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!

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

RingCentral Requires In-app Upgrade

May 30, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

In checking over my mini-fleet (1 dozen) of Windows PCs this morning, I came across an interesting winget gotcha. The tool cheerfully informed me RingCentral needed an upgrade. But neither a general upgrade (winget upgrade –all …) nor a targeted upgrade (winget upgrade RingCentral.RingCentral-v …) did the trick. Today, at least, it seems that RingCentral requires an in-app upgrade to bring itself up to snuff.

Why RingCentral Requires In-App Upgrade Is Anybody’s Guess

The whole story plays out in the lead-in screencap. It shows winget upgrade, as it includes RingCentral in its list of item in need of same. Then it shows the general upgrade (winget upgrade –all –include-unknown) updating 2 of those 3 items (excluding RingCentral). Then it shows a general RingCentral command (winget upgrade RingCentral.RingCentral), and a version specific invocation both failing with “No applicable upgrade found.” (If you can’t see it as-is, open the lead-in graphic in its own tab, please.)

So I opened the app and — guess what? — it cheerfully updated itself as part of its startup behavior. I searched the RingCentral knowledge base for insight, but found none.

Installed Apps Tells a More Nuanced Story…

In checking the target PC (one of my road laptops: a Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation) I found not one — but TWO — instances of RingCentral installed on that machine.

In addition to version 23.1.31.7242 — which winget told me I needed — I also found version 23.2.21.7380. Interesting!

I uninstalled the older version, and RingCentral no longer needs an upgrade but still launches. But alas, it no longer shows up in winget, either. Even more interesting. So I just went into the app and made sure it is working (it is) and that it’s running the advertised most current version 23.2.21.7280 (it is).

But winget still shows “No installed package found matching input criteria.” Looks like this version does not register with winget. It doesn’t show up in SUMo, either. But the 23.1.31.7242 version DID show up in “winget list ringcentral” in the earlier screencap. So I think we’re dealing with something new from the developer for which a winget package is not yet defined. Again: interesting! My first time to see something like this.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 11

Windows 11 User Count Tops 1B Worldwide

May 29, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

This news comes from the Microsoft Windows Blogs dated May 26. It’s entitled “Delivering Delightful Performance for More Than One Billion Users Worldwide.” That’s the day after Build 2023 concluded, and the first time that MS has publicly disclosed user count data for Windows 11 in about a year. It’s also the first time they’ve proclaimed that the Windows 11 user count tops 1B worldwide.

These are the four instances in the afore-linked item where the “billion” word occurs:
1. In the title of the blog post, as quoted in the preceding ‘graph
2. In a sentence that reads (in part) as “... with over one billion users and a rich PC ecosystem…”
3. Diagnostic data includes “…over 70.4 billion scenario performance data points per year.”
4. Final paragraph, penultimate sentence reads (in part) “…thanks to our Windows Insider community for helping us continue to improve Windows for the over one billion users worldwide.”

What Windows 11 User Count Tops 1B Worldwide Means

According to Statista, as of June 2023, the company expects a ratio of 68.6% for Windows 10 vis-a-vis 18.12% for Windows 11. Thus, if there are 1 B Windows 11 users, there must also be around 3.78 B Windows 10 users. To me this means one of two things:

(a) The ratio of visitors that Statista tracks doesn’t accurately model the Windows population of active users
(b) Microsoft’s claimed 1 B figure does not translate to active users 1-to-1 (makes sense, given that one active user can run multiple instances of the OS, especially VMs)

In January 2023, for example, Jason Wise reported at EarthWeb that MS claimed 1.4 B active devices running Windows 10 and 11 monthly in January 2022. They use this data, plus additional insights, to assert that “Windows, new versions and otherwise, run on more or less 1.6 billion devices around the world” as of January 2023.

Even assuming a monthly growth rate of 3% that puts the global Windows population at 1.85 B in May, 2023. How can there be at or over 1 B Windows 10 users and a similar number of 11 users with a total that’s arithmetically lower? Something here doesn’t make sense…

It should be interesting to see the pundit corps chew this over. Stay tuned, and I’ll keep you posted…

Note Added 1 Hour Later…

It’s got to be devices, counting both physical and virtual machines as individual devices. I use 10 PCs here at my house, and I have at least another dozen VMs across various Windows versions at my disposals. That’s over 20 “devices” but only one user. That leaves room for a tangible “muliplier” between users and devices, IMO.

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Security, WED Blog

Zoom Restores Unpaid Update Capability

May 26, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Let me first confess: I don’t know exactly when the change I report here actually occurred. What I do know is that I reported last October (2022) that the free version of Zoom no longer offered a “Check for Updates” option in its free version’s user menu. It’s highlighted in the red box in the lead-in graphic at right. Because my son is back home from college, I accidentally logged into Zoom on his (free) account yesterday, and saw that the same update item was present. Good-oh!

Glad Zoom Restores Unpaid Update Capability

If you read my earlier post, you’ll see I dinged the Zoom developers for making update a paid-only capability. Why? Because that approach fosters the possibility of security exposures for the class of users that stick to the free version. I took it as a deliberate strategy to force that class to trade security against cost. That’s not good.

Given what I discovered yesterday, I take it all back. Zoom is now doing the right thing. It may have been doing so for some time without my knowledge. That IS good, and I thank them for reversing the earlier development decisions that made users choose between more cost, better security and lower cost, lower security (or more work, to get around that limitation).

Indeed, as I mentioned in my October 2022 post, users could always uninstall an outdated version, then install the current one. This would bring them back to par, and let them benefit from any security patches or fixes in the newer version. Now, thanks to Zoom’s decision to reinstate the “Check for Updates” menu item — and its supported auto-download and -install capabilities — such contortions are unnecessary. Once again: good! And thanks again to Zoom for taking the right path, regardless of exactly when that occurred.

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Updates, WED Blog

Updating Intel Processor ID Utility

May 25, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Hmmmm. Here’s an interesting one. SUMo just told me that the Intel Processor Identification Utility (Legacy Model) needs an update. Poking around on the Intel site, I found a download page that covers Intel processors by generation: the new one goes Gen 12 and up; the old one Gen 11 and down. The old one appears beneath the new in the lead-in graphic, so it’s the one I downloaded and installed. That got me through Updating Intel Processor ID Utility on my i7 Skylake.

Why Bother Updating Intel Processor ID Utility?

The latest version of the new utility is 5/22/2023. The legacy one that works for my i7 Skylake shows a date of 5/17/2023 on the General Properties tab for the ProcID.exe file. That means it’s the latest and greatest of such files. I’m not aware of any security or other issues that the new version fixes. I’m just in the habit of updating as new versions come out. It runs just fine on the production PC. Here, for example, is the “CPU Technologies” info from that tool:

CPU Technologies show instructions, virtualization, sleep and other state info support (or not).

Intel Always Makes Updates Interesting

I feel lucky this morning that the landing page for Processor ID Utility took me to the update I needed. Sometimes, they don’t make it totally easy or simple to find the latest versions. Indeed, searching on version number (6.10.29.0517) didn’t work all that well for me. But this tool has an “Update” button subordinate to its Help menu. Now that I know this is an option, I bet it will work immediately next time around. That’s what makes updates interesting in general (and Intel in particular): there’s almost always a way to get a boost from the developer, if you know where and how to look for same. Sigh.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 10

Concluding Windows 10 22H2 Non-Security Preview

May 24, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

There’s an interesting tidbit in the Support Note for KB5026435, released May 23, 2023. Indeed, it is the concluding Windows 10 22H2 non-security preview release, ever. It goes so far as to say “no more” such releases are forthcoming. In a way, this marks the beginning of the end for Windows 10, whose EOL date is 10/14/2025 (about 17.5 months from today). As you can see from the lead-in graphic, I just installed it onto my sole remaining Windows 10 production desktop.

Sussing Out the Concluding Windows 10
22H2 Non-Security Preview

MS elaborates further on the future release scheduling for Windows 10 in the afore-linked Support Note. It says:

Only cumulative monthly security updates (known as the “B” or Update Tuesday release) will continue for these versions. Windows 10, version 22H2 will continue to receive security and optional releases.

Here’s what I think this means:

22H2 is the final release for Windows 10 (unless something big changes).
No more second (4th) Tuesday preview releases for Windows 10 22H2.
There may be some second (4th) Tuesday security and optional releases from time to time.

The inescapable conclusion is that Windows 10 is now purely in “maintenance mode.” That means we’re unlikely to see more (or at least, precious few) Windows 11 features “back-ported” into 10.

Take it as a signal, business users. MS is clearly warning you that it’s time to start planning the transition to Windows 11 (or beyond). It should be interesting to see how this plays out between now and mid-October 2025. Stay tuned, and I’ll opine further on what’s up, what’s hot, and what’s not.

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

Old-School Gadgets Still Rule

May 23, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I read a Windows Latest story yesterday with interest and bemusement. It proclaims that MS is “bringing … Vista-like gadgets to Windows 11…” Of course, these are widgets (not gadgets, per se) and I don’t see them in the same light, either. I’m still happily using Helmut Buhler’s excellent 8GadgetPack, as you can see in the lead-in graphic. For me, these old-school gadgets still rule — as they have done on my desktops since Vista appeared in early 2007 (16 years ago).

Why Old-School Gadgets Still Rule

The range of still-available gadgets is large (61 total on the “Add Gadget” display). It offers elements for time, CPU, GPU, storage, and networking status and activity. Lots of pop-ups for news, weather, games, media and other interesting services. There’s more here, in fact, than I want or need on my desktop.

Here are the four elements I use all the time on nearly all of my Windows 10 and 11 PCs and laptops (they appear in-line at the right-hand side of my left-screen’s desktop; here I stack them 2×2):

Clockwise from top left, these are:
1. Clock gadget: shows machine name and time (with seconds)
2. Control gadget: provides ready access to shutdown and restart, even in RDP sessions (very handy)
3. Network Meter: shows int/ext IP addresses, in- & out-bound network activity (on graph and numerically)
4. CPU Usage: shows overall CPU and memory consumption, along with per-core activity levels.

So far, I haven’t seen Windows 11 widgets that come close to matching this kind of capability with minimal overhead and effort required for installation and use. I’ll keep my eyes on widgets as they develop and evolve. But so far, the old-school gadget still beats the new-school widget three ways from Sunday. Stay tuned: this may change!

Cool Tools, PowerShell, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Deciphering PowerShell History Commands

May 22, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Whoa! I just spent an enjoyable half-hour learning about the various PowerShell command line history viewing and editing tools. This comes courtesy of OhMyPosh creator Jan De Dobbeleer (@jandedobbeleer) on Twitter. Deciphering PowerShell history commands, in my case, involved a fair amount of interesting play and learning in a Terminal session. As you can see from the lead-in graphic, I had fun manipulating my command history (and then, updated OhMyPosh to catch up my test system).

When Deciphering PowerShell History Commands, Do This…

The operative way to understand PS history management is as a series of prefixes to “-history” at the command line — namely:

get: shows current PS command line history as stored for display
clear: clears current PS command line history
add: allows you to import a predefined command history from a file

There’s a lot more to managing history than you might think, as described in this MS Learn reference on the Clear-History command. Indeed you can tailor the history based on commands by number (from top or bottom of the history list, using -Count and other options) or by content (using the -CommandLine option and string-matching facilities).

Wait! There’s an Add-History, Too

You can save a representative command history by piping get-history into a CSV file. Later on, Add-History lets you import that file’s contents to imbue the current command history into your current PowerShell context. See this reference for more info.

Working with PowerShell history commands is great fun, actually. I’d suggest visiting the afore-linked references to take things for a spin. I find it useful to clear the history after such learning adventures (or after making mistakes at the command line that I’d just as soon forget…).