Category Archives: Tips, Tricks and Tweaks

Want to know how to make the most out of your Windows 7 system?
Here we share the things we have learned for what to do (and what not to do) to make Windows 7 perform at its best.

Letters from the Ed, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

{WED} Microsoft Technet Gallery Retires June 2020

March 16, 2020 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting news item. On March 9, Robert Outlaw, Lead Program Manager, Docs.Developer Experience posted the immanent retirement of the Microsoft Technet Gallery. This is a long-time “public space” in the Microsoft DOCs web pages. Here, Microsoft MVPs, developers and community members have made a collection of over 25,000 PowerShell scripts for all and sundry server and desktop management tasks. But according to Mr. Outlaw, the Microsoft Technet Gallery retires June 2020. As the snippet at the head of this story says, the exact date for retirement is still TBD.

[Click here for full-sized view.]

If Microsoft Technet Gallery Retires June 2020, Then What?

Having just delved into a Wayback Machine site snapshot from March 16, 2020, I see that the site is HEAVILY archived there. In fact, I couldn’t find a single page that wasn’t already present in that online archive. Interestingly, getting to the leaf (script) level in the Technet Gallery is like time travel. That’s because you’ll go back to the latest update to the script page itself when you navigate that far in the gallery. Thus, for an AD script named List all groups or users in an O U, I found myself back to October 2015.Under Networking, a NAT Detection script links to a September 2015 page.

I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the idea. It is: while you may not be able to access the Technet Gallery pages live through Microsoft Docs come June 2020, that’s not really a problem. You’ll still be able to get to the archive through the Wayback machine. As far as I can tell, what’s available there is a full, faithful and complete copy of the whole shebang. Simply change your favorite for this valuable scripting resource to the last, best and final Wayback Machine snapshot taken just before MS pulls the plug. That way, you’ll retain access to its contents. When MS announces that date, I’ll provide a link to that ultimate snapshot as an addendum to this blog post.

Stay tuned!

[Note:] Here’s a shout out to Martin Brinkmann at ghacks.net. His story Microsoft announces retirement of the TechNet Gallery (and all its scripts) clued me into this upcoming retirement. Thanks, Martin: immer nochmals “Vielen Dank!”

Letters from the Ed, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, WED Blog, Windows 10

{WED} Warning! Latest GeForce 442.59 May Cause BSOD

March 11, 2020 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’ve seen it before, and I’ll probably see it again. I just updated my production desktop to the latest GeForce driver, and it threw a BSOD. It’s one of the “mystery codes,” too: SYSTEM_EXCEPTION_THREAD_NOT_HANDLED. But when I say that the latest GeForce 442.59 may cause BSOD I already know what’s causing it. There’s a bug in the driver installer (not the driver) that causes a crash when it finishes the install. Thus, the driver itself is properly installed and working, as this GeForce snippet clearly shows:

This snippet from GeForce Experience shows the latest driver version — 442.59 — is properly installed and working. Also shows yesterday’s date.

If Latest GeForce 442.59 May Cause BSOD, So What?

Yeah, it’s kind of disturbing — upsetting, even — to see your PC go down in flames with a BSOD. But as BSOD’s go, this one’s fairly benign. It would’ve bothered me a lot more if I hadn’t seen a run of these same BSODs in 2018 and 2019, right at the end of the GeForce driver install. Thus, I post this blog as a public service to warn others who may be keeping their GeForce drivers up-to-date. Before you do the install, close all open applications and save your work. If you’re seriously concerned, make an image backup just before running the driver install. But since the net result is a new and working driver, I’m inclined simply to say “Here they go again.” And of course, to let my readers know that they too may fall prey to this gotcha.

OTOH, you could decide to skip this update and wait and see if the next one fails to provoke a BSOD. I’m happy to keep plugging away at this stuff, and will update this blog when the next driver comes out. If it throws another BSOD I’ll let you know. If it doesn’t, ditto. Stay tuned!

[Note added 3/19/2020, afternoon] I just installed version 442.74 on my production PC. It got all the way through the install without a glitch, and asked me if I wanted to reboot. I was otherwise engaged so I did not. Just rebooted a minute or two ago, and everything concluded successfully. One can hope it’s because the installer issue — whatever it may have been — is fixed, or no longer an issue. Done!

EdFiles, Letters from the Ed, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, WED Blog, Windows 10

{WED} DISM /Resetbase Bites Back

March 6, 2020 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’m a profound fan of the DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) command. But I found myself surprised by the behavior of the /resetbase parameter today. For the record, the complete command syntax is DISM /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup /resetbase. Silly me: I understood that /resetbase would not allow changes to the base established. But I thought the /startcomponentcleanup would run first, and then the base would be reset. Wrong! Today, I tried it on my Surface Pro 3, and DISM /resetbase bites back: the two reclaimable packages I thought would be cleaned up are now frozen into my runtime image. Sigh. Here’s some illustrative PowerShell output, made after I’d already used the /resetbase option:

Notice that even though I ran a /startcomponentcleanup command between a pair of /analyzecomponentstore commands, the 2 reclaimable packages cheerfully persist. Sigh.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Normally, running the dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup command would result in the second /analyzecomponentstore output reciting zero reclaimable packages, and no recommendation for component store cleanup. But I have no one but myself to blame for this, because I ran the /resetbase myself, not knowing it would freeze first and then fail to clean up at all. That’s why I like playing with test machines: not much real harm results even when things don’t work. Or when they don’t work the way I expect them to…

If DISM /Resetbase Bites Back, What to Do?

Not much, actually. I can either restore my most recent backup and do things right, or I can wait for 2004 and start afresh after that feature upgrade. Doing things right means: run dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup on the restored OS, then run the /resetbase version of that command to freeze the cleaned-up component store. I’m not sure it’s worth the effort, what with 2004 due out in the next month or two. OTOH, the Surface Pro 3 is a test machine and I won’t lose anything except time if I restore the latest Macrium backup, apply pending updates, and try again (the right way).

But now I know something important: if you want to use the /resetbase option in DISM, you should run the DISM /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup command first. That will clean up anything reclaimable. Then, when the number of reclaimable packages is zero, use the /resetbase option. Now, I know. Hopefully, you too can learn from my mistake. And so it goes, here in Windows-World!

EdFiles, Letters from the Ed, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

{WED} Offline Samsung NWP2850 Misconfiguration Fix

March 3, 2020 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

If only I knew why this happens, I’d be happier living with this occasional gotcha. Alas, it seems that some Windows Update items reset the TCP port associated with my Samsung monochrome laser printer (NWP2850). When that happens, the printer shows up offline. Bizarrely, Printers and Devices reports the device as offline but offers no further help. I’ve learned to visit the right-click item named “Printer properties” when that happens. Resetting its IP port usually brings the printer back online. That’s what I offer up here, as an offline Samsung NWP2850 misconfiguration fix. Here’s what that properties window looks like with its Ports tab on display:

From time to time a port named “SamsungNWP” with no IP address shows up checked here. This screencap shows the correct assignment.

What Is the Offline Samsung NWP2850 Misconfiguration Fix?

First, I have to rigure out the IP address assigned to my Samsung printer. NWP stands for “networked printer” BTW, so I have to scan my local network to find its current IP address assignment. For that purpose, I use NirSoft’s excellent NetBScanner. It produces a listing that tells me just what I need to know, as shown here:

The Samsung printer shows up about half-way down the list at IP address 192.168.1.126. That’s why I checked the corresponding box in the previous window.
[Click item for full-sized view.]

It’s nice to run into a simple network problem that’s easy to fix in Windows 10. If only, if only, I didn’t have to run into it so often! But that’s the way things go sometimes. I’ve learned to live with it.

EdFiles, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

{WED} Updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers

February 26, 2020 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’ve learned the hard way that working with Realtek Universal Audio Driver (UAD) drivers can be interesting. I’ve accidentally switched back from the “Realtek(R) Audio” drivers shown in first screencap for this story to the Realtek HD Audio drivers more than once. But alas, only the “Realtek (R) Audio” drivers work with the Realtek Audio Console UWP app (see next image following). That’s why I wrote today’s post on the topic of updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers. There are several steps involved, and a couple of (usually reliable) sources to which I turn for driver downloads. Read on for those details please!

The name of the driver says nothing about UAD. You must simply recognize that the name “Realtek (R) Audio” signifies that a UAD driver is present and running.

Simply put, one MUST install the UAD (Realtek(R)) driver to use this UWP app.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers 1: The UAD Driver Itself

I use the excellent French Station-Drivers website to grab my UAD drivers. There, Realtek Audio gets its own landing page. It’s still a bit of a slog to get to the right driver from there. I’ll explain this as a sequence of steps for my particular motherboard, which comes from Asrock:

1. Click on Realtek High Definition Audio (HDA/UAD)

2. Click on Drivers (UAD).

3. Click on the name of your motherboard (or system) maker. (In my case, that’s Asrock.)

4. Examine the listings to find the highest-numbered drivers version (at bottom of list; in my case, that’s 8890.1).

5. Click on that version link, then click “Download” on the resulting web page.

This will grab a ZIP file that you can use to unpack and install the driver. Personally, I prefer to right-click the driver inside Device Manager, and point the “Update driver” option at the folder location where I unzipped the download file contents. Why? Because the Realtek installer requires not one, but two (2!), reboots to do its thing. I can use my right-click technique to update the driver without rebooting at all. Do what you like best on your PC(s), though.

Updating Realtek UAD Drivers 2: The Software Components

If you open the category in Device Manager named Software Components, you should see something like the next screencap, which shows three (3) additional Realtek software components. You can update the first two of these three items. I grab them from DriverHub, by searching for them by name. That is, I search on “Realtek Audio Effects Component” and “Realtek Audio Universal Service” and download the corresponding ZIP files. Right-clicking those drivers in Device Manager, to point the driver update function at the contents of those ZIP files works fine to update them, too.

Only the first two of these three drivers get updates, for whatever reason. Thus, that’s all you need look for.

I do this once every six months or so, unless I see a news or other online info item (perhaps at TenForums, which I visit more or less daily) to tell me an update is available sooner. And that’s how I keep my Realtek UAD audio driver and supporting items up-to-date!

EdFiles, Hardware Reviews, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, WED Blog, Windows 10

{WED} Older Lenovos Need Utility Clean-up

February 24, 2020 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Poking around on my two old Lenovo laptops today, I noticed several of their vendor-supplied utilities are passe. Indeed, now that Lenovo offers its Vantage UWP caretaker app, many older ThinkVantage tools are obsolete. That’s why I assert that older Lenovos need utility clean-up. Lenovo itself will happily let you download and install Vantage on any of its PCs. But it doesn’t automatically remove the older stuff when you do. In fact, if you check information pages at Lenovo (URLs below) for the following items, you’ll see what I mean:

+ (HT501246) Lenovo Quick Optimize r

+ (PD022501) Lenovo Solution Center

+ (DS105970) Lenovo System Interface Foundation

+ (DS012808) Lenovo System Update

+ Thinkpad Settings Dependency

+ ThinkVantage Fingerprint Software*

Note: all of the preceding items, except for the last one, can be safely uninstalled. Happily, the Lenovo Vantage UWP app supersedes all of them (except for the Fingerprint software, which must be at version 6.0 or higher for Windows 10 users). Likewise, do NOT uninstall Lenovo Service Bridge: it remains necessary to report your Lenovo PC’s serial and model number info back to the Lenovo servers.

The old-fangled Solution Center and its various brethren are all now longer under developer support. Most of them can go.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Why Do Older Lenovos Need Utility Clean-up?

Good question! Apparently, Lenovo left it to device owners to root out these older items (except for the Fingerprint Software, which you must keep if you have an older fingerprint reader and want to keep using it). Methinks they should’ve offered a clean-up utility. Better yet, the Lenovo Vantage installer should look for these passe items and offer to uninstall them as part of its install process. I’ll be communicating this back to Lenovo, in hope that they might listen to — and possibly even heed — this plea. We’ll see.

What About Newer Lenovos? Do They Need Clean-up, too?

I checked my newer Lenovos, of which I have four: two 2018-vintage X380 Yogas, 1 2018 vintage X1 Extreme, and 1 2019 vintage X390 Yoga. All had the older System Update utility installed, except for the 2019 X390 Yoga. Consequently, I did a bit of clean-up on those newer laptops, too. All’s well now, though.

EdFiles, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

{WED} Some Errors Need Fixing; Others Are Hiccups

February 21, 2020 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

From time to time I check in the Reliability Monitor on my Windows 10 PCs. It gives me an excellent sense of PC health, and points me at causes when errors occur. Take my compact road laptop as an example: it’s a 2018 Lenovo X380 Yoga with an i7-8650U CPU, 16 GB RAM, and a 1 TB NVMe SSD. An entirely capable, reasonably fast, and incredibly stable machine. I was surprised recently, in fact, to see a driver error show up on that machine. As you can see in the screencap that follows, the faulting item is the igfxEM Module. That is the name that Intel gives to the software that drives the Intel UHD Graphics 620 built into the CPU chip itself. Upon seeing this error, I was reminded that some errors need fixing; others are hiccups. I soon learned that this one was an apparent hiccup.

When some that starts with “igfx” pops up, I know it refers to “Intel graphics,” that being the company’s standard abbreviation.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Deciding on Some Errors Need Fixing; Others Are Hiccups

Windows update didn’t think I needed a new Intel graphics driver. Nor did the new UWP app named Intel Driver & Support Assistant. Ditto for the Lenovo Vantage UWP app, which does a pretty good job of keeping up with drivers, too. Thus, there’s no new driver to replace the offending item.

But because it happened exactly once and hasn’t recurred in the past two weeks, I’m convinced this particular error represents a hiccup rather than an ongoing problem in need of fixing. So I’ve concluded that there’s nothing further to do here — except, as always, to keep an occasional eye on Reliability Monitor. It’ll let me know if and when the situation changes.

Intel’s new Driver & Support Assistant works inside a web browser and seems faster and more capable than it’s application predecessor.

SideNote: Running Reliability Monitor

Once upon a time, I could type “reli” into the search box in the Start menu, and the Reliability Monitor would run. No more, not since 1809 or thereabouts. Now, I type “perfmon /rel” into the search box instead. That still works. Or, if you prefer, try “reliability” spelled all the way out. That should produce the “View reliability history” control panel item. The long way around is to click Control Panel → Security & Maintenance → Maintenance → View reliability history. I wish my old method still worked: typing four chars beats typing 12. But that’s the way things go sometimes, here in Windows-World!

EdFiles, Letters from the Ed, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

{WED} Future Win10 Driver Updates All Optional

February 19, 2020 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting tidbit from the MS Hardware Dev Center, posted February 18. It comes from Senior Program Manager Kevin Tremblay who focuses on Windows OneCore (OS kernel, methinks) and “device enablement” (LinkedIn Profile). Going forward, device driver updates for Windows 10 will always show up in Windows Update as “Optional updates.” Because future Win10 updates all optional now, that means users must initiate such updates manually. In fact, working through the process means:

1. Clicking Optional Updates

2. Checking boxes next to one or more available device driver updates

3. Clicking a “Download and install” button on the Optional updates page to initiate (and approve) those activities.

Here’s what a sample Drive updates window looks like, showing the checkboxes and the “Download and install” button. I’ve already made use of this feature myself on Fast Ring Insider Preview test machines, and can confirm it works as it’s supposed to from personal experience.

Going forward, Win10 users will have to acquiese and participate actively, before WU will install device drivers on their PCs.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

If Future Win10 Driver Updates All Optional, Then What?

Previous Win10 feature updates have come in for qvetching, criticism, and occasional cries of anguish because of updates installed automatically. They could show up, without prior warning for users. This denies them the opportunity to refuse, or to take preventive measures (a backup image to restore should something go sideways, for example). As far as device drivers go, this is now off the table. Good on Microsoft, for making this change. Because drivers are a perennial and predictable source for post-update instability, this new approach provides a way to avoid trouble, rather than having to clean up a post-update mess. But wait? Isn’t this the way things worked in Windows 7 and 8.x versions. What was once old, is now new again, it seems. A welcome bit of news nevertheless!

EdFiles, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

{WED} Temperamental Dual mSATA SSD Cleaned Up

February 17, 2020 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

A few years back, I found myself with some extra mSATA Samsung EVO 250 SSDs on my hands. I purchased two Syba 2.5″ SATA 6G/USB 3.0 to Dual mSATA RAID (SD-ADA40107) adapter cards. I paid about $40 each (they cost $26 now). One of them has been terribly temperamental. Over time its plugged-in SSDs become unreadable. Seems like setting the card down on a conducting surface causes the drives to go bye-bye. (I don’t have it in a case, as I undoubtedly should.) This happened before on my Surface Pro 3, which sits on a set of (metal) baker’s racks. And today, when I tried to back up my Lenovo X380 Yoga Fast Ring test machine, its drives were once again MIA. Thus, I found myself with a temperamental Dual mSATA SSD cleaned up. Good thing I only keep throwaway data and backups on those drives. Fortunately, I didn’t lose anything I couldn’t recover from.

I’m guessing that the SSD devices somehow conduct to the rails on the case, and cause the drives to short out if grounded. Sigh.

How Temperamental Dual mSATA SSD Cleaned Up Happened

When I tried to access the devices I got a warning message that they were inaccessible. (I have them set up as JBOD, not RAID, so they show up as Drives E: and F:.) Having seen this before, I attempted repairs using MiniTool Partition Wizard 11. Alas, it couldn’t find anything to recover. So I went into DISKPART and ran a CLEAN operation on each of those drives. Then, I reformatted them as MBR devices using NTFS. They definitely ran faster after the clean-up: Macrium Reflect reports read speeds of 3.6 Gbps and write speeds of 2.6 Gbps for the most recent (and only) backup on the device now. (Of course, this is an artefact of the compression the program uses when accessing the drive: actual throughput isn’t really that fast, either coming or going.)

The funny thing is, I’ve got another one of those cards plugged into a drive caddy where it’s safe from accidental grounding. I’ve never had a problem with that one. So maybe — just maybe — it’s time for me to buy a 2.5″ case (which form factor the card matches exactly). Then, I can take care of the problem once and for all. But at least I got a refresher on DISKPART out of the deal, and the backups are now running lickety-split. (Elapsed time for the last one was 05:30 for a total of 28 GB of disk space consumed.) That’s the way things go here in Windows-World sometimes, where even backups need occasional backups. Would that I could so easily cure my tendency toward operator error!

Letters from the Ed, Recent Activity, Tips, Tricks and Tweaks, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

{WED} MS SaRA + Removing IRST Restores Win10 Stability

February 14, 2020 Ed Tittel 1 Comment

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been fighting some vicious Windows 10 issues. One of them manifested in the form of over 100 Outlook MoAppCrash errors related to WindowsCommunicationApps that check in with remote email servers. Those came at a rate of at least 5X daily. The other involved regular IAStorDataMgrSvc.exe errors, at the rate of at least one a day. Between the two, as the intro screencap shows, my system’s Reliability Index hit rock bottom 7 days in a row. But between using the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant (aka MS SaRA) and removing an unnecessary driver, I’ve been able to return my production PC to more or less normal operation. Hence this blog post’s title: MS SaRA + removing IRST restores Win10 stability.

As SaRA’s home screen shows, it’s good for addressing a broad range of Windows problems. It definitely fixed my Outlook errors without too much muss or fuss.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

The Many Powers of SaRA

I hadn’t used SaRA much before (though I did have a copy in my utilities folder). But when I ran it, the software asked me to revisit its Download Center page to grab the latest version. I’m glad I did, because it’s added a lot of new Office and Outlook capabilities in this latest incarnation. And because that’s just what I needed, it was well worth doing. Having now used it on multiple occasions to fix a couple of trivial problems and this latest, more annoying and persistent Outlook issue, I can recommend it to Windows admins, power users, and even ordinary users alike. It should be part of any Windows user’s troubleshooting arsenal, as it is now part of mine (it goes way beyond Windows 10’s built-in Troubleshooters, available through Start → Settings → Update & Security → Troubleshoot). Grab a copy today.

Why Use the Intel IRST Drivers?

The ultimate source of my IAStor related “stopped working” error messages came from this folder:

C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology\IAStorDataMgrSvc.exe

That’s what clued me in that the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) software was involved. Although IRST offers some modest performance boosts for SATA disks run independently, its biggest benefits come through its support for software-based RAID (Redudant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks). It turns out that for AHCI users who don’t have RAID disks, IRST is more or less optional. If you really want ALL the details on IRST drivers, versions, and access to nicely-modded alternatives, check out Fernando’s IRST Coverage at Win-RAID.com.

In my case, I decided to uninstall the whole environment because anything that causes errors but provides only modest performance gains is not something I want. Out it went. And, as the rising tide of the Reliability Index shows, taking care of both errors finally has things moving in the right direction. And that’s the way things go sometimes, here in Windows-World. I’m mildly pleased to see the system becoming more stable. Let me see it get back to a perfect 10, and I’ll be somewhat more pleased. Fingers crossed!

If Microsoft Technet Gallery Retires June 2020, Then What?

If Latest GeForce 442.59 May Cause BSOD, So What?

If DISM /Resetbase Bites Back, What to Do?

What Is the Offline Samsung NWP2850 Misconfiguration Fix?

Updating Realtek UAD Audio Drivers 1: The UAD Driver Itself

Updating Realtek UAD Drivers 2: The Software Components

Why Do Older Lenovos Need Utility Clean-up?

What About Newer Lenovos? Do They Need Clean-up, too?

Deciding on Some Errors Need Fixing; Others Are Hiccups

SideNote: Running Reliability Monitor

If Future Win10 Driver Updates All Optional, Then What?

How Temperamental Dual mSATA SSD Cleaned Up Happened

The Many Powers of SaRA

Why Use the Intel IRST Drivers?

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