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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11, Windows OS Musings

Possible A/B Icon Test in Dev Build 22598

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OK then, I’ve got different behaviors in the clean install version of Build 22598 (one PC) and upgraded versions (two PCs). The lead graphic shows my post at ElevenForum about this phenomenon, and includes the different icon styles I’m seeing. One version, I’ve learned is called “combined icons” (I refer to them as “expanded” in my post) and the other “uncombined icons” (ditto for “compact”). The guru consensus at ElevenForum is that there’s a possible A/B icon test in Dev Build 22598. Makes sense to me!

What Possible A/B Icon Test in Dev Build 22598 Means

Simply put, it would mean that some machines would manifest “combined icons” while others would show “uncombined icons.” That is what appears to be up. But the announcement post, and its subsequent revisions for .100 and .200 CUs make no mention of such. I’m puzzled.

What is clear, however,  is that I can’t find any Taskbar personalization control that lets me turn this feature off (or on). So I’m hoping I’ll find a registry hack to let me take control. We’ll see.

The Mystery Continues . . .

If you take a look at the ElevenForum post on this topic, you’ll see nobody in the community knows what’s up for sure. The A/B test scenario, however likely, is sheer speculation. That said, I have no better explanation.

Stay tuned. I’m casting my inquiries broader afield. If I learn something worth adding, it’ll show up here. If not, we can all keep wondering what’s up. It’s good exercise!

[Added Late Afternoon April 19]

Turns out it was Start11 working behind the scenes that caused this issue. I also had the combined terminology completely backwards: combined means no accompanying text, never combined means always accompanying text. Here’s the setting I changed in Start11 to fix my issue:

Once I selected “Always” for combined, I got the streamlined compact icons I was looking for. My profound thanks to Shawn Keene, fellow WIMVP, who pointed me in exactly the right direction. Fixed!

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

Blinking Monitor Requires Nvidia Studio Driver

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Yesterday, my production PC (Windows 10, i7-6700, 32GB RAM, 3070 Ti GPU) started the “blinking thing” again. As soon as I logged in, the right-hand monitor would go black then come back at irregular intervals. Previous episodes have responded to a driver update. But this time, no such update was handy. But my 3070 Ti runs either a gaming (for game play and high frame rates) or studio (for creative and production work) version. This time, fixing the blinking monitor required Nvidia Studio Driver to do its thing.

Why Is It That Blinking Monitor Requires Nvidia Studio Driver?

This issue has been popping up on my production PC since I switched out the 1070 Ti for the oversized 3070 Ti in January. I’m starting to wonder if my power supply may be having issues with the load on this system.

Reliability monitor doesn’t show any errors. But a dive into Event Viewer shows a Service Control Error 7031 that points to the Nvidia Local System Container at around the times I was getting the blink behavior. Since I’ve switched from the Gaming version of the driver to its Studio counterpart, the error has not resurfaced. Looks like it may be some kind of software glitch after all.

GeForce Experience lets you switch between the two driver flavors pretty easily. Simply click the vertical ellipsis to the right of the Check for Updates item and it gives you a radio button to pick one or the other, like so:

Fortunately for me, switching from”Game Ready” to “Studio” restored my system to proper operation. Good thing I’m not a serious gamer, eh?

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Letters from the Ed, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns

Working Through Writer’s Block

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Today is Easter Sunday here in Central Texas. I took my constitutional a bit later than usual, leaving the house just before 11 AM local time. While walking, I had the pleasure of listening to the “Arts Hour” on the BBC World Service on my iPhone. Unexpectedly, I listened through a brief interview with Aaron Sorkin (creator of The West Wing, and lots of other TV shows and movies). When asked about his issues with writing he responded something like this: “The problem is not with writing; it’s with NOT writing.” I found myself laughing out loud, because in the past couple of weeks I found myself working through writer’s block to finish what turned out to be an interesting project.

Working Through Writer’s Block Pays Off

Like many other writers, I do sometimes get stuck. My biggest problem is getting started on a project. When I don’t feel 100% prepared, when I’m not completely comfortable with the subject matter, or when I know a project includes lots of “hard labor” I tend to put such projects off. And then, sometimes, I put them off some more.

This last time around, I had to postpone a delivery because of a severe allergy attack that laid me up over the weekend. When Monday rolled around, I put it off until Tuesday. That turned into Wednesday, and so forth until Friday was staring me in the face.

Getting Unstuck May Require a Push

Confession, it is said, is good for the soul. Thus, upon finding myself profoundly stuck I called my senior editor. I’ve worked with the same team for 3-4 years now, so we know each other well. I simply fessed up and said: “I’ve got writer’s block. How can I get started?”

The advice turned out to be just what I needed to break my logjam. The editor said two things:

1. Start in the middle
2. The outline is 3,500 words and the piece is 4,500-5,500 words. How can this be a problem?

He was right. As soon as I read the outline and re-read some source material, I knew what I needed to do. I skipped the intro (which had been stopping me) and started with Part 1. It did take me two full days to write the piece after that, but I did get it finished. Thank goodness.

Other Sources of Help

Turns out there are lots of places to turn for good advice on beating writer’s block. A quick Google search turns up some real gems including:

Jeff Goins: How to Overcome Writer’s Block: 14 Tricks That Work
Penguin Random House: 10 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block
ReedsyBlog: Writer’s Block: 10 Ways to Defect a Writer’s Worst Enemy
R.L. Stine: 6 Tips for Overcoming Writer’s Block

And believe me, there’s plenty more where that came from. Turns out that asking for help (and talking to a friend) is pretty close to the top of  most of the preceding (and other) lists. Fundamentally, you need to break out of whatever has you stuck. If one thing doesn’t work, try another — and keep trying until you get writing again.

Works for me, anyway…

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

22598 Insider ISO Download Available

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That didn’t take long. Build 22598 in the Dev Channel made its debut on April 13 (yesterday). Today (April 14) it’s already available for download on the Windows Insider Preview Downloads page.  {Note: eagle-eyed reader and fellow WIMVP David H Johnson tells me the ISO and the WU version appeared at the same time.] The lead-in graphic above, shows 22598 Insider ISO download available. Of course, users must sign in with a valid Insider MSA (Microsoft Account) to gain access.

22598 Insider ISO Download Available: Grab It!

This was the source I used last weekend for the clean install on my “troubled” X380 Yoga. I ended up with an earlier version because of the timing. Nevertheless it worked like a charm. I’m in the habit of keeping ISOs together on my Ventoy drive, so I have going on 30 (mostly Windows OS) images all together on one easy-to-search external drive.

And because that drive is a USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 enclosure with a nominal 256 GB NVMe SSD inside, it does a reasonably good job of providing ready and quick access to its contents. The whole thing cost me about US$100 in late 2020 (you can buy the same thing for under US$75 now). It’s definitely proved its worth to me many,  many times since I put all the pieces together (read more about its innards in this December 2020 post: Interesting Single-Builder SSD Benefits.

Doing the Download Thing

After specifying my version and language in the download GUI, I grabbed a copy of the 22598 ISO from the web page. It took about 7 minutes to arrive in toto —  longer than most such transfers take me. Watching it make its way onto my C: drive, I can only speculate that traffic levels are higher than normal. Indeed a quick hop to Fast.com showed Internet speeds all over the place on my local cable loop, ranging from a low of 250 Mbps to a high of 650 on my 940 Mbps (max speed) connection.

But once you have the ISO you can use it for DISM repairs, an in-place repair install, or even — as I did recently — a clean reinstall. Handy!

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows OS Musings

.NET 3.5 Falls Outside Pending EoS

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Last Friday, I posted about impending End of Service (EoS) dates for some particular .NET releases. As shown in the lead-in graphic, .NET Framework version 4.6.1, 4.6 and 4.5.2 are all slated to go EoS on April 26 (13 days in the offing, as I write this item). That said, .NET 3.5 falls outside pending EoS (the SP1 version, anyway) as shown in red in that same graphic.

What .NET 3.5 Falls Outside Pending EoS Really Means

It turns out there’s a LOT of software that still leans heavily on .NET version 3.5 SP1. Because older software — some dating back to Vista and Windows 7 eras — requires this .NET version to run, MS packaged this particular .NET version as a standalone product with its own release and support schedule. Again, a look at the lead-in graphic shows that version 3.5 SP1 doesn’t hit EoS until January 9, 2029, nearly 7 years later than any other known EoS dates.

From older versions of Visual Studio, to a wide range of older, but still-used applications, .NET 3.5 is apparently far from moribund. To me, the VS connection is particularly telling, because it speaks to custom apps — many built in-house at companies and organizations to meet specific or proprietary needs — that benefit from an extended lease on life.

Where’s Your Favorite .NET Version in This Mix?

If you look at the Microsoft Docs Lifecycle page for the Microsoft .NET Framework, you’ll find the source for the graphic at the head of this story. MS updates this info from time to time, adding new versions and obsoleting older ones. I’m a little bemused to see that my Update History makes reference to a “2022-04 .NET 6.0.4 Update for x64 Client” (KB5013437). Though I can find an MS Catalog entry for this update and a set of .NET Release Notes that mention versions 6 and 7, only this document provides EoS dates for 7 (November 2023) and 6 (November 2024). Makes me wonder why all this info isn’t also consolidated on the Lifecycle page. Go figure!

Bottom line: I was wrong in my Friday posting in presuming version 3.5 SP1 was also slated for EoS along with the other 4.x versions named above. As you can plainly see in the graphic, 3.5 is around for some while yet. Live and learn!

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

BitLocker Follies Follow Secure Boot

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To qualify for Windows 11, a PC must support Secure Boot. It doesn’t necessarily have to be turned on. But if it is turned on, I learned last week that BitLocker follies follow secure boot like ducklings follow their Momma. In other words: if BitLocker is turned on for the C: (Windows boot/system) drive, it must also be turned on for the File History drive that Windows 11 uses as well.

What Does BitLocker Follies Follow Secure Boot Mean?

I learned this hard way when I tried to turn File History on for my Lenovo X12 Thinkpad PC. Because it had secure boot turned on, I had to enable BitLocker for the external drive upon which I targeted File History. This immediately got me to climbing an “interesting” learning curve.

While summiting that slope, I learned the following things:

1. You can’t manipulate an external drive’s BitLocker status through RDP. For security reasons, you must be directly logged into the target system. Sigh.

2. Turning BitLocker on requires setting a password to obtain or deny access to its encryption/decryption capabilities. This makes good sense, but gives me “just one more thing” to remember. Sigh again.

3. At first, BitLocker encryption looks fast. It got up to 84-85% complete in minutes. To my dismay and disappointment, the final 15-16% took HOURS to complete. By no coincidence whatsoever, space consumed on the drive is between 15 and 16%, too. It took the better part of 6 hours for the encryption to finish, in fact (0.71 TB worth).

4. Now, when I want to access the encrypted drive, I must first open it in Explorer, and unlock it by providing its password.

It’s All Good . . . I Hope

At least I now understand the necessary relationship between Secure Boot, BitLocker, and File History. I hope I don’t need to go a-troubleshooting soon. But if I must, I will. Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted.

 

 

 

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Clean Install Succeeds Where Beta Promotion Fails

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For the past couple of Dev Channel builds, I’ve been trying — and failing — to get my Beta Channel test PC promoted to the Dev Channel. For Builds 22593 and 22581 the tap had been opened to upgrade from Beta to Dev Channel. But on my Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga (8th Gen i7, 16 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD) it didn’t work. After many hours of dithering about, a clean install succeeds where Beta promotion fails. Let me explain…

Why Clean Install Succeeds Where Beta Promotion Fails

Wiping the primary system/boot drive was apparently the ticket to success. Given that I seemed to have mystery driver issues, starting over with a clean slate has finally set things right. And indeed, it was a rough and time-consuming ride along the way. Ultimately it took less than 35 minutes to perform the clean install itself. Alas, though, it always takes longer to put all the apps and settings back the way I want them from a clean slate. That’s life!

Interesting Lessons Learned

This is my first clean Windows 11 install since the new OS showed up in mid-2021. I had to be reminded that the BitLocker ID associated with the key needed to enable a USB-based install comes from the device. I spent a while trying to provide the wrong key, because I didn’t start by matching the Key ID value to the Device Name. Only then did I find and enter the right recovery key. Sigh.

I also learned that Norton’s external drive scan function takes FOREVER to complete. I let it run for 1:15 out of curiosity, but that was already too long for me to wait to move onto my next step. So I cancelled the scan (which took no time at all, thank goodness) and went onto the clean install.

Performing the clean install was remarkably quick. It included the option of defining a machine name near the tail end, too (something new to me). That was an opportunity I grabbed gratefully, and saved myself a bit of time moving ahead into post-install efforts.

Bottom line: I’m incredibly grateful to have this machine back where it needs to be. It’s nice not to have the mystery 0XC1900101 error hanging over my PC (and my head) any longer. I’d love to know what caused it, and how to fix it, but I never got enough data to make that happen. That said, it’s nice to know the “repair of last resort” — namely a clean install — still does the trick when other techniques come up short.

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Security, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows OS Musings

Various .NET Versions Facing EoS Soon

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On April 4, an End of Support notice surfaced in  the MIcrosoft Message Center. Its initial text appears in the lead-in graphic for this story above. A quick summary of its contents is that various .NET versions facing EoS soon. The version numbers involved are 4.5.2, 4.6 and 4.6.1 runtime. MS recommends that affected PCs update to .NET Framework 4.6.2 before April 26, 2022. No updates or security patches will be issued for those versions after that date.

If Various .NET Versions Facing EoS Soon, Then What?

This is an issue only if certain applications still in use employ those older .NET versions, and they themselves haven’t yet been upgraded to use a newer one. As I look at the relevant folder in my production  Windows 10 desktop — namely:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework

these are the folders that I see

If I understand how this works correctly, all versions lower than 4.0 reflect older .NET versions currently installed on this PC. Thus by reading the version numbers for those folders you can see that 5 such versions are installed, from v1.0.3705 through v3.5.

On the other hand, if you display properties for any .dll file in the V4.0.30319 folder, you’ll see what version of .NET is currently present, to wit:The Product Version line reads 4.8.4084.0, and tells me that I’ve got the latest and greatest .NET version installed here, as well as the earlier versions already mentioned.

What To Do About Impending Retirements?

If you’re using no software that depends on earlier .NET versions, you need do nothing. OTOH, if some of your software does depend on them you must decide if you’ll keep using it and risk possible security exposure, or find an alternative that isn’t subject to such risk. For my part, I recommend the latter approach, unless there’s no other choice. And in that case, the safest thing to do would be to run such software in the MIcrosoft Sandbox as a matter of prudent security policy. ‘Nuff said!

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Build 22593.1 Fails Beta Promotion

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Drat! I’d feared this might happen, and it did. As you can see from the lead-in graphic, waiting for a new Dev Channel build on my second Lenovo Yoga X380 did no good. It, too, failed to upgrade with error code 0xC1900101. Thus, for that PC, Build 22593.1 fails beta promotion, just as with the previous build .

That leaves me with two potential paths to follow:

  1. Find a fix for, and repair the cause of the error
  2. Wipe the PC and use a current ISO to perform a clean install

I haven’t had much luck with Path #1, so I’ll probably give Path #2 a shot this weekend. I wish I knew what was causing the error.

Why Build 22593.1 Fails Beta Promotion

I am not alone in this error. Both Windows Report and The Windows Club have stories about this very error in their recent output. Reasons for this error vary, and can include the following:

  • Insufficient disk space on the target device to accommodate upgrade files and working space
  • Issues with non-essential peripherals (drives, scanners, and so forth)
  • Outdated BIOS
  • Incompatible device drivers
  • Third party AV or antimalware programs
  • “Software conflicts” with installed third party programs

As far as I can tell I may have a driver issue. But I can’t find proper details in the various log files to know for sure what’s up. I’m pretty sure I’m not subject to any of the other potential causes.

Clean Install Offers Easy (Potential) Out

Although there’s work involved after a clean install to bring the apps and applications back, this may be worth trying. I’ve spent hours and hours — unsuccessfully, so far — chasing after one or more errant drivers. I can get through a clean install in under an hour, once I have the ISO file built and ready to rock’n’roll.

Stay tuned! This promises to be interesting. . . I’ll report back as soon as I have some news.

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

Ventoy 1.0.73 Requires Interesting Contortions

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When I saw a new version of Ventoy came out this morning, I immediately went to update my drive with the new software. It runs on an AData 256 GB (nominal) M.2 SSD inside a Sabrent NVMe enclosure. For some odd reason, the update function did not work properly. Digging into the log, I see the program had trouble writing the new EFI files to the Vtoyefi partition where the program does its boot magic. Indeed, installing Ventoy 1.0.73 requires interesting contortions for me to achieve success. I’ll explain…

What Ventoy 1.0.73 Requires Interesting Contortions Means

First, I backed up the contents of the Ventoy drive, which shows up as E: on my production desktop. Then I tried to use the Install function in the program to over-write the existing disk structures. No go. I switched over to a newer PC, where I was able to cable up using a high-speed USB-C cable into the Sabrent enclosure. Then, I performed a clean install of Ventoy 1.0.73 on the target drive. That worked!

Of course, then I had to go back to my production PC to restore the backup. The whole process ended up taking about half an hour to complete, of which time the bulk went to creating and then restoring a backup of the 28 ISOs in the Ventoy (E:) partition.

Speculation Reigns Supreme

I must confess I don’t know why the update function failed this time around. I’ve not seen this happen before with Ventoy. That said, I’m not surprised that a vintage-2016 PC with USB 3.1 drivers might have trouble with a device that works with USB 3.2 (and Thunderbolt 3) drivers. And indeed, when I hooked up to a device that supported those newer drivers, everything worked as expected.

That’s why I’m thinking something went weird with the USB drivers when the program attempted to rewrite the 32 MB FAT based EFI partition from which Ventoy works its magic. That’s the part that wouldn’t update on the older PC, but which installed flawlessly on the newer PC. If somebody else has a better explanation, please share. But when the next Ventoy update comes out, I’m going to run it from the newer PC. I’ll bet it runs faster that way, too, thanks to those newer — and faster — USB 3.2/Thunderbolt 3 drivers it uses.

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