorial is named List of Generic Product Keys to Install Windows 10 Editions. Worth bookmarking, it tells you (or points you at) nearly everything you need to know about working with generic keys.

Note: KMS stands for Key Management Server, a Windows Server role that plays out in many enterprise or campus environments. That’s because those kinds of outfits usually work from volume licenses for Windows, and manage their own Windows keys for themselves. None of the Home editions have generic KMS keys because Home is not covered under volume Windows 10 license agreements.

What if a Generic Key Has No Valid Matching License?

You can use a generic key to install Windows even if there’s no matching license in the Microsoft Validation servers. But that installation will not activate unless you provide a valid key within 30 days of the installation date. After that, the product works only with limited features and personalization. It also warns you you’re in violation of license terms, which leaves you liable for unlicensed use of software. Those can result in potential fines and penalties if you’re found guilty of license fraud or misuse. Trust me: you don’t want to go there!

 

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

Exorcizing Zombie Adobe Flash Player Elements

Leave a comment

Some Windows 10 users may see a Flash Info logo show up on their desktops. Don’t worry: that’s Adobe’s way of telling you the Flash Player remains active on your PC, and needs to be removed.  I wrote about Flash end-of-life (EOL) and removal techniques on December 29. That story reported the EOL date falling at year’s end. Apparently not everybody has worked through its various uninstall possibilities yet, either.  The TenForums thread “Strange Logo on Desktop” turns out to be an admonition from Adobe to make Flash Player go away. Alas, the process doesn’t work 100%. Thus, I’ll explain how one goes about exorcizing zombie Adobe Flash Player elements.

Exorcizing Zombie Adobe Flash Player Elements.flash-info-logo

Here’s what the Flash Info log looks like: a faded Flash logo with the “i” (information) element superimposed.

Several Flash Player Uninstall Options Available

Flash shows up in lots of places, apparently. Likewise, uninstalling it requires a variety of removal techniques.  Adobe’s warning for its Flash Player Uninstaller hints at this. It reads: “These instructions are NOT applicable to Flash Player included with Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer on Windows 8 and later or with Google Chrome…” It advises those users to check out the Flash Player Help page for disabling same.

There’s also an uninstaller available via the Microsoft Update Catalog. Counter-intuitively KB4577586 is named “Update for Removal of Adobe Flash Player.” When downloading this item, be sure to grab the one that matches your current Windows version. Note: apparently, there is no such update for Windows 10 Version 20H2.

If Adobe Flash Player shows up in Programs and Features, you can use its built-in uninstall functions to get rid of it. Or you could turn to a third-party product like Revo Uninstaller to do the job instead.

Exorcizing Zombie Adobe Flash Player Elements May Require Manual Efforts

After running the afore-linked KB4577586, the original poster for the TenForums thread that prompted this story reports that the icon remained on his desktop. On top of everything else on screen, it wouldn’t get out of his way. Should that happen, one can remove the Macromed folder and its contents from these two parent folders:

1. C:\Windows\System32
2. C:\Windows\SysWOW64

Savvy readers will recognize that these folders are where Windows keeps 32-bit elements, tools and utilities for use on 32- and 64-bit systems, respectively. You may need to run a special-purpose delete utility to remove these folders or you can boot into command line recovery mode and delete them that way. Your choice. Either way, that should result in exorcizing zombie Adobe Flash elements that may still be hanging around your system. Et voila!

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin