Category Archives: Windows 11

Backup/Restore, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, USB devices, WED Glog, Windows 11

Windows 11 Backup Request

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I have a modest request to make of Microsoft, where Windows 11 is concerned. Its new-to-11 Windows Backup facility uses Reset this PC as the basis for a new Windows image. It then rejiggers the Start Menu to show you which apps and applications need to be reinstalled. Hence my Windows 11 backup request. I see no file on the desktop or in the User’s folder hierarchy somewhere that lists  “missing” stuff.

What About My Windows 11 Backup Request?

According to the Answers.Microsoft.com something like this may be available in a file named removedapps.html. Or  perhaps “Removed apps.html” (with an internal space). If so, one could parse this data in PowerShell. Then, WinGet could reinstall most such things. (WinGet says it knows about 6,575 packages as I write this blog via (Winget search –source winget “”).count  .)

I’ve just made a Macrium Reflect image backup of a test PC, and I’m now going to restore that PC using Windows Backup. I’ll see if an html file shows up in the desktop (or somewhere else: e.g. windows.old) afterward. Let’s see…

Further Ruminations on Removed Apps

Turns out that when you go into this process, Reset this PC shows you the list of apps that need to be reinstalled. It also states “This list of apps will be saved to the desktop after reset.” That should do it.

List shows first 11 of 26 items, but does NOT allow text copy.

Just for safety’s sake, I screen-grabbed all items since this window doesn’t support text grab of the list contents. Good thing I did: when the machine booted, I could not find a file anywhere on the system that matched the string search “remo*app*.html” anywhere. Just for grins I also searched on *.html to look for all files dated today (September 9). Nothing relevant to removed apps there, either.

When in Doubt, Restore the Macrium Image

I eventually got back to where I started by disabling secure boot, booting into the Macrium Rescue media, then restoring the backup I made just before starting down this path.  Note: my PC wouldn’t boot from Macrium Rescue media unless I undid secure boot. Hey MS! Please fix this apps list issue: it makes Windows 11 Backup much less attractive or workable the way things currently stand.

The eventual part came from having to figure out I needed to turn off Device Guard before Secure Boot could itself be turned off. Then I had to steer around BitLocker stuff (a key is necessary before you can read an encrypted drive like the P16’s: I didn’t care because I was going to rewrite the whole shebang anyway). Then I had to wait for the backup to complete, go back and turn Secure Boot and Device Guard back on, enter the recovery key, and resume. Sheesh! A lot of time and effort to find out if Windows 11 Backup writes an app list to the desktop (or elsewhere). Too bad it does not…as far as I can tell.

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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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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Early 24H2 Update Attempt Fails

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When I read this morning on NeoWin that KB5039239 would update 23H2 Windows 11 to 24H2, I had to give it a try. So I visited the Microsoft Update Catalog and grabbed the x64 version to attempt an install on my Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation. No dice. Indeed, this early 24H2 update attempt fails on that laptop, as you can see in the lead-in graphic. The Windows Update Standalone Installer informs me that “the update is not applicable to your computer.”

Why the Early 24H2 Update Attempt Fails

The NeoWin story specifically cites to a non-Copilot AMD PC receiving the update via WU, complete with Update History screencaps to show it downloaded and applied. Thus, I can only speculate that KB5039239 is still missing some support infrastructure for Intel CPUs in general (or this Alder Lake i9-12950HX CPU in particular).

Whatever the case my be with this CU, something about it gets picked up as “not applicable” for this test rig. Last May, I blogged about a way to use the 24H2 ISO to run an in-place repair install as workaround to upgrade 23H2 PCs to 24H2. It worked back then, and I’m pretty sure it still works now.

All this said, I’m not sure why the afore-cited CU doesn’t cut the mustard on my P16, but it’s just one of those interesting things about Windows. If I truly wanted to upgrade this machine to 24H2, I could get there from here. But I really just wanted to see if the approach described in the Neowin story works on the P16. It doesn’t, but I will keep my eyes peeled for something similar from WU soon, and see if what else comes along for that ride changes things from “not applicable” to otherwise.

Stay tuned!

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

Start11 v2 App Launch Fails

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Here’s something interesting to ponder. I’m running Stardock’s mostly excellent Start11 v2 start menu replacement on a couple of Windows 11 PCs. One them runs Insider Preview on Canary Channel build 27686.1000. When I upgraded version 2.0 to 2.1 this morning, I couldn’t get the Start11 app itself to open from the Start menu. Click the icon, and nothing happens. Right-click the icon and select “Run as administrator…”: likewise nothing. Gosh, that looks like Start11 v2 app launch fails completely, doesn’t it? Not exactly, as it turns out…

Poking Around the UI When Start11 v2 App Launch Fails

Then I right-clicked the name underneath my avatar image on the right-side of the Start menu (which comes from Start 11 v2). Notice that the highlighted option at bottom reads “Configure Start11.” That’s the secret to launching the Start11 app itself, even though its app entry is currently unresponsive.

I found a Stardock webpage entitled Start11 Changelog. It shows the latest version of Start 11 v2 is 2.1 which dropped earlier this week on 8/20/2024. It’s a long one! Reading it over just now, it says “ARM support is now in all versions” (good to know). But I see nothing that indicates the Start11 app won’t launch when called explicitly. In fact, I see nothing that says this reading back into the changelog as far as I’d care to go (half-a-dozen screenfulls).

What About V1?

This is what makes things interesting. If you click on Start11 in the app list on the Start menu, it launched that app immediately. I’m a little non-plussed that a right-click manuever is needed on v2 to launch the app, but not in V1.

So I installed v2 on another test PC — the brand-new Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra that showed up here last week. Guess what? Opening the app works fine on that machine (as does the right-click trick as well. Something is wrong with the install on my Canary channel test PC, it seems. I’ll report into the Stardock Forums and see what they say. Stay tuned…things might get stranger still. We’ll see!

One More Thing…

On the P3 Ultra I noticed that Start11 shows up in WinGet. So I updated all outstanding items on the Lenovo ThinkPad X380 (my other Start11 v2 test PC). Then I tried the old uninstall/reinstall maneuver on that PC. WinGet happily uninstalled the program, but I had to redownload and re-key the new instance from the Stardock website. But when I was done, the app once again worked as it was supposed to. Looks like the first upgrade broke something. Solved!

 

 

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Reinstall Solves Nvidia Driver Issue

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This morning, I noticed a new GeForce driver for the RTX 3070 Ti on my production system via the NVIDIA app. Perforce I installed same. Then the screen flashing started: on and off, and on and off, and … you get the idea. I’ve been here before, but usually when an old driver needs replacing. I tried to roll back (but the option didn’t light up) so I used the REINSTALL facility you see at the upper right of the lead-in graphic. I’m happy to report that such a reinstall solves NVIDIA driver issue. The blinking/flashing is fixed. Good-oh!

Why Reinstall Solves Nvidia Driver Issue

When a graphics driver misbehaves  — as in going into blink mode — it’s usually because the driver itself is messed up. Or it might be that communications between the driver and the device aren’t working properly. Either way, something needs to change.

Ordinarily I’d use the rollback facility on the Driver tab for the RTX 3070 Ti to revert back to the previous version. But, as you can see in the next screencap, the “Roll Back Driver” button is greyed out. Alas, that means there’s nothing to roll back to. Looks like the new NVIDIA app doesn’t keep old driver versions around. What to do?

Because it’s greyed out, I can’t use Roll Back Driver.

Fortunately, as you can see in the lead-in graphic, the NVIDIA app offers a REINSTALL option for the current driver. Because the installed version was blinking I figured I had nothing to lose by giving REINSTALL a try. So I did just that.  Just to make sure everything got replaced, I also checked the installer’s Clean Installation option. And fortunately for me, it worked!

The desktop is back to normal, and the blinking is behind me now. All’s well that ends well in Windows-World, especially when it comes to misbehaving graphics drivers.

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

Recall Gets October Retry Date

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OK, then. If you’re anything like me, one big impetus for trying out a Snapdragon-based Copilot+ PC was to experience Recall. This tracks all Windows interactions and provides a … wait for it … window into your Windows usage patterns and history. Alas, it also raised severe security concerns. That’s why it got scrubbed just before Copilot+ PCs appeared about two months back (June18). Now, MS says that Recall gets October retry date. It’s explained in a Windows Experience blog post updated today (August 21).

Wait for It Again: Recall Gets October Retry Date

I’m guessing this will coincide with the official public release for Windows 11 24H2, for which Copilot+ PCs are already the standard bearer. The real news is that MS will be offering an opt-in preview of Recall to members of the Windows Insider Program “in the coming weeks” ahead. That means hardy souls — including your humble author — will volunteer themselves to give Recall a try, and see what it can do for them (and report on related slings and arrows encountered).

MS intends to address security concerns as follows: “Recall snapshots will only be decrypted and accessible when the user authenticates,” in keeping with the company’s Secure Future Initiative (SFI). This should be interesting. I can’t wait. Hopefully, Recall will return sooner rather than later. Whatever happens, I’ll keep you posted…

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Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra Intake

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When Lenovo asked me if I’d like to review another one of their well-engineered SFF PCs last week, my immediate reply was “Heck yeah!” The ThinkStation P3 Ultra Small Form Factor Workstation showed up lateThursday. I got to unboxing and setup over the weekend. So far, it’s been a gas, but a bit of a mixed blessing. Let me explain…

Working Thru Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra Intake

I’ve looked at a couple of recent Copilot+ PCs (Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x and ThinkPad T14s) and a couple of other late 2023/early 2024 laptops in the last 12 months. All of them included plastic-free packaging.  Thus, I was SHOCKED to see plastic bags and plastic twist ties in the P360 Ultra packing materials. That was my first clue this is no bleeding edge PC.

My next big clue came when I opened Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > USB and found no USB4 hubs in evidence. In fact, I had to revert to the old Thunderbolt Control Center (TBCC) to see (some of) my faster USB4/Thunderbolt4 devices and connections. Here’s a screencap:

My newest USB4 NVMe enclosures didn’t show up in TBCC, but the 2022 Acasis model did. Go figure!

I have two newer USB4/TB4 NVMe enclosures (Konyead and Maiwo models) that don’t pop up in TBCC. Because they DO show up on the Copilot+ PCs in the USB4 hierarchy, and I can observe they run at higher speeds, I know they’re working OK. But it’s a bit distressing to lack the level of insight and monitoring I get on USB4-capable Windows 11 PCs.

Speeds, Feeds, and So Forth…

These are, however, pretty darn minor as quibbles go. The P3 Ultra is a speedy and capable PC in a nicely compact package. Indeed, as equipped, it retails for about US$2,500 so it’s no lightweight by any estimation. Here’s what’s inside:

  • CPU: Intel 13th-Gen/Raptor Lake 19-13900 (24 cores)
  • RAM: 64 GB (2x32GB DDR5-5600 Hynix)
  • OS: Windows 11 Pro Version 23H2
  • Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 770/NVIDIA RTX A2000 12GB
  • Networking: Intel I225-LM 2.5 GbE and I210 GbE,  Intel AX211 Wi-Fi6 adapter (with external antenna)
  • Storage: Hynix OEM PCIe x4/Gen4 2TiB NVMe SSD, 1 open M.2 slot, 1 open SATA slot
  • USB ports: 2xUSB-C/USB4-TB4 40 Gbps front, 2xUSB-A 3.2 back, 1 front
  • 3xDisplayPort 1.2 ports (both miniDP and full-sized)
  • PSU: External 300W power brick

This is a nicely-equipped PC for sure, but its lack of Wi-Fi7, USB4, older DP version (1.2) and packing materials that include a tiny bit of plastic all speak to 2023 standards. And indeed, a quick check on the release date says May 2023. It is what it is, and what it is is a fast and fairly powerful mini workstation. I’m glad to have it here.

Set-up and Intake Process

Once I got the P3 Ultra plugged in and attached mouse and keyboard (included) and wired into a Lenovo ThinkVision P27u-20 monitor the OS came right up into a generic Admin user account. As is my wont I set up my usual MSA as another Admin account. Then came a slew of upgrades and updates, starting with this handful of Quality updates:

Then came a number (8) of driver updates:

I also perforce picked up the latest MSRT when I got the latest quality update. The whole process took about 15 minutes, including reboot and restart. Interestingly, Lenovo Vantage didn’t find anything new to add to the July 2 Intel Chipset update. But it just now found a new chipset and graphics driver so I’m installing them now (total time: 2 minutes plus reboot/under 3 minutes to get back via RDP).

Then I used PatchMyPC Home Updater plus a few manual installs to add 7-Zip, 8GadgetPack, Advanced IP Scanner v2, CPU-Z, CrystalDiskInfo, CrystalDiskMark 8, Everything, FileZilla, Chrome, HWiNFO64, Intel DSA, NotePad++, the NVIDIA (beta) app, Revo Uninstaller, and WizTree to my runtime environment. That took 15-20 minutes in all. I still have to install Macrium Reflect for backup, but I’m mostly ready to start working with and testing this PC. More will come soon, but what I see so far is fast and capable.

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Windows Sandbox Imposes Interesting Limits

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I read the other day in The Register that MS had dropped a new version of the Windows Sandbox. So naturally, I started messing around with it. I had to abandon a wild idea of using a Sandbox created environment as a base for WinGet export/import operations, too. I’ll explain why shortly. But I gave up because the Sandbox imposes interesting limits on its use, thanks in no small part to the absence of both WinGet and the MS Store from its runtime environment.

If Windows Sandbox Imposes Interesting Limits, Then What?

As you can see from the lead-in graphic, the Windows Sandbox is now available (and gets updates) from the Microsoft Store. One must still use Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features on or off to enable and install Sandbox. But after that, the Store takes over keep it up-to-date. Good stuff!

I quickly discovered that neither the MS Store nor WinGet were available inside the Sandbox. They also resisted my efforts to install and run them. That pretty much nixed my thought to use a Sandbox to make an export template. It’s hard to use WinGet export when the base command is itself MIA. Had to laugh, though…

Let Copilot ‘Splain It for Ya…

On a whim, I turned to the resident AI chatbot to help me understand what was going on. Here’s how it responded to the prompt: “Why is MS Store missing from Windows Sandbox?”

The Microsoft Store is indeed absent from Windows Sandbox. When you’re working within the sandbox environment, software remains “sandboxed” and runs separately from the host machine. Unfortunately, Windows Sandbox doesn’t include the Microsoft Store app or WinGet by default. To install applications, you’ll need to download the latest WinGet package from the WinGet releases page on GitHub1. If you’re specifically interested in using Microsoft Store apps within the sandbox, you can explore alternative virtual environment solutions that allow you to download apps from the Store2. Keep in mind that beginning with Windows 11 version 24H2, inbox store apps like Calculator, Photos, Notepad, and Terminal are also unavailable inside Windows Sandbox, but support for these apps will be added soon3

That pretty much put paid to my templating efforts, but it also taught me a thing or two about what Sandbox can and can’t do. I need a VM to make my vision a reality and will try that approach next. FWIW, I did try to bring WinGet into the Sandbox but kept running into underlying dependencies, also missing. Ultimately, it was more time and effort than I wanted to expend, so I decided to go the VM route instead.

It’s another case of “try it out, and see what happens” leading to a valuable learning experience here in Windows-World. Great fun, too!

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

MS Store Splits Updates & Library

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You can tell it’s been a busy week. I just now tried out the new Microsoft Store organization as of version 22407.1401.2.0. In that iteration, MS Store splits updates & library in the left-hand menu, as you can see in the lead-in graphic (lower left). The item is actually labeled Downloads when none are pending. You can see a down-arrow from the cloud symbol in that screencap (above Library) to show that updates are available. This makes it faster and easier to get to updates inside the Store, and to know when to do so. I like it!

When MS Store Splits Updates & Library…

Alas, it also did away with its settings controls inside the Store. No more three dots to the right of the user icon. I couldn’t even get Microsoft Store itself to come up inside the Microsoft Store. Instead I had to use WinGet list “Microsoft Store” inside Windows Terminal/PowerShell to show me which version was running on this Canary Channel PC:

Unable to access “About” info for the MS Store, I got it from WinGet instead.

This is a good change. And I also realized that because the Microsoft Store is pre-installed on modern Windows versions, there’s no “store page URL” available for that app itself. Instead, uninstallling and/or reinstalling requires some PowerShell magic, as explained in this MS Answers tutorial (from the always helpful Andre Da Costa).

That’s probably why I also had to turn to PowerShell and WinGet to obtain the current Microsoft Store version number, too. That’s the kind of thing that keeps life interesting, here in Windows-World.

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