Category Archives: Windows 11

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

Build 22631.1900 Shows 13 Spurious Reclaimables

June 21, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’s an odd an ind interesting situation. After applying the CU that took the PC to the most current Beta Channel build, it reported an astounding 16 packages amenable to cleanup. After running DISM …/startcomponentcleanup, that selfsame PC running Build 22631.1900 shows 13 spurious reclaimables.

Why do I claim those reclaimable packages are spurious? Because running and re-running the same DISM command (which normally removes them all):

(a) reports successful completion
(b) leaves the number of reclaimable packages unchanged (13)

I’ve seen this happen on some Insider Previews in the past, as far back as Windows 8.x. But never with such a high number of packages — indeed, it’s “lucky 13.” WTF?!

If Build 22631.1900 Shows 13 Spurious Reclaimables, Then?

I’ve reported this situation to Feedback Hub along with screencaps to show what DISM reports. But otherwise, there’s not much a mere user — even an Insider MVP like myself — can do about this kind of problem. If the machine were showing signs of instability, odd behavior, or reduced performance I’d try an in-place repair install. I’d follow that up with a clean install if such problems persisted.

But since this seems to be purely an artifact from inside DISM that doesn’t affect the machine’s overall behavior or capability, I’ll leave it alone for the time being. If MS responds to my feedback, I’ll take whatever advice they dispense. Otherwise, I’ll wait for the next Beta Channel release with hopes that such an upgrade will clear this strange and weirdly high count of non-existent reclaimable packages.

Stay tuned: I’ll report back in after the next CU or new Build. I’m betting this problem will disappear once the “next thing” gets installed. We’ll see!

Minor Build Number Goes to 1906 (June 23)

Yesterday, CU KB5027311 got applied, as did an Update Stack Package. No change to the reclaimables count, nor did a cleanup attempt with /startcomponentcleanup have any effect. I’m guessing this won’t change until the next major version increments through an upgrade of some kind. Let’s see…

Note Added January 20, 2024

With the installation of Build 22635.3066 (23H2 Beta Channel Insider Preview), the “spurious 13” have vanished from DISM’s notice. The announcement says nothing about any relevant changes, and the one for the base level release for this feature upgrade says only “a handful of fixes to improve overall reliability.” Somewhere, somehow, though this finally got fixed. Go figure.

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

File Explorer Restart Fixes Start Menu

June 20, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I don’t know what I — or Windows itself — did. But I do know for sure that when I logged into my production PC this morning, Start Menu search was broken. I could type anything I wanted into the search bar. But each search came up empty. I could still navigate to apps alphabetically, so I knew something odd or interesting was up. Fortunately, among its many other good qualities, a File Explorer restart fixes Start Menu, too.

How File Explorer Restart Fixes Start Menu

The lead-in graphic shows how it’s done. Fire up Task Manager (I like to use the CTRL-Shift-Esc shortcut, but you can right-click on the Taskbar to get at it through a pop-up menu, too). Find Windows Explorer (I still think of it by its older name as in the title for this blog post), right-click, and select “Restart” from the pop-up menu.

As the term indicates, this basically kills the runtime environment for Windows/File Explorer, which includes the Start Menu, the taskbar, and other stuff, as well as any and all open Explorer windows. All this gets restarted afresh. And when that happens, the new and pristine runtime usually works as it should.

Case in point this morning: my broken Start Menu search function started working again. I cheerfully confess I simply wanted to play Solitaire. But typing “Sol” into the search box did nothing for me. The fix took less than 10 seconds to complete, though. And when it was done it was back to “Windows business as usual.”

Good! That’s just what I wanted… Keep this in your hat: it’s sure to come in handy someday here in Windows-World.

Backup/Restore, Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Windows 11 Restore Point Pros&Cons

June 19, 2023 Ed Tittel 2 Comments

I’ve got to admit it: I’m of two minds about restore points in modern Windows versions — especially Windows 11. I found myself chewing over Windows 11 restore point pros&cons this morning, as I used WizTree to check my boot/system drive on some test PCs. Let me explain…

Exploring Windows 11 Restore Point Pros&Cons

Let’s start with a basic definition courtesy of Gavin Wright/TechTarget:

A system restore point is a backup copy of important Windows operating system (OS) files and settings that can be used to recover the system to an earlier point of time in the event of system failure or instability. It is a part of Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, 11 and Windows Server. They are created automatically or manually. System restore points only affect OS and application files, but not user data.

I confess: up through and including versions of Windows 8, I used to use Restore Points a LOT. But since the introduction of Windows 10 in 2014/2015 — quite some time now — I’ve been using daily or weekly image backups on my production and test PCs almost exclusively. These protect user preferences, settings, and data as well as the “important OS files” mentioned in the preceding definition. For me, it’s also faster and easier to restore an image backup than it is to do likewise with a restore point (and with less certain results). FWIW, I still use Macrium Reflect Free as my primary backup and restore tool. (I use the paid-for version on production PCs.)

Restore Point Pros

If, as shown in the lead-in graphic, you have restore points turned on, Windows will make them for you automatically or manually. They’re created automatically when you apply Windows updates. Likewise, many application installers are built to make a restore point early on in their operation, so they can roll back to a point in time prior to their actions in case something goes wrong. Also, you can create a manual store point by clicking the “Create” button shown at the lower right in the lead-in graphic. If you do choose to use restore points, I also recommend grabbing and trying out Nic Bedford’s System Restore Explorer as well. IMO, it’s easier to use and more comprehensive than the built-in Windows facility.

Restore points are easy, somewhat automated and cover many OS or runtime issues. This makes them easy and convenient to use, especially for less savvy and sophisticated Windows users. In a nutshell, those are the pros for restore points.

Restore Point Cons

In using WizTree to explore a couple of my test machines this morning, I was reminded of one of the cons for restore points — namely, they can soak up a fair amount of disk space. When I use the “Delete all restore points…” option on one of my Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga PCs this morning, here’s what WizTree showed as deleted immediately afterward:

All in all I recovered almost 6 GB of disk space by deleting all restore points.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

The impact of restore points can be up to the size limit you set aside for such use. As shown in the lead-in graphic, that’s 19.05 GB for my “other” X380 Yoga test PC. If you’re making image backups and restore points, it’s a good idea to allocate no more than 1% or 10GB (whichever is less) for such use.

Besides space issues, I’ve observed that restore points don’t protect you from unwanted registry changes (including preferences, settings, use of tweak tools and so forth). Nor do they restore user or application data files and such, either. In general, I favor image files because they include absolutely everything that might get changed — or go wrong.

That said, if you use an image restore, you will lose any new files or changes you’ve made since the time at which that image was captured. Thus, it may be necessary for you to run a “mini-backup” to save that stuff to a flash drive or other external media before restoring the most recent image so you lose less (or nothing). Because Reflect lets me mount an image as a virtual drive, I often make another image of my broken system just in case I need something from that set-up after I revert to my most recent saved image.

What’s Your Preference?

On your Windows PCs, you can do as you like with backups and restores (including restore points). I don’t use them anymore because they don’t bail me out of all the trouble I often get myself into. If your usage patterns are less experimental or extreme, restore points may indeed meet all your needs. Even so, I’d still recommend periodic image backups just in case they don’t work to get you of some of the jams you may occasionally get into. But again: that’s up to you!

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, WED Blog, Windows 11

Chasing Canary Focus Sessions

June 16, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I have to laugh — or, at least, chuckle. After reading about a new Focus sessions widget at MSPowerUser I went chasing after same. I should have known it might not be as available as one might hope. It’s on gradual release. Indeed, it shows up only in one of two of its possible haunts. After chasing Canary Focus sessions for a while, let me explain how I figured this out.

Chasing Canary Focus Sessions
May Yield Mixed Results

The first key to focus sessions is an update to the Clock app. It needs to get to version 11.2305.6.0 (or higher). That should come easily, courtesy of a quick hop into the Microsoft Store’s Library tab, where clicking the “Get updates” button should true up a Canary PC or VM. Indeed, as you can see in the app window from Clock that appears at the head of this blog post, “Focus sessions” is the first element in its left-hand menu (also expanded to fill the right-hand pane as shown).

But a pane in a Windows 11 app is not a widget. So I went to both places where one might expect to find such a thing with mixed results:

1. To the Dev Home (Preview) app, where one can click the “+Add widget” button on its Dashboard pane to pin another widget thereto. But alas, the list of available widgets does not include “Focus session” amidst its still-limited set of offerings.

2. To the news/weather bug on the Canary task bar, where clicking on same opens a larger panel that includes this entry:

After clicking “Add them now” I *DO* see “Focus session” as an available item. Clicking same produces the Focus session widget at the top of the expanded news/weather bug window. Goody!

What Did I Just Learn?

Only some widgets make it onto the Dev Home (Preview) dashboard. Many more are available through the expanded news/weather bug pane. For the time being, it looks like the Focus session widget is one of the latter, but not one of the former. That’s one specific lesson learned.

The bigger implication is that not all new widgets that MS announces will pop up in both places. Only some will make it into the Dev Home dashboard, while all should indeed appear through the expanded news/weather bug. Consider yourself so informed.

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

Post-Update Cleanup Causes DISM Loop

June 14, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’m not sure what’s causing a fascinating Windows 11 issue. But you can see what it looks like in the lead-in graphic for this blog post. Basically, post-update cleanup causes DISM loop, whereby cleanup keeps repeating 100% completion, until I forcibly stop it with Ctrl-C. Weird!

I’ve never seen anything like this before. It occurred on Windows 11 Canary Build 25387.1200, after applying KB5027120 “2023-06 Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8.1 for Windows Version Next for x64.” This comes in the wake of KB5027849, released June 7, that takes the build to minor release number 1200. Again: Weird!

When Post-Update Cleanup Causes DISM Loop, What Now?

The traditional “next move” when something odd and extraordinary occurs in Windows is to reboot, and try again. So that’s what I did. The affected PC — a Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga — came back up without any obvious signs of distress or damage. I was able to remote in without issues, either. And on a retry of the DISM… /startcomponentcleanup command it ran through to completion without further issues.

There’s a known oddity that this DISM command causes a weird doubling of the progress bar if (a) a CU is applied to a Windows 10 or 11 PC and (b) the command is run before the target system is rebooted for a second time. I can only speculate this oddity has been somehow exacerbated in this version of Windows 11.

Be that as it may, the old standby troubleshooting technique — reboot, and try again — seems to do the trick. Once again, the old “three-fingered salute” comes to the rescue. Go figure!

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, USB devices, WED Blog, Windows 11

Avoid Cascading Thunderbolt 4 Hubs

June 12, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I guess it makes sense, now that I’ve figured out what’s going on. I’m using the Lenovo ThinkVision P27u-20 flat panel monitor with a Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Hybrid PC. It’s been an interesting ride, getting it working once again. (I wrote about it first last December upon its arrival here at Chez Tittel.) Over the weekend, I got it working again Among the various things I learned along the way: avoid cascading Thunderbolt 4 hubs.

Why Avoid Cascading Thunderbolt 4 Hubs?

Simple, short answer: Windows 11 can’t find the monitor when it has to traverse an upstream TB4 hub and a downstream one. There’s a longer, more complex answer as well. Too much throughput is required for an all-purpose power/video/peripherals link between host and monitor. Multiple TB4 hubs don’t work that way.

This drove me batty for a while. That’s because I used the CalDigit TS4 hub as the primary. Then, I ran a video connection from it to the P27u-20. But the monitor features a built-in TB4 hub that doesn’t work in that configuration. Good to know, but hard to figure out. What led me to this discovery? In part, a consistent report that my power link wasn’t beefy enough to recharge the X12’s battery.

When I finally checked the port map for the monitor I saw that only one is labeled both Thunderbolt 4 and “full function upstream port with max 96W With Smart Power PD output” (see pg. 6). And sure enough, that’s the one I had to hook directly to the primary USB-C port on the X12 to get the monitor recognized as a 2nd working display.

It’s all good now. But if you use a monitor like the P27u-20 with integrated hub, it’s best to avoid bringing another TB4 hub into that mix. ‘Nuff said!

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

Windows 10 COM Surrogate Errors Continue

June 6, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Hmmmm. About 18 months ago, I blogged about a source of regular crashes on my Windows 10 production PC. Entitled “Chronic COM Surrogate Windows 10 Failures” it goes into possible causes of and fixes for APPCRASH errors relates to the Windows COM Surrogate. As you can see in the Reliability Monitor output at the head of this story, my Windows 10 COM Surrogate errors continue, sometimes multiple times in a day. Sigh.

If Windows 10 COM Surrogate Errors Continue, Then…?

I’ve already tried all of the fixes described in the earlier item and the errors continue. My current error history goes back to May 6, and the COM Surrogate error is mentioned in over half the total error reports involved (5 of 7 items). As I look around online, I see I’m not alone in this situation. It also shows up on most, but not all, of my Windows 11 PCs (of which I currently have 11 at my fingertips).

This feels more like a “feature” even if it is manifestly an “APPCRASH” event. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to impact system stability, reliability or performance. Sometimes, things like this just pop up in Windows. This one is interesting and mildly vexing, but overall doesn’t seem to impair the user experience.

Feedback Hub Search Results

As I search Feedback Hub on some combination of COM Surrogate, APPCRASH, MoAppHang, and so forth, I see that PowerToys sometimes enters the picture, sometimes not. The nature of the error appears to depend on whether it emerges from an app (usually on the PowerToys components) or an executable (usually DllHost.exe).

But it looks like this issue hasn’t gone away since I dug into it a while back. And based on its common presence on Windows 10 and 11 PCs alike (across production, preview, beta, dev and canary channels as well) it looks like something more constant than intermittent. While I hope MS does fix it sometime (sooner would be better than later), I guess I can live with it while they’re searching for the right “round tuit.”

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

Winget Upgrade May Require Cleanup

June 2, 2023 Ed Tittel 7 Comments

OK, then: yesterday dev lead Demetrius Nelson and his Winget team pushed an upgrade to winget. This comes courtesy of the Microsoft Store, and shows up as part of the App Installer and/or Windows Terminal packages. I noticed also that winget would occasionally throw the error “Failed in attempting to update the source: winget” as you can see in the lead-in screencap. What made it interesting was that it happens on some, but not all, of my Windows PCs. Now, let me explain why this post says that the “Winget upgrade may require cleanup.”

Why Say: Winget Upgrade May Require Cleanup?

When I saw this pop up in the wake of the new release, I figured the changes involved in pushing it out the door might have been involved. So I contacted Mr. Nelson and sent him (among other info) the screencap that leads this piece off. He responded this morning and explained how I could fix the issue, using the commands:
winget uninstall Microsoft.Winget.Source_8wekyb3d8bbwe winget source reset --force
The first string removes the winget package from the PC. The second resets the winget environment, which is why the user must agree to Terms again before winget will run. After that it shows no upgrades are available (“No installed package found matching input criteria” with no accompanying error message (“Failed in attempting to update the source: winget”).

Problem solved; case closed. It’s always good to get the fix right from the source. Had to laugh about the “It won’t break while the engineer is watching” comment he sent me, too. Isn’t that just the way things go in Windows-World (and elsewhere in life)? LOL

See the whole thing here:

The fix is in — and working! Good stuff…

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

Exploring Windows 11 Dev Home

June 1, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Last week, MS released Windows 11 Dev Channel Build 25375.1 (May 25). Having finally gotten a little ahead of my workflow, I visited the MS Store to download Dev Home (Preview). This afternoon, I’ve been exploring Windows 11 Dev Home (Preview) to see what’s what. So far, it’s pretty interesting…

When Exploring Windows 11 Dev Home, Try These…

In the Dashboard, the “+Add Widget” button lets one add widgets for things that include Memory, Network, CPU and GPU. Of course, as a long-time 8GadgetPack fan, I had to try them out. Here’s what they look like:

The various hardware subsystem widgets aren’t too bad — but not equal to gadget counterparts, either.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Other elements of Dev Home — as you should expect from the name — are distinctly developer focused. You can interact with GitHub and other development platforms, and configure devices for development using XAML or YAML configuration files (just like the newly-added winget capabilities, through no coincidence whatsoever).

The Official (Store) Word Sez…

MS describes Dev Home (Preview) as follows:

Dev Home is a control center providing the ability to track all of your workflows and coding tasks in one place. It features a streamlined setup tool that enables you to install apps and packages in a centralized location, extensions that allow you to connect to your developer accounts (such as GitHub), and a customizable dashboard with a variety of developer-focused widgets, to give you the information you need right at your fingertips.

This is an open source project and we welcome community participation. To participate, please visit https://github.com/microsoft/devhome

This makes for some interesting and potentially useful capability under a single umbrella. So far, I’m having fun looking around and messing with the widgets. Later on, I’ll get more serious about the dev side of things, and bring Visual Studio and other elements into play. Stay tuned!

Backup/Restore, Cool Tools, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Windows 11 Beta Shows OneDrive Holdings

May 31, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then. Here’s a minor –but nice — addition to Windows 11 that shows up in Build 22631.1825. That’s right, Windows 11 Beta shows OneDrive Holdings, as you can see in the lead-in graphic. Start → Settings → Accounts takes you where you need to go. It’s right up top, under a heading named “Microsoft storage” as shown in the image.

If Windows 11 Beta Shows OneDrive Holdings, Then What?

I’ve been wary of using OneDrive as a shared file store across multiple PCs. Why? Mostly because things sometimes show up in OneDrive without my specific knowledge or intent. I’ve learned, for example, to explicitly target screencaps in the Pictures folder under my user account folder hierarchy rather than defaulting to the Pictures folder in OneDrive. I shoot tens to hundreds of MB of screencaps monthly (mostly to write about them). I don’t necessarily want them to follow me around to all of my PCs. Ditto for other common Windows File Explorer library folders (Documents, Downloads, Videos, etc.).

But now, I may have to rethink how and when I use OneDrive. It’s now much easier to see when things grow (or worse, mushroom out of control) in that shared store. It occurs to me, for example, when updating apps across my mini-fleet (about a dozen PCs) it might just be easier to download once, stick it in OneDrive, then use it where needed. Just a thought…

Managing OneDrive … Carefully

Searching Google for “OneDrive Manager,” I see numerous third-party tools — and lots of tutorials — aimed at keeping this unruly beast tamed. Methinks I need to spend some time digging, learning, and thinking. I already use Google Drive, Box, and DropBox to good effect (particularly with legal clients). I believe I can and now, should, learn to do likewise with OneDrive. Stay tuned!