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

MS Docs Names Windows 10 Upgrade Four Phases

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OK, then. I just struck a small lode while mining for Windows 10 gold. I found it in a Windows 10 Docs item named “Troubleshooting upgrade errors.” Therein, MS Docs names Windows 10 upgrade four phases. This document describes four phases during the upgrade process, and provides pointed troubleshooting suggestions and identifies useful error codes wherever it can. Good stuff!

If MS Docs Names Windows 10 Upgrade Four Phases, What Are They?

In the afore-linked Docs item, the four phases of Windows 10 Upgrade are named as follows:

Downlevel phase

This occurs while the old OS is still running (hence the name). This is the phase that runs right up until the initial reboot, at which point the old OS is no longer running. During this phase MS downloads all the pieces and parts it needs to perform the upgrade, so it’s apt to label this as an initial set-up and preparation phase. Errors that occur at this phase are most likely related to file access or download issues encountered as setup.exe attempts to pull all the pieces onto the target PC.

SafeOS phase

At this point you see something like the screencap shown in the lead-in graphic for this story. Following the initial reboot, Windows PE boots from the install image supplied as part of the source files for the upgrade. Those files might come from Windows Update, or an ISO obtained (and mounted) from the Media Creation Tool, Visual Studio downloads, or any number of other reputable Windows 10 image sources (Heidoc.net, UUPdump.ml, and so forth). Errors that occur at this phase at most likely device driver related.

First boot phase

About 30% into the “Working on updates” (SafeOS) phase, Windows 10 will reboot again to load key drivers for graphics and networking adapters or circuitry. Here again, driver issues are the most common cause of problems. Microsoft wisely advises those who encounter problems during this phase “[d]isconnect all peripheral devices except for the mouse, keyboard and display.  Obtain and install updated device drivers, then retry the upgrade.”

Second boot phase

About 70% into the “Working on updates” phase, Windows 10 reboots one or more times as needed. Now it is running the new OS with its new drivers. When errors occur during this phase, they most commonly originate from anti-virus software or filter drivers. Key advice: “Disconnect all peripheral devices except for the mouse, keyboard, and display. Obtain and install updated device drivers, temporarily uninstall anti-virus software, then retry the upgrade.” This phase is sometimes called the OOBE boot phase, during which final settings are applied.

Those who make it through all four phases complete their successful upgrade when they go through (or bypass) the “Out-of-box” phase (“Hi! We’ve got some updates for your PC. This might take several minutes.”)

Here’s a helpful diagram of the process that MS provides in the afore-linked Docs file:

[Click image for full-sized view. Much more readable!]

Notice it provides ample technical details about what’s going on in each phase. IMO, this is the most informative element in the whole document. Definitely worth reading right away (and returning to when handling upgrade or clean install issues). Enjoy!

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

Web-only Project Monarch May Replace Outlook.exe

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Here’s an interesting item that makes me squirm just a little. Zac Bowden at Windows Central reports on an upcoming initiative at MS code-named Monarch. As he explains it, this will be a web-based app modeled on the current Outlook Web App (aka OWA). Where the squirming comes in is that this single new app targets all platforms. If I understand what’s going on, that means the web-only project Monarch may replace Outlook.exe. As a long, long-time Outlook.exe user who’s flirted with OWA from time to time, this prospect is scary.

If Web-only Project Monarch May Replace Outlook.exe, Then What?

Let me explain the source of my terror upon this news. Indeed, Bowden reports this changeover is planned for 2022, with plenty of time for improved understanding and more info to come. But I run my professional life around Outlook. My Archive. pst file goes back to the mid-1990s and is over 13GB in size. I use Outlook search to keep up with current and ongoing work. It also helps me research past activities, expenditures, and communications as I need them.

What happens when the .exe file gives way to a browser-based app? Can it still access and maintain my local PST snapshots and archives? This is the real cause of my most immediate concerns, because I depend on my “email trail” to make sense of my professional (and to a large extent, personal) activities.

So Far, There’s Not Enough Detail Available…

Here’s what Bowden says about MS’s plans for Monarch:

Microsoft wants to replace the existing desktop clients with one app built with web technologies. The project will deliver Outlook as a single product, with the same user experience and codebase whether that be on Windows or Mac. It’ll also have a much smaller footprint and be accessible to all users whether they’re free Outlook consumers or commercial business customers.

I’m told the app will feature native OS integrations with support for things like offline storage, share targets, notifications, and more. I understand that it’s one of Microsoft’s goals to make the new Monarch client feel as native to the OS as possible while remaining universal across platforms by basing the app on the Outlook website.

This all sounds well and good, from the perspective of reading and writing, and sending and receiving email. But from the perspective of building and maintaining a long-term business history around an email trail, it makes me wonder. Too bad, I guess, that for two-plus decades that’s been a primary strategy of mine with a huge lode of data to back it up. Looks like I may need to start rethinking that strategy, and look for ways to keep mining that data — outside Outlook, if necessary. Sigh.

Stay tuned. You can bet I’ll be following this with more than usual interest, because it has huge implications for how I work and ply my trade as a freelance writer, consultant and occasional expert witness.

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

Resolving BitLocker Recovery Key Confusion

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In removing the last vestiges of Adobe Flash Player from my Surface Pro 3 (SP3) yesterday, I found myself in need of a BitLocker Recovery key. Why so? That system has BitLocker turned on. Thus, one can’t get access to the C: drive’s content without providing its 48-digit recovery key. Because that’s what I needed to do, I quickly found myself resolving BitLocker Recovery Key confusion.

Secrets to Resolving Resolving BitLocker Recovery Key Confusion

Because I didn’t realize the SP3 had BitLocker turned on, I turned to my Microsoft Account’s recovery key page. That’s when I got confused. As you can see from the lead-in graphic, there are four devices named Surface in the list shown. “Simple,” thought I to myself “I’ll just grab the Surface item with the most recent Key Upload Date and that should do it.” (Note: Key Upload Date is another column on the afore-linked key recovery page, not shown in the screencap above.) Wrong! In fact, it turned out that NONE of the recovery keys for devices named “Surface” worked to provide access to the drive. Uh-oh!

Key ID to the Rescue

Knowing there had to be a way to link the recovery key to the information that BitLocker provided at bootup, I noticed the on-screen prompt supplied a Key ID tied to the recovery key. (It’s the right-hand column in the lead-in screencap.) On close examination, the first 8 HEX digits in that ID match the key column for Device Name DESKTOP-DT16BLB. And in fact, it is tied to the Recovery Key that allowed me access to the SP3’s BitLocker-protected C: drive.

An Ounce Of Preparation…

If you should ever wish to manually edit otherwise protected files in an OS installation at the command line, you’d be wise to check to see if BitLocker is turned on for the target drive.  Easily done, using the Bitlocker Drive Encryption utility in Control Panel. Here’s what running it on the SP3 produces, with some info and fields of particular interest.

Resolving BitLocker Recovery Key Confusion.cpl-output

Notice this Control Panel item shows BitLocker turned on for Drive C: Notice further, the link that reads “Back up your recovery key.”

The “Back up your recovery key” entry lets you save it to your MS account, save it to a file, or print the recovery key information to any available printer. It showed me the complete recovery key ID as well as the complete recovery key itself. And it confirmed what I’d already figured out. Indeed, none of my devices named “Surface” hold the valid recovery key for the SP3 device.

As it turns out, I did a clean install on that machine around October 4 2018. This produced a randomly generated device name DESKTOP-DT16BLB whose Recovery Key is the one the SP3 uses. Afterward, I changed the Device Name back to Surface, without realizing that related Recovery Key info at my MS account did not change along with it. Live and learn! I’m also taking the opportunity to delete a bunch of now-obsolete BitLocker Recovery keys, too.

PowerShell Tools for BitLocker Automation

Knowing that admins like to work through SCCM or similar tools, and work on systems using scripts, I found a useful PowerShell script to grab BitLocker Recovery keys. Here’s its output (best directed to a text file with additional identification info, if run against a slew of remote PCs), along with the handy built-in PS cmdlet manage-bde.

Resolving BitLocker Recovery Key Confusion.ps-stuff
Use them in good health, to good effect, please.

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

Adobe Flash EOL December 31 2020

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Here it comes! With the end of 2020, Adobe Flash will also hit end-of-life (EOL). If you can find a webpage that still uses Flash, and you have the Adobe Flash Player installed on some PC, you’ll get the warning message shown in this story’s lead-in graphic. I couldn’t find one on the only machine I’ve got that still has Flash Player installed. It’s stiil present on my 2014-vintage Surface Pro 3 (SP3).

If Adobe Flash EOL December 31 2020, How Else To Remove?

Glad you asked. Because I couldn’t find Flash content to provoke the warning (and uninstall button) on my SP3, I turned to other means. The Microsoft Update Catalog offers a plethora of KB4577586 versions for all supported Windows 10 releases. The name of this item starts with “Update for Removal of Adobe Flash Player…” and then goes onto specify various Windows versions, Server and desktop, to which it applies. Note: for all versions 1903 and later, grab the one labeled Update for Removal of Adobe Flash Player for Windows 10 Version 1903 for x64-based systems (or x86 or ARM as circumstances dictate).

For my x64 SP3, this appeared as a file named
windows10.0-kb4577586-x64_ec16e118cd8b99df185402c7a0c65a31e031a6f0.msu
in my Downloads folder. As an MSU file, it works with the Microsoft Update Standalone Installer utility. And, to my surprise, running the update produces this error message:

Surprise: unless some installed browser has Flash Player installed, the update won't run.
Surprise: unless some installed browser has Flash Player installed, the update won’t run.

Turns out the SP3 has only Edge and Chrome installed, so no Flash Player is present in any browser to be removed. But the machine still has Flash Player on the C: drive, so I’d like to make it go away. Fortunately, Adobe might offer a tool for that very job. Let’s see.

Flash Player Uninstaller to the Rescue?

When it comes to getting rid of programs, uninstallers are the tools of choice. Adobe has one for Windows, so I downloaded same to give it a try. It gets off to a promising looking start:

 

Upon completion it reports Done, and advises me to restart the system. OK, I can do that.

After the restart I run the uninstaller but it doesn’t tell me anything new. That said, the Flash Player 32-bit control remains present in Control Panel, so it didn’t impact that item (more on this below). That said, the preceding download page also has manual uninstall instructions, so I follow them to remove the contents of the following folders:


C:\Windows\system32\Macromed\Flash
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash
%appdata%\Adobe\Flash Player
%appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player

Some of these folders belong to TrustedInstaller, so I end up booting into recovery mode and manually deleting the files from the command prompt.  That takes care of the Flash Player itself.

One More Thing: Turning Off The Control Panel Element

The cpl file that brings up the Flash Player Settings Manager remains present unless you do one more thing. It’s invoked through the file that normally resides at:

C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\FlashPlayerCPLApp.cpl

As outlined in this Adobe Support Community item, this is an artifact of the NPAPI or PPAPI versions of Flash Player that works with Firefox or Edge, respectively. If you simply rename this file with a different extension, it won’t load into Control Panel anymore. I imagine I could also delete it offline, as I did with the other files in the preceding folders, but that’s enough for today. It’s sufficiently gone for me!

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

Group Policy Edits Fix Broken RDP Credentials

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I ran into an interesting problem this weekend. The “Your credentials did not work” error appeared when I added my usual MS admin-level account to the Lenovo X390 Yoga. I checked all the usual suspects with no change in status.  That means: remote access settings, account status, and so forth. Ultimately I had to search the error message via Google. And that, dear readers, is how I learned group policy edits fix broken RDP credentials.

How Group Policy Edits Fix Broken RDP Credentials

Even though I was using the same long-standing Microsoft Account I use for admin level login on all of my Windows 10 PCs, this one wouldn’t work. At one point, error messages informed me about a problem with LSASS (local security authority subsystem service, the OS component that handles logins). Later on, that error changed to “Your credentials did not work.” Sigh.

Because I had no trouble using the same account name and password (plus 2FA authentication through MS) to log into that PC locally, I knew the problem was focused on RDP. And indeed I turned up an extremely helpful article at Appuals.com. Entitled Fix: Your Credentials Did not Work in Remote Desktop, it let me to a working solution.

Group Policy Changes Needed

For me the items I had to enable, and then add the value TERMSRV/* resided in the edit path named
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Credentials Delegation

Those items numbered 4, as follows:

1. Allow delegating default credentials with NTLM-only server authentication
2. Allow delegating default credentials
3. Allow delegating saved credentials
4. Allow delegating saved credentials with NTLM-only server authentication

Once I had made those changes, I had to restart the target PC. I also had to manually re-enter the credentials I’d attempted to use beforehand (without success). Then, finally: Boom! RDP accepted my connection attempt on the usual MS admin account. Problem solved. That was an odd one…

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Practice Shows Little Speed Difference USB 3.0 versus USB-C

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Just for grins, I conducted an experiment on one of my Lenovo X380 Yoga laptops. I hooked up two identical Seagate ST2000LM003 2TB HDDs drives. One is in an Intatek FE2004C USB-C drive enclosure; the other in a StarTech 52510BPU33 USB-3 drive enclosure. Using the two drives, and comparing them in CrystalDiskMark, practice shows little speed difference USB 3.0 versus USB-C. That’s the point of the following graphic in this story, fact.

Practice Shows Little Speed Difference USB 3.0 versus USB-C.3top-Cbottom

USB 3 on top; USB-C on the bottom. Big block transfers favor C, but random access favors 3. It’s a toss-up!

If Practice Shows Little Speed Difference USB 3.0 versus USB-C, Then What?

This makes me feel OK about hanging onto my older USB 3 drive enclosures because there’s only a small performance difference between them. It’s not like the results make me want to surplus all of my old USB 3 enclosures and replace them with their USB-C counterparts. This is good for the general exchequer, if for no other reason.

Check Out Uwe Sieber’s USBTreeView

As it happens, it’s not as easy as I thought it would be to determine what kind of USB interface a specific drive enclosure is using. Nir Sofer’s otherwise excellent USB Device Viewer (USBdeview.exe) didn’t clue me in. I turned to Uwe Sieber’s USB Device Tree Viewer (USBTreeView.exe) instead.

In the summary section, the device information in that utility distinguishes which USB version is in use for a targeted device. It alone was able to tell me that my D: drive (the USB 3 attached device) was running USB Version 3.0.  It also informed me that my E: drive (the USB-C attached device) was running USB 3.1 Gen ? You see the latter info from Sieber’s utility as the lead-in graphic for this story.

That latter designation is less informative than it could be, but I know my X380 only supports Gen 1 anyway. Thus, that particular the mystery is not too shrouded in obfuscation to penetrate.

When Do New-Tech Enclosures Make Sense?

I could see upgrading from USB 3 or 3.1 to Thunderbolt for SSD enclosures, particularly those for NVMe devices. I’m not sure even m.2 SSDs are enough to justify the extra outlay. But hey: that sounds like a great reason to order one or two such items and try it out to see what happens. Stay tuned!

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Windows 10 Backup Strategies

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When it comes to backing up my Windows 10 systems, I’m a belt and suspenders kind of guy. For my production desktop, that means a daily image backup to Macrium Reflect. It also means 12-hour copies of my selected folders from my user account through File History. I’ve savagely pruned what File History copies by default, because my daily image backups catch a lot of that stuff once a day, which is often enough for me. My Windows backup strategies are designed to limit data loss to a 12-hour period, and to get me back to work quickly if I ever need to restore an image. I keep my Macrium Rescue Media updated and ready to go, so I can even do a bare-metal restore should my current OS get hosed.

Deciding on Windows 10 Backup Strategies

Daily image backups catch everything on my C: drive (including the User folders in which I’m active). So I use File History sparingly (I’m already catching a total snapshot once a day). I’ve trimmed the default allocation to eliminate music files. (I have over 4 GB indexed through “My Music” across 2 other drives on my system.) Ditto for Downloads (currently 6.7 GB in size).

If you going to use File History be sure to look over the Folders it covers carefully. You can click on any one of them to see a “Remove” button to get rid of it. I made extensive use of that capability in pruning my File History capture description. You can see my most important File History folders in the lead-in graphic for this story (click here for full-sized view).

Practice Makes Perfect for Backup/Restore

To make sure your backups are working properly, you should make a backup (or use File History) to restore some files. Consider it both a test to make doubly darn sure backup is working and practice for when you need to restore something for real. Practice prepares you for disaster so you can concentrate on doing what’s important rather than trying to remember how to do it.

I recommend a practice run at least once every three months. I don’t usually have to schedule this myself, because I’m always tinkering with my systems. That means that I’m sometimes repairing the unwanted results of a tinker gone bad by — you guessed it! — restoring a backup.

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KB4586853 Fixes Thunderbolt NVMe SSD Stop Error

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A couple of months back, Windows 10 starting crashing when I would plug a USB-C NVMe device into one of my Belkin Thunderbolt docks. I soon learned this was a known gotcha, and simply switched to plugging the device into my USB-C/Thunderbolt port instead (which kept working). As per the Windows 10 20H2 Known and Resolved Issues page, KB4586853 fixes Thunderbolt NVMe SSD stop error.

Checking KB4586853 Fixes Thunderbolt NVMe SSD Stop Error

As an eternal skeptic, I tried my Sabrent-enclosed Samsung 760 NVMe drive through the Thunderbolt dock on the Lenovo X380 Yoga, the X1 Extreme, and the X390 Yoga laptops I have at my disposal. It worked fine on all of them. I haven’t tried it on the Dell Optiplex 7080 Micro (it’s upstairs) yet, but I expect it will be fine as well. Makes one wonder what started this off in the first place.

The Conexant Audio Driver Issue

As you can see in the lead-in graphic, the long-standing error with Conexant audio drivers remains unresolved. I guess I should be glad that it doesn’t affect my newer Lenovo laptops. As you can see from the following Device Manager screen cap, all of them list a Conexant SmartAudio HD device as the first entry under Sound, video and game controllers. Given the gotchas out there, I’m happy when they don’t bite me!

KB4586853 Fixes Thunderbolt NVMe SSD Stop Error.conexant

Although my newer (2018 and later) Lenovo laptops all include Conexant audio chips, none seems affected by the unresolved issue for such devices. Dodged a bullet?

In general when things get weird with devices or their drivers on Windows 10, I usually check the issues list before I go into heavy-duty troubleshooting mode. As with the Thunderbolt NVMe device issue just resolved, such issues do bite some of my PCs some of the time. Thus, this saves me from trying to solve problems that other, better-equipped engineering teams are already working on. Now, if I could just learn to be patient while those fixes are in progress…

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

Wonky Word Launches Standard Windows 10 Repair Drill

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It just happens from time to time. Windows 10 goes off the beam. Applications act weird, or OS interface elements disappear or stop working. Over the years I’ve learned this is Windows’ way of telling me that something is damaged, broken, or missing behind the scenes. This morning I had issues trying to edit a revised Word file that Val Potter at ComputerWorld had sent back to me for a typical second pass. In this case, wonky Word launches standard Windows 10 repair drill. Luckily for me, things went back to normal after step 1. That seldom happens!

Whaddya Mean? Wonky Word launches standard Windows 10 Repair Drill

I have a standard sequence of things that I do when MS Office elements get weird or go off on me. Here ’tis (check your wonky app between each step so you know when to quit):

    1. Run sfc /scannow in an administrative PowerShell session
    2. Run dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth;
      If it reports any problems, replace that last item with /restorehealth as your next command
    3. Run Programs and Features from Control Panel, select Microsoft Office from the list of programs, and select Repair from the available options. Try the Quick Repair first. If that doesn’t work run the Online Repair instead. (See screen cap below. The online option can take 10-15 minutes to complete, depending on Internet download speeds.)
    4. Use the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant to attempt Office repairs (link below)
    5. Get the MS Office Uninstall Support Tool to completely remove all traces of MS Office from your PC (link also below).

If things still aren’t working after Online Repair, you’ll want to download the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant. Try its MS Office repair facilities next. If that still doesn’t work, download the MS Office Uninstall Support Tool. Use it to completely uninstall Office from your PC. After that, of course, you’ll need to reinstall it all over again.

When All Else Fails, Uninstall/Reinstall Generally Works

As a last ditch attempt to get Office working, I’ve never had a complete uninstall/reinstall fail on a Windows PC. The only exception is when the OS itself was damaged or corrupted. If it worked for me then, it should work for you now, too. My fervent hope is that you don’t have to take things that far down the list!

Please note: steps 1 and 2 are generally the first two steps for any kind of repair attempts when Windows gets wonky. SFC stands for “System File Checker.” If it finds any damaged or missing system files it replaces them, as it did for me on my temporarily deranged PC. And again, that was enough to set things back to rights. When I checked Word and found it working again, I knew my drill sequence had ended.

If Word hadn’t been working again, I’d have gone onto the next step. Step 2 calls the Deployment Image Servicing and Management utility and checks the contents of the Windows component store (aka WinSxS) with scanhealth. If repairs are needed, restorehealth replaces questionable component store elements with known good working copies.

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Patch My PC Updater Is Worth Checking Out

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Thanks to Tim Fisher at LifeWire, I’ve found a reasonable facsimile for the late lamented Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI). It’s called Patch My PC Updater and it does pretty much everything you’d want such a tool to do: scans your PC, inventories installed applications, identifies those that are out of date, and goes off on its own to update them for you. Like Secunia PSI, it’s also free. The lead-in graphic for this story shows all 9 out-of-date programs on a test PC. It also illustrates nicely why Patch My PC Updater is worth checking out.

Grab It to See If Patch My PC Updater Is Worth Checking Out

You’ll find a download link at https://patchmypc.com/home-updater. Commercial versions that plug into SCCM and InTune are also available for IT-level use. The program works from a USB drive — that is, the executable is portable and need not be installed on target PCs.

Before learning about Patch My PC Updater, I had been using a version of KC Software’s SuMO for application updates. But although that program is good at scanning PCs it is less than stellar at handling the update part. Its automation is negligible too. That’s because it requires users to follow update links and handle updates manually for at least some of the out-of-date programs it finds.

All in all, Patch My PC Updater is fast, accurate and covers nearly everything I’ve got installed. Hence, my recommendation that you check it out. If you don’t like it, you can return to Tim Fisher’s LifeWire story and check out 8 more other similar packages he recommends (it also mentions SuMO but puts it in last place).

Updating Applications Goes Better with Expert Help

Whichever tool you choose to keep up with Windows applications, it’s useful to run one at least monthly. That way, you can be sure that you’re getting new features and functions as they get added. Perhaps more importantly, you’ll also be keeping up with security patches and fixes, if other sources of intelligence aren’t already tracking your software more closely for you.

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