Category Archives: Windows 11

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11, Windows Update

Phased Windows 11 23H2 Rollout Bites Hard

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It’s another never-ending story. Earlier this week, I found myself wondering why none of my 5 physical Windows 11 production PCs, nor either of my two Windows 11 production VMs, were getting any WU action for the 23H2 eKB (enablement package). Then I read from various sources (see this WindowsLatest item, for example) that it’s arriving as a “phased rollout.” Given my personal experience (0 for7) I must observe that the phased Windows 11 23H2 Rollout bites hard here at Chez Tittel. Go figure!

If Phased Windows 11 23H2 Rollout Bites Hard, Then…?

There are other ways to force the KB5027397 eKB onto a production Windows 11 22H2 system running 22621.2506. This makes the transition to 22631.2506 and changes the version number from 22H2 to 23H2. You can read all those details in Shawn Brink’s helpful ElevenForum post “…Enablement Package for Windows 11 version 23H2..” More important, there’s a link there to an MSU (Microsoft Update, with installer) file for X64 and Arm64 PCs. I’ve used it on three of my production PCs and both VMs now, so I’m convinced it’s legit and I know it works.

But gosh! I always wonder why MS makes us wait for updates to rollout. The official line is they’re being conservative and taking no chances on incurring errors or issues on existing Windows 11 PCs, especially older units. But with two of my population less than a year old, both running pretty beastly workstation grade configurations, I’m puzzled by their hold-backs.

On the two PCs that haven’t yet updated (a 2020 vintage Dell OptiPlex 7080 with 11th-gen i7, and a 2021 vintage Ryzen 5850X) I’m deliberately waiting. I’m checking daily to see when WU will “make the offer.” So far, nada. Stay tuned…

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Start11 v2 Face-Up

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I have to laugh. It’s something along Godfather III lines. I’d recently concluded I don’t need Start11 any more because I’m completely at home in the native Start menu. So I’m out. Then, Stardock introduces Start11 v2 — a completely new version for which users must pay to upgrade. Reading about its cool new features, they pull me back in. The lead-in screencap conveys its coolness quite nicely.

Look Top Right: See Start11 v2 Face-Up (Mine!)

Simply put, Start11 v2 lets the built-in Start menu shine through. But it provides all kinds of extras that it can’t do, too. Let’s start with my smiling face up top in the extra right-hand panel. Below, there’s  one-click access the old Library items (Documents, Downloads, etc.). But also my User folder root, Control Panel, Settings, the Run box and This PC in File Explorer (shows as “Computer” at bottom for what I guess are historical reasons).

You can choose from a palette of start menu looks and layouts. Mine is called Windows Pro Style as you can see in the next screencap:

Start11 v2 Face-Up.startstyles

7 start menu styles, many with controls for additional tweaks and twists.

In addition, Start11 v2 provides controls for the Start button itself (I like the Windows 11 logo), the taskbar and taskbar pins (including the ability to pin folders and folder menu pop-ups there), multiple search options and more. Because Start11 v2 accepts a multitude of tweaks, you can also save all that stuff (it’s called “Settings backup”) to a file, then restore and reset settings as you might like. If you have Voidtools Everything installed (part of my basic Windows toolkit), when you search inside the Start11 search facility its results are what come back to you in return. Great stuff!!!

Just When I Thought I Was Out…

Stardock comes along with a truly great uprade to its old stalwart Start menu replacement tool. But I guess we should call it a Start menu enhancement tool these days, eh? Because it was so cheap I sprung for the 5-pack. At under US$13 ($2.60 per instance) it’s too good a deal to pass up — especially against a US$5.99 single copy price.

Historical note: I got into Stardock’s start menu tools with Start8. I cheerfully confess to having been totally befuddled and put off when the “new, redesigned” native Start menu appeared in that OS. I’ve been a pretty loyal user ever since (including Start10). In a “let’s keep a good thing going” kind of way, I’m actually glad to have a reason to WANT to buy into Start11 v2. It had become mostly optional on my 10 or so Windows 11 PCs, tablets and notebooks.

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Attaining Windows 11 23H2

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In everything but name, I’ve already been running Windows 11 23H2 for a while. That level of functionality has been trickling into Windows 11 since September 11 with the release of KB5030310 (a preview update). A few days ago, the release of KB5031455 took Windows 11 to Build 22621.2506. Note the version and build numbers in the lead-in graphic. They support my assertion that there’s little difference between the two.

Steps to  Attaining Windows 11 23H2

Over at ElevenForum.com I’ve been reading about various ways to get to 23H2 in its Installation, Updates and Activation forum for the past few weeks. None of the easy methods outlined there did the trick for me. I wasn’t motivated enough to try the longer, harder ones — e.g. an in-place repair install using the recently published Windows 11 23H2 ISO (it’s now present on the Download Windows 11 page). Why not? I knew an enablement package for 23H2 was coming soon. (Note: for those not already hip, an enablement package is a small, quick update that simply turns on features and stuff already present in Windows but not yet visible or active.)

Today (or more precisely, yesterday) that changed with the release of KB5027397. It describes that very enablement package, and announces its availability. I’ve not been able to get WU to proffer it to me (though I did have pre-requisite KB5031455 already installed). Instead I grabbed the MSU link from ElevenForum admin @Brink (real name: Shawn Brink, a fellow WIMVP). It comes from an October 31 thread entitled KB5027397 Enablement Package for Windows 11 version 23H2 Feature Update.

It’s a ZIP file, so must be unpacked before it may be run. But run it does — and quickly, too: the whole shebang was done in under 2 minutes on my Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation. After a reboot, the target PC should produce nearly the same winver information shown above. Note the “Version 23H2” moniker in the second line of the fine print. Nerdvana!

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Beta Build 22635.2552 Adds System Components

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I’ve known this was coming for some time now. Last month, I researched changes to the Windows Troubleshooters to a Get Help facility in Windows 11. Note: “Get Help” works for Windows 10, too. Indeed, it fell under a general heading of “System Components” as explained at MS Support. Thus it came with more of a sense of inevitability, not surprise, when Beta Build 22635.2552 adds System Components to its Settings → System subhead lineup. You can see that pretty clearly in the lead-in graphic, which has Winver superimposed to show Build info.

What Else Appears When Beta Build 22635.2552 Adds System Components?

If you look at the lead-in graphic you’ll notice the following list of elements under the System Components heading (in order of appearance):

  • Game Bar: former Xbox Game Bar app, now renamed to drop Xbox.
  • Get Help: Built in Windows troubleshooting facilities now runs as an app (and auto-launches when the OS itself spots trouble).
  • Microsoft Store: Primary source for Windows apps of all kinds.
  • Phone Link: Provides link and synch facilities between smartphones and Windows PCs (iOS and Android devices).
  • Tips: Built-in Windows notification, advertisement and “information” items.
  • Windows Security: Home to Defender’s AV, account protection, firewall & Internet controls, device security, health and family options.

Essentially this positions these specific apps as Windows built-ins that “come with the OS.” Thus, they can’t be uninstalled: inspection will show their Remove buttons are greyed out in Advanced Options. And although they can be terminated, from a runtime perspective, they’ll “keep coming back from the dead” in Halloween-appropriate fashion.

I find it interesting that MS lumps in Game Bar and Phone Link along with the other built-ins that comprise “system components.” It will also be instructive to watch this category to see when and if it expands, exactly what else appears under this heading. Stay tuned!

 

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Experiment: Reset this PC

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After digging further into Reliability Monitor on the P1 Gen6 ThinkPad, I realized things were unacceptably unstable. As an experiment, reset this PC came to the fore. It’s the option available as Settings → System → Recovery from the “Reset PC” button. The resulting window serves as the lead-in graphic for this story (above).

Why Conduct the Experiment: Reset this PC?

Alas, I had four straight days of error behavior like that shown in the next Reliability Monitor screencap. That is, over a dozen serious Critical events, including:

  • Windows stopped working (2)
  • Windows was not properly shut down (2)
  • Hardware error (2)
  • Windows shut down unexpectedly (2)
  • Various NVIDIA-related “Stopped working” errors (4)

Experiment: Reset this PC (ReliMon)

Whoa! That’s a lot of Critical errors for one day…and I had 3 more just like it. [Click image for full-sized view]

In addition, the OS install was showing other odd and unexpected behaviors. For example, I couldn’t get the Edge browser to run. The display was occasionally flashing on and off (probably related to the NVIDIA errors shown). File Explorer was herky-jerkey when traversing the file system. There was probably more, but that was more than enough for me to realize something wicked had already come onto that desktop. Hence, the reset experiment…

Since performing the reset, I’ve experienced exactly one (1) critical error over the past 24 hours. It may still be too early to tell if the reset really fixed things. It might just be having left this PC alone for the last while that’s kept things quiet.

Going through the Reset Process

It seems like Reset is an awful lot like an in-place upgrade repair install, except that it wants the end user to reinstall apps and applications one at a time (each had an “Install” entry in the Start menu/All apps after the first reboot). I’m too lazy to do one-offs like that, so I used the bulk installer built into PatchMyPC Home Updater instead. Works like a peach! Alternatively, I could have done most of those installs using winget instead.

I wasn’t sure if the reset function would take the PC back to its fresh-from-the-factory state. No, it didn’t: it simply reinstalled — via a cloud download — the same version of DevChannel Insider Preview already running on this test PC. Good to know!

Stay tuned: I’ll report back if the earlier instability persists. I had attributed it to an Intel firmware update. I’ll end up poking it one way or another over the next days and see if it blows up again.

 

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New GSOD Implicates Intel Firmware

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Here’s something nobody wants to see on a Windows PC. The lead-in graphic shows a Windows crash screen. Because this one is green, it’s sometimes called a GSOD (“Green Screen of Death”). The error message it carries is one I’ve not seen before — namely: secure_pci_config_space_access_violation. A bit of online research, and some inspection of reliability monitor’s copious error output tells me this new GSOD implicates Intel firmware.

Why Say: New GSOD Implicates Intel Firmware?

It’s not like I didn’t have plenty of potential issues from which to choose. Relimon pointed to Windows stop errors, improper shutdowns, unexepected shutdowns, and hardware errors. Indeed the actual BlueScreen error that provoked the GSOD refers to (and depicts) a CPU-Z .sys file. So again: why point at Intel firmware?

Online research (Reddit, Lenovo forums, and more) all report this very same error code after Intel firmware updates. And indeed WU itself delivered a — you guessed it — Intel Firmware update just before I upgraded to the most recent version of the DevChannel Insider Preview on this test PC.

One More Thing:

After I removed the program that caused the GSOD: Piriform Speccy, the problems have completely ceased and desisted. I imagine this program attempted to check the firmware during its scans, and that’s what threw the error. I’m guessing that a fix will come along in a future update. As long as my system stays stable otherwise, I’ll leave it alone and hope it does the same for me.

Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted…

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Working Reclaimable Packages Mystery

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For months now, one of my test PCs has claimed something remarkable. It’s a Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga (8th-gen i7, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe SSD). It’s a working reclaimable packages mystery, as you can see in the lead-in graphic. Note please: it shows 13 (!) reclaimable packages in the component store. But they never go away…

Why Is There a Working Reclaimable Packages Mystery?

Gosh, I wish I knew. But it’s got me learning more about DISM and the Windows Component Store (WinSxS) than I’ve known before. In particular, I’ve been digging into DISM’s /Get-Packages capability, to look into the contents of WinSxS to see what is — and apparently isn’t — going on in there.

Reading about the output of the /format:table directive, I see that the state column can produce a range of values. These include the following, as mined from Learn.Microsoft.Com by Copilot (quoted verbatim):

  • NotPresent: The package is not present in the image. It has not been installed or added to the image.

  • UninstallPending: The package has been marked for uninstallation, but the process is not complete. There are some additional steps that need to be performed before the package is fully removed from the image.

  • Staged: The package has been added to the image, but it is not active. It can be activated by using the /Enable-Feature option.

  • Removed: The package has been removed from the image, but some metadata about it remains. This allows the package to be reinstalled if needed.

  • Installed: The package is installed and active in the image. It can be deactivated by using the /Disable-Feature option.

  • InstallPending: The package has been marked for installation, but the process is not complete. There are some additional steps that need to be performed before the package is fully installed and activated in the image.

  • Superseded: The package has been replaced by a newer version of the same package or a different package that provides the same functionality. The superseded package is still present in the image, but it is not active.

  • PartiallyInstalled: The package has been partially installed in the image, but some components or files are missing or corrupted. This may cause errors or malfunctions in the package or its dependencies.

Digging Deeper Into the Mystery…

As I understand it, the dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup command will remove at least some of the packages in the “Superseded” state from the WinSxS. So I fired up the following command to look into the component store on another test machine. It reports 4 reclaimable packages via DISM, and inspection of the /format:tables output from that PC via Notepad++ reports 106 instances of the term “Superseded” in that text file.

Next, I run the afore-cited “cleanup” command. This takes a few minutes to complete. When I run /analyzecomponentstore again, the number of reclaimable packages is zero (0). So I generate new /format:table output, and open it in Notepad++ again. This time, a search on “Superseded” produces 0 hits. My theory is that the cleanup flushes these items out of the WinSxS, and this data seems to confirm that.

And Now, Back to the X380 Yoga

Here’s where things get interesting. Even though /analyzecomponentstore is reporting 13 reclaimable packages, the /format:table output from that PC includes no instances of “Superseded” in its contents. Somehow, DISM is seeing something that I can’t see via this lens into the WinSxS contents. Therein lies the mystery.

I’ll keep digging and see what else I can learn. Stay tuned! This could get interesting — at least if you, like me, find this kind of thing engaging.

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October 2023 Windows 11 Monthly Active Users

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Here’s an interesting item, for a variety of reasons. Yesterday, Zac Bowden at Windows Central reported that “Windows 11 is now in use on over 400 million monthly active devices” (emphasis his). In typical headline fashion the title of the story inflates it to “almost half a billion devices.” I have to laugh about that, but the number of October 2023 Windows 11 monthly active users is no joke. Even if those numbers come from, as Zac puts it, “…my sources who are familiar with the matter…” Right!

What October 2023 Windows 11 Monthly Active Users Means

Mr. B observes that this uptake comes at half the rate for Windows 10, but without the upgrade pressure that Windows 7’s retirement put on those numbers. Ditto for the notion, widely held at the time, that the free upgrade would only last for a year or two. In light of those factors, he also reports that these numbers beat internal MS expectations.

IMHO, business users don’t really care that much about the Windows running on their desktops or devices. Business will migrate when it’s good and ready, which means the clock really hasn’t started ticking too loudly just yet (Windows 10 EOL date is 10/14/2025). In fact, it’s just barely audible right now… That will change next year.

So Good, So Far

In my own experience, I ‘ve found Windows 11 to be a workable, reliable and attractive desktop OS. I’m almost completely migrated myself, with only 1 physical PC still running the older version, along with a handful of strategically placed VMs. I have at least 9 physical PCs running Windows 11 here at Chez Tittel, and another 2 off at college with my number-one son.

But what about those numbers? Given that many (if not most) businesses have yet to move from 10 to 11, I think they’re pretty high. In other words, I’m pleasantly surprised as MS apparently is also. My gut feel is those numbers will swell by as much as 200-300M next year, and more the year after that.

Meanwhile, somewhere between 1.2 (IDC) and 1.4 (Statista) BILLION smartphones sold in 2022. That’s a whole different ballgame. Increasingly it’s the game that matters most. So let’s keep this all in perspective, shall we? That said, Windows-World remains my home!

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X12 Upgrade Quit Halfway

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Yesterday morning, I tried to remote into my Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Hybrid tablet. No go. I got the familiar error “Remote Desktop can’t find the computer…” Interestingly, when I went to restart that PC, nothing happened. Eventually I had to disconnect all cables, then hold the power button down for a full 60 seconds to force it to reboot. Then I remembered: I hadn’t touched the machine since the 25967 upgrade hit on Tuesday. That means the X12 Upgrade quit halfway through the process and didn’t come back up after the reboot.

If the X12 Upgrade Quit Halfway, Then What?

Poking around on the Lenovo website, I found an evocative forum post. It was entitled “Laptop suddenly shuts down, won’t turn on.” It confirmed something odd was up, and prevented the PC from restarting. And indeed, my approach (disconnecting all cables, holding down the power button for 60 seconds) is just what the forum rep recommended to the poster, too.

When all else fails, this is one way to get a Lenovo PC to restart normally. And sure enough, once the PC did get far enough along to tell me what it was doing, it showed the spinning circle and progress that goes along with finishing up an upgrade or update install.

Just for grins, I opened up Reliability Monitor on the X12. I found a shutdown error staring me in the face. The detail reads: “The previous system shutdown at 5:55:00 PM on 10/10/2023 was unexpected.” Last Tuesday, at the end of the working day, just when I wouldn’t notice that the X12 failed to come back from the pending reboot during the update process. Go figure!

There’s proof that the PC shutdown when it shouldn’t have.

Speculating on Causes…

This device is attached to a CalDigit TS4 hub for power, GbE, video and storage. I’m wondering if something about that kind of complex USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 connection might not complicate boot-up. OTOH, I’ve upgraded plenty of times before on the same overall rig without difficulty. That’s what keeps things interesting, here in Windows-World.

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New Windows 11 Settings Home

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With the latest Canary build (Windows 11 23H2 25967.1000) we see a new Home pane for the Settings app. This new Windows 11 Setting home is hugely different from Windows 10 (see below). But those keeping up with ongoing updates to production 11 won’t see much difference.

New Windows 11 Settings Home.win10home

Windows 10 Settings home is a simple icon table.

What About New Windows 11 Settings Home?

Compared to older production versions, there’s a little more graphics pop (certainly, it’s a lot more visually appealing than Windows 10, to be sure). But MS has been backing these changes into current 22H2 versions as they introduce them in Insider Previews labeled 23H2 as well. That makes it a little harder to tell exactly what’s what.

So I’ll turn to the Canary Channel 25967 release announcement for clarification. Here’s what it says:

We created interactive cards that represent various device and account related settings, grouped by commonly accessed functions. Each card is optimized to offer the most relevant information and controls at your fingertips. In this release, you’ll see up to seven cards, with more coming soon.

Here’s an overview of each card:

  1. Recommended settings: This card adapts to your specific usage patterns, providing timely and relevant settings options. It’s designed to streamline your settings management and save you time.
  2. Cloud storage: Gives you an overview of your cloud storage use and lets you know when you’re nearing capacity.
  3. Account recovery: Helps keep your Microsoft account more secure by helping you add additional recovery info so you never get locked out of your account, even if you forget your password.
  4. Personalization: Brings customization to the forefront by offering one-click access to update your background theme or change your color mode.
  5. Microsoft 365: Provides a quick glimpse of your subscription status and benefits, along with the ability to take some key actions right in Settings instead of going to the web.
  6. Xbox: Similar to the Microsoft 365 card, you’ll be able to view your subscription status and manage the subscription from the Settings app.
  7. Bluetooth Devices: To simplify your Bluetooth device management experience, we’ve brought this to the forefront so you can quickly access and connect to your favorite Bluetooth-enabled devices.

You can take swift actions directly from this page with just a click, making device and account management seamless and efficient. What sets the homepage apart even further is that it’s more than just a landing page—it evolves and learns with you.

Overall, I like the design and layout. It certainly shows and does more than the “icon directory” model for Windows 10. But with other Windows 11 versions either already in synch or catching up soon, it’s not as much of a surprise as I was expecting.

Who knows? Maybe that’s a good thing… I’ll be watching to see how Windows 11 learns from my behavior and usage to make changes. There may very well be some surprises — hopefully, good ones — in that mix. Stay tuned!

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