Category Archives: Windows 10

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Fixing Winget Source Update Fail

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In the past two-plus years that I’ve used WinGet nearly every day, I’ve seen one error show up occasionally. It reads “Failed in attempting to update the source: winget.” This means that the winget command is looking to its own repository of known packages to obtain the latest list but unable to complete that access request. You can see what this looks like at the top of the lead-in graphic. The error follows right after the initial WinGet upgrade… command. The bottom part of that same screencap (it’s two pieces stitched together, actually) shows what’s involved in fixing WinGet Source update fail.

Fixing Winget Source Update Fail Has Its Own Command

It should come as no surprise that there’s a WinGet Source command that takes various subcommands to add, list, update, remove, reset and export WinGet sources. You can read all about these items in this MS Learn item The winget source command.

As you can see at the bottom of the lead-in graphic I used WinGet Source Update -n WinGet for my fix. Basically, that tells Winget to “try again” with updating the default WinGet source named WinGet. It does so automatically when you run WinGet Upgrade… But it does occasionally fail. And when it does, most of the time the Source Update at the head of this paragraph fixes things.

When Might WinGet Source Update Itself Fail?

A variety of problems could provoke error messages from the WinGet Source Update -n WinGet command I used for my fix. It might be that the WinGet source is offline. It might be some kind of networking communication problem is preventing access. I’ve never had this happen, but it would no doubt produce a different error message to help point you in the right direction. WinGet is well engineered that way.

Indeed, WinGet is now an essential part of my admin toolbox. I simply can’t live without it anymore. Cheers!

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

PatchMyPC Home Updater Mini Annoyance

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First things first: I’m a HUGE fan of PatchMyPC’s Home Updater product. Indeed, I got invited to try out the company’s latest version — an app-based implementation that supersedes PatchMyPC.exe — because I’ve written about it often and positively. In the interests of sharing my enthusiasm and support, I also have to report a recent PatchMyPC Home update “mini annoyance.” Let me tell you more…

What Is the PatchMyPC Home Updater Mini Annoyance?

It’s a Store app, so you must call it via the Start menu as “PatchMyPC Home Updater” to launch the program. But it’s NOT available in the Windows Store. Rather you must download it direct from the maker’s website, from the PatchMyPC Home Updater home page. If you try to find it in the MS Store, you get a big fat zip instead. Ditto for a search on “Patch My PC” as it appears here:

Only the website will do: the app is NOT in the MS Store.

Forewarned is forearmed, I guess. But gosh, it’s kind of a minor thing to add an app to the Store, isn’t it? C’mon guys: fix this sooner, rather than later. I applaud the new UI and the switch to a modern app style for this excellent tool. But please: finish the job and put it in the Store. Just sayin…

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Copilot+ PCs, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

MS Sez: Copilot+ PCs 5X Faster Than 2019 Models

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Here’s an interesting MS announcement from last week. I saw it, but didn’t read it all the way through. This morning, I read follow-up coverage (e.g. this WindowsLatest story). It’s entitled “How prepare for Windows end of support by moving to Windows 11 today.” Overall, it’s an eminently predictable bit of upgrade rah-rah. But specifically MS sez: Copilot+ PCs 5X faster than 2019 models.  I translated “5-year old PCs” from the original to get this year.

Weighing Copilot+ PCs 5X Faster Than 2019 Models

It just so happens that this cut-off equates to 10th Generation Intel CPUs (e.g. Comet Lake and Ice Lake). It also hits 3rdGeneration AMD Ryzen models (Matisse and Renoir). I’ve got 4 8th Gen Intel laptops here at Chez Tittel. I’ve also worked with 3 Copilot+ PCs (2 Snapdragon X models, and 1 Intel Aura/Lunar Lake model). My own gut feel, and my ongoing observation of resource intensive tasks — such as disk cleanup, updates, upgrades, big installs, and so forth — absolutely agrees with this claim.

If you dig into the October 31 announcement, you’ll find a section entitled “Benefits of upgrading to Windows 11.” Therein, author and MS EVP/Consumer Chief Marketing Office Yusuf Mehdi avers that when compared to Windows 10, 11 is

  • more sure and trusted
  • better optimized for speed and efficiency
  • better at multitasking
  • more accessible
  • more energy efficient

The 5x speed claim is footnoted to a May 2024 MS Learn item entitled Copilot+ PC performance details. That’s where the 5X claim gets some substance, which turns out to rest on the Cinebench 2024 Multi-Core benchmark. Further investigation shows this to be a 10-minute rendering test using the Redshift engine. Looking at the laptop segment at CPU Monkey, I see the first recognizable Copilot + PC in 17th place, with a value of 1,150 (Apple M2 Ultra (76-GPU) takes 1st place , with a value of 1,918).

Moving Up Probably Means Copilot+

With a handful of older PCs that I’ll need to upgrade in the next year or two, I am thinking about “what’s next” here at Chez Tittel. And indeed, most of what I’m thinking about buying into is Copilot. My first such purchase will probably be a Yoga Slim 7x (blogged July 1, 2024). It’s got a killer screen, runs like a demon, and represents a good value for its cost (~US$1,200 for 16 GB RAM, 0.5 TB SSD, and X1E-78-100 Snapdragon X CPU).

There will be plenty of other models to consider in the months ahead, as the Intel and AMD offerings get fleshed out alongside the earlier ARM Snapdragon X offerings. I’ll be choosing among those, or their successors, in the next year or two as I start upgrade. You should probably be thinking along those same lines. Unless and until something better comes along…

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Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

PC Manager Gains Advanced Browser Cleanup

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Thanks to a recent story in Windows Latest, I just learned that a new version of the Chinese-built MS store app named PC Manager is out. For those who don’t already know, this tool offers performance boost, health check, storage  and startup cleanup tools, and more. Though I’ve heard from plenty of used inclined to be skeptical, if not distrustful, of this tool, I’ve never had it cause me a problem in the 16 months I’ve been writing about it (here’s my first intro post from July 2023). With the latest 3.14.10.0 release, PC Manager gains advanced browser cleanup tools.

Showing PC Manager Gains Advanced Browser Cleanup

You can see the results of such a cleanup in the lead-in graphic: especially for Chrome, they’re substantial (5.0 GB). Of the 9.7 GB in disk space that the Deep Cleanup tool freed up, 6.84 GB (~70%) comes from this newly-minted browser cleanup facility. IMO, that’s pretty major — especially because web browsers account for plenty of the CPU and memory cycles, and disk and memory space on Windows PCs.

Indeed, Copilot says that on a typical Windows PC, web browsers generally consume around 10-20% of the total runtime resources (CPU, memory, network and storage). I think that’s on the low side, but then I nearly always have 20 or more Chrome, Edge and Firefox processes visible in Task Manager (each), and at least a half-dozen tabs open in all 3 browsers. Seems like double (or more) in my case as compared to Copilot’s estimate.

Whatever your typical usage patterns might be, this newly-added cleanup tool will probably be worth running once in a while. I’m going to try it daily and see if it makes any difference.

Give It a Try?

If you’re not using PC Manager already, this new facility makes it even more compelling. If you don’t have it installed, you can find in the MS Store, or grab it via this MS Store link. Go ahead, check it out. You may enjoy it!

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Remote Desktop (RDP), WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Possible RDP Session Startup Delay Fix

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I have numerous PCs in my office right now, and a couple more elsewhere in the house. My usual modus operandi is to work from my primary desktop, and use Remote Desktop Connection (and the RDP protocol) to jump onto and work with those other machines. I do this dozens of times daily, as I check various Windows versions, VMs, and more. At least 1 time out of 4, when I start up an RDP connection it sits on the remote PC’s lock screen for some time (minutes, even). Only recently have I researched this, and come up with a possible RDP session startup delay fix. You can see it in the unchecked box at lower left in the lead-in graphic: persistent bitmap cache.

What Is This Possible RDP Session Startup Delay Fix?

Another workaround is to close the opening session, then open it again. This almost always works. But in reading over a set of possible fixes in an April 2024 TheWindowsClub story on this very topic, I came across one I’d neither heard of before, nor tried. So, of course, I tried it: it involves unchecking the “Persistent bitmap caching” entry on the expanded Remote Desktop Connection app’s Experience tab as shown above.

I tried that on a couple of PCs that were showing significant delays in starting RDP sessions just now. And guess what? After that tweak, they opened right up. I’m guessing the delay might come from loading the cache at session startup, which the app uses to speed reproduction of already-known (and cached) screens. So it’s gonna be a tradeoff: faster startup at first, but slower response when screens need to move across the network that would otherwise already be stored.

I’m not sure it’s a total win, but it’s interesting to try such things out and see how they work for you. To me that’s the essence of getting things right in Windows-World — namely finding and using the right controls, to do what you need in a way that you can live with.

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Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Outlook Search String Magic

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This is an IDKYCDT item. I work with Outlook every day, and have done so since the 1980s. You’d think I’d have learned a long time ago about how to make Outlook search string magic stand up and bark. Not so: in trolling the Internet today I learned about the “isread:no” string in Outlook search, which shows you all unread messages for the current search focus. Indeed, it’s the bomb when applied to my inbox, where things can sometimes pile up alarmingly.

You can see a sample search string of this type in the lead-in graphic. It reads the sender field (from:) in messages, and shows those that match what’s on the other side of the colon. In this case, recent stuff from one of my main project editors at Actual Tech Media.

Exploring Outlook Search String Magic

By itself, this isread:no string is a big boon to my productivity. But naturally, I’d like to find a compendium of all such strings. The closest I could come as an MS Support note entitled “How to search in Outlook.” It lists a pretty good number of such strings. But it isn’t really structured, appropriately organized, or complete in that specific area . Ditto for another support note “Use Outlook’s built-in search filters.”

In fact, the more I look around, the less I’m able to find a useful resource. I’m thinking I should reach out to the father of the AskWoody newsletter — Woody Leonhard himself, author of many books on Word and Office — and see if he can point me in the right direction. Who know where this may lead? Can’t wait to find out.

Stay tuned!

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

OneNote Updates Sticky Notes

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Here’s an interesting tidbit. If you install or upgrade OneNote on a Windows PC, it will also upgrade to a new version of Sticky Notes. Check the lead-in graphic: it labels this new version as such, and the old version (lacking that same (new) label)shows up in the Start menu. Hence my assertion that OneNote updates Sticky Notes. But wait: there’s more…

Exactly How OneNote Updates Sticky Notes

This dual appearance persists even after you add the (New) version via a OneNote update (or install). If you quiz that version for its About info, you’ll get the OneNote for Microsoft 365 info . It shows up as (line broken for WordPress readability, original is a one-liner):

Microsoft® OneNote® for Microsoft 365 MSO
(Version 2408 Build 16.0.17928.20114) 64-bit

OTOH, if you quiz the older version, it calls itself a UWP app with version number 6.1.20 (and a 2020 copyright date). Go figure!

Two Versions, or One?

If you want to keep both versions, that’s fine with me. If you want to lose the old version, I’d recommend using WinGet to uninstall same. The name of this app is “Microsoft Sticky Notes” so you need to enclose it in quotes (internal spaces) to get it to work. Or, you can uninstall it using the app id, as follows:

winget uninstall --id 9NBLGGH4QGHW

instead. Your choice. I did the latter on one of my X380 test PCs and it worked correctly. Now, I see only Sticky Notes (New) in the Start menu. Just for grins, I did likewise on my Windows 10 production PC: it behaves in exactly the same way, so this works for both OSes. Cheers!

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

StartMenuExperienceHost.exe Knocks ReliMon Over

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When searching for Windows blog topics, I occasionally drop in on Reliability Monitor (aka ReliMon). FYI, it’s actually a special version of the more general-purpose Performance Monitor (PerfMon). This morning, I saw what I can only describe as a bad-to-worse stability index chart. See the lead-in graphic. Upon examination, I concluded that StartMenuExperienceHost.exe knocks ReliMon over with daily errors. Ouch!

Handling StartMenuExperienceHost.exe Knocks ReliMon Over

Digging into the details, I see this element present every day (multiple times on some days) for 16 of the past 17 days. That’s a new personal record for me, and it’s interesting. Why? Because this system hasn’t been giving me any obvious trouble, repeat SMEH errors notwithstanding. (Hope that abbreviation is obvious…)

So naturally I went looking for enlightenment about SMEH and the related MoBEX error that occurs for each instance in the detail page. Unsurprisingly, I found a registry hack to address the issue at TenForums.com from well-known VIP member Samuria. Apparently, it involves a well-known permissions inheritance issue for values inside the

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

key. I’ve applied the fix Samuria recommends, and will observe ReliMon over coming days to see if it helps.

The Enduring Value of Internet Community

Though one must exercise caution in picking up and running with fixes from the Internet, there are gradations of trust and merit in play, too. Because I’ve been an active member of TenForums for years and have seen many, many useful tips from Samuria over that entire interval, I’m comfortable with following his advice. That makes this a “safe fix” IMO. But if you have a recent backup handy, and know how to restore it, you can always get back to where you started. That’s my fallback position, and I’m sticking with it. Cheers!

I’ll keep you posted as I see if this helps … or not. Stay tuned!

Sept 13 follow-up #1: No dice, but…

I got a comment from fellow TenForums VIP OldNavyGuy that told me two things: he tried the reghack and it didn’t work for him. He also build a new user profile and moved over to that, then killed the old one. He reports that did away with the ongoing torrent of StartMenuExperienceHost.exe errors. I’ll try it sometime, and see.

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Benchmarking, Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Fast UFDs Need Fast USB Ports

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I just learned something amazing. I’ve long known that performance depends greatly on USB port selection. Indeed I posted about this nearly two years ago to the day: USB-C Port Choice Really Matters. Amusingly, it wasn’t until this morning that I figured out this caution applies to USB-A ports as well. Indeed, fast UFDs need fast USB ports for them to deliver their fullest capabilities. The speed difference is shocking, too: more than 20X faster for large read/writes; 2-10X faster for small ones. Let me show you…

CDM Shows That Fast UFDs Need Fast USB Ports

Check out the lead-in graphic at right. It shows CystalDiskMark (CDM) results for the same Kingston Data Traveler Max 256GB UFD I just had delivered from Amazon yesterday. It’s rated at 1,000 MB/s read, and 900 MB/s write on that purchase page. As you can see, CDM reports better numbers than those for queue depth of 8 on a 1 GiB object, and somewhat less for a queue depth of 1.

What’s fascinating, however, is the results shown on the left. These popped up in a pretty new ThinkPad T14s Gen6 Copilot+ PC I received from Lenovo last month. As the user manual confirms, both of its USB-A connectors top out at 5 Gbps, which makes them plain-vanilla USB 3.0 (aka USB 3.2 Gen1). As you can see given that I’m testing the same device in two different USB-A ports, the difference is down to the port. And that difference is MAJOR!

Here’s a Potential Workaround

You can purchase a dongle/adapter that is female USB-A on one side, and male USB-C on the other. It will let you plug a fast USB-A UFD into a presumably faster USB-C port. I bought a 2-pack of these from Amazon back in 2021. You can see there’s some pass-through loss (compare upper right results, and you’ll see what I mean) when taking this approach. But gosh! It’s still MUCH faster than a 5Gpbs connection. ‘Nuff said.

If you buy a fast UFD and your laptop or PC has only 5 Gbps USB-A ports, spend the extra $5-6 that a USB-A to USB-C adapter will cost. You’ll get a major performance boost as a result, even if it’s not as good as a native 10 Gbps USB-A port. Cheers!

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Recent Activity, Remote Desktop (RDP), WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Windows App Will Replace Remote Desktop

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I’m finally starting to get some clarity on the emerging Windows App, now out in preview. That clarity comes courtesy of a nice story from Martin Brinkmann at gHacks entitled “The Windows Windows app is real — replacing remote desktop app.” But I’ve got a problem with this tool –identical to the problems I had with the Teams (Work or school) version. I don’t have a qualifying MSA among the half-dozen or so I have set up. So, even though the Windows App will replace Remote Desktop, I’m still unable to use it. Sigh.

How Soon the Windows App Will Replace Remote Desktop?

Having been through this with Teams earlier this year, I  imagine Windows App will follow a similar trajectory. MS must eventually loosen its exclusive requirement for an Entra related MSA. Why say this? Because of 2 inescapable facts:

  1. The population of personal MSAs dwarfs that for the other kind
  2. Unless MS adds personal MSAs, it can’t replace Remote Desktop

All this said, the Windows App is now available in preview form. MS has various Learn assets for the program but none of them provides information about timing just yet. The best place to start is with What is Windows App? It leads to other useful info, too. My best guess is that this will be another element that distinguishes the 24H2 Windows 11 release from its predecessors.

Finding the Windows App…

Because “Windows app” is a generic term, and “Windows App” is the name of an MS Store object, some sleight of hand is needed to run it down. Best to search the store with “Windows App” (including caps) enclosed in quotes.

According to the MS Learn article Link to your app, you can synthesize the Store URL for an app by appending its Id string to this base string:

https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/

WinGet will happily provide that ID using either its list or show capabilities. Here again, I had to enclose “Windows App” in quotes to make this work, to wit:

As you can see, WinGet says the ID = 9N1F85V9T8BN, so that URL should be https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/9N1F85V9T8BN. Let’s see…

Works! Now, all I have to do is get a “real” Work or school MSA so I can use the gosh-darned thing. But that’s another kettle of fish entirely, here in Windows-World. Stay tuned.

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