Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Macrium Reflect Swamps CPU Short-Term

March 29, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Whoa there! I couldn’t help but notice that my production PC slowed briefly to a crawl this morning. A not-so-welcome first, in fact. A quick jump to Task Manager showed me the Macrium Reflect Backup tool was the culprit, with CPU utlization stuck north of 75%. It took about 5 minutes to subside to normal levels. This tells me quite a lot, but let’s start with the blunt observation that Macrium Reflect swamps CPU short-term.

Note: I cheated on the lead-in graphic. It’s from a much older PC where it’s frightfully easy to swamp that CPU. Notice all four cores are pegged at 100% utilization in the ever-handy CPU Usage gadget. I have 8 threads on 4 cores on the i7-Skylake production unit, and they were all likewise pegged at 100%, albeit for a short time. Thus, I saw what I show here, doubled, as that PC bogged down.

What Does Macrium Reflect Swamps CPU Short-Term Mean?

Good question. Beyond the inescapable fact that this program — which was running my daily 9AM backup when this happened — brought my production PC to its knees, there’s more. Let me spell a few things out:

1. This is an i7-Skylake (6th gen) Intel CPU [3.4GHz], 32 GB RAM [DDR4-2133], 512 GB NVMe SSD [Samsung 950 Pro]. I built it in 2017-2018.
2. It’s not Windows 11 capable, so it’s running Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.2788: that’s the latest preview CU scheduled for general distribution on April Patch Tuesday.
3. It’s never hit the wall performance-wise before to my notice. I beat the beejesus out of this machine daily (there are 13 apps and 148 background processes running, with 4% CPU utilization, as I write this screed). Indeed, this PC (mostly) does what I need it to do.

But it’s old and somewhat out-dated. And I have a Ryzen 7 5800X in an Asrock B550 mobo ready to take over the production PC role. That leads me to a vital question:

Why Not Switch Over, Already?

I have lots of obvious answers including inertia, laziness, ongoing usability and the usual fiddle-faddle. But here’s the real reason, in succinct visual form:

Count ’em: 10 mounted physical drives (4 SSDs, 6 HDDs).
[Click image for full-sized view.]

This totals up to about a nominal 16TB of storage, of which 40% or so is occupied. Thus, we’re talking around ~6.5 TB of stuff, of which I need to keep at least 5TB’s worth. There’s going to be some thinking, planning, time and effort involved in moving my show to another PC. I’ll have to back everything up to another drive (an 8TB unit should do) and then figure how to map it into a new set of storage devices on the target PC. That should be interesting. I guess I’d better get started. This morning, I got my “early warning!”

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

Flaky Switch Prompts Mouse Hunt

March 28, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I can tell the end is near — for my Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500, that is. In this case, a flaky switch prompts mouse hunt for a replacement. What’s going on? Sometimes, when I click the mouse nothing happens. Sometimes, when I want to left-click once, it clicks twice — and even more annoyingly, vice-versa. Alas, this means the left-side contact switch is starting to fail. I’ve ridden enough meese into the dirt to recognize that this device is at end-of-life.

When Flaky Switch Prompts Mouse Hunt, Amazon Calls…

I have to laugh. It’s going to cost me a whole whopping US$12 to replace this unit. I always buy two, in fact, so I’ll have a spare if something goes wrong with the primary. I blush to confess, therefore, that when the previous primary went south and I fired up the secondary — the one I’m using now — I neglected to order an immediate replacement. That’s why I need to order two today. Just ordered!

I’m a great believer in keeping spares around — for everything. Indeed, if this current mouse dies before its replacement shows up, I’ve got a couple of Bluetooth meese (and corresponding USB3 dongles for my desktop) that I can use in the meantime. Ditto for network interfaces, removable storage, GbE cables and switches, keyboards and more. In my experience the only spare you really, really need is the one you forgot to order when the predecessor failed.

So far, things here at Chez Tittel are OK. As a Prime member, Amazon will get me both replacements tomorrow. I’m not worried. But it’s always good to stay on top of these things.

Cheers!

Note Added March 30 (Morning)

Amazon came through last night after I’d left home for my Wednesday evening pool league. The Boss left them sitting out on the kitchen island for me, so I saw them as soon as I walked into the house. It’s hard to overstate the satisfaction that near-instant gratification of one’s technology needs can deliver. I’ve already got one installed on my production PC. And now I have a ready spare as well. Good-oh!

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Remote Desktop (RDP), WED Blog, Windows 11

Remote Access Window Clips Seconds Display

March 27, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

It’s a “one step forward, one step back” situation. The latest Windows 11 Insider release to the Beta Channel brings optional seconds back to the Taskbar clock. But using a remote access windows clips seconds display, as shown in the lead-in graphic. I’ve posted a report about this to the feedback hub. Amusingly, it’s attracted an MS response from 3 months ago that says (in condensed form) “We fixed this in the Dev channel 3 months ago.” Uhhh … not really … I see it right there so it isn’t fixed.

Note: I included a snip of the Winver output from the Beta Channel Build 22624.1470 above the Taskbar clock to document its release of origin. You can see about half of the time read-out from that clock at the lower right (enough to tell that it says 11:51:45 AM, in fact).

Reporting Remote Access Window Clips Seconds Display

Here’s what I wrote to the Feedback Hub:

Text from my Feedback Hub report Friday 3/24

One more thing: when you make this change in Build 22624.1470, it doesn’t affect taskbar display until after a reboot. And indeed, upon rebooting the clock initially showed up initially sans seconds display. They showed up later on, as the PC went through its desktop initialization process after I’d logged in. That was kind of interesting, too…

What To Do About “the Clip?”

There’s not much one can do about this issue because Windows 11 still lacks icon size controls for the taskbar. From what I hear these controls are planned for inclusion in some upcoming Windows 11 release. If MS doesn’t get around to fixing this admittedly minor if not miniscule issue, access to icon sizing will probably take care of things at some later date.

I’ll also note that this issue does not occur when I log directly into that test machine (a Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga [8th-gen Intel CPU, Intel graphics, 16 GB RAM]). So it really is an issue with the way the Remote Desktop Connection application handles taskbar display at the moment. Just for grins, I also tried a connection through the Remote Desktop UWP app. For the record, it clips that window’s clock display, too. Thus, it looks like a taskbar height issue FWIW.

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

Still Behind USB4 Curve

March 24, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Drat! I’ve just upgraded my two Canary test PCs to build 25324. The announcement says “We are adding a USB4 hubs and devices Settings page…” But it had been on a gradual rollout, and I think that is still happening. Why do I say that? Because one of my test machines shows TB4 and USB4 in the Thunderbolt Control Center, but there’s no USB4 page in Settings on that machine. Sigh. Alas I think that means I’m still behind USB4 curve.

That’s what you see in the lead-in graphic above. It shows no USB4 hubs in DevMgr (left), the 25324 build (middle) and the TB4/USB4 items in the Thunderbolt Control Center (right).

If I’m Still Still Behind USB4 Curve, What Now?

It could be one of two things. I don’t have the right drivers loaded (I don’t think that’s the case, but it’s possible) or I don’t have any native USB4-equipped devices. Perhaps MS hasn’t rolled this update all the way out just yet, and my PCs are still on the trailing edge. Given my history with glomming onto new features, it’s darned likely to be the latter.

In the meantime, all I can do is wait for it to show up. I’m also going to reach out to my Lenovo contacts and see if they have any history with this capability on their end. I’ve got two pretty new machines (the P16 Mobile Workstation and the U360 Ultra SFF PC) that have leading-edge TB4/USB4 capabilities. Maybe I’ll have to load the 25324 image on one or both of them and see what comes up.

In the meantime, I’m just sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away… Wish me luck!

Concluding Note: If It’s Not There, It’s Not There…

OK, so I’m learning that USB4 support will show up inside Device Manager using the “Devices by connection” view. (See this informative MS Learn article for more info Introduction to the USB4 connection manager in Windows.) If your PC is properly outfitted you’ll see a series of entries that look like this:

⌄ USB4(TM) Host Router (Microsoft)
    › USB(TM) Root Device Router (Microsoft)
          USB4(TM) Device Router (Microsoft)

Alas, none of my PCs apparently have the right kinds of USB-C (or Type A) ports, because I can’t see this on any of them. Gives me a good excuse to ask for another Lenovo eval, I guess!

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Dev Channel 24319 Gotcha

March 23, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I have to laugh. I’m reading the Dev Channel Build 24319 announcement, and drooling over new features therein. Especially the USB4 Settings page, which has long been a hobby horse for me. But there’s a Dev Channel 24319 gotcha: I can’t upgrade to a back-rev release on a Canary PC (Build 25314). As I wrote in my March 15 post “Canary Escape Requires Clean Install,” the only way back down the Insider hierarchy is to blow everything away and start over. In a nutshell, that’s the gotcha!

That’s the Dev Channel 24319 Gotcha, All Right

The near-convergence of the build numbers is what got me all excited. The latest Canary channel build is 25314; the latest Dev channel number is 24319. Just one little (leading) digit is what’s getting in the way. The progression looked natural until I paid closer attention and saw that going from 25xxx to 24xxx makes a clean install the only way to get there from here.

I knew this already, but I didn’t really think it all the way through. I got smacked in the face with this harsh reality when I mounted the ISO for 24319 on a Canary machine and got the dialog box shown above early on in the install process. As always when a clean install is the only available option the “Nothing” radio button is the only one available — indeed, it lights up by default, as shown.

Will I, or Won’t I Take the Plunge?

Here’s the deal: I’ve got 35 applications installed on the Canary machine I’m thinking of demoting via clean install. That’s a chunk of work to redo, once the clean install completes. I really want to check out the USB4 capabilities (and indeed I even have a couple of USB4 NVMe enclosure with which to check them). But I probably don’t have time to tackle this for a while. Other deadlines loom larger at the moment.

And boy howdy, is that ever the way things go here in Windows-World sometimes. Can I get another big sigh?

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

SUMo Developer Pays Attention

March 22, 2023 Ed Tittel 2 Comments

If you’ve been reading my posts lately, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve complained — just a little — recently about the Software Update Monitor (SUMo) update utility. Over the weekend, the developer himself tweeted me to let me know he’d seen my input and fixed the issue. In fact, he agreed with me that SUMo shouldn’t be recommending a preview/beta version of ANY software. Hence my assertion that the SUMO developer pays attention. He does!

If SUMo Developer Pays Attention, Then What?

He obviously read my recent (Feb 27) post entitled “Update Semantics: Current versus Preview.” And indeed, SUMo is no longer recommending an update to pre-release versions of OneDrive. As you can see in the screencap at the head of this blog post, the current version is indeed recognized as the current version now. It’s highlighted in blue, and comes up with the same version I agree is the current one. Good-oh!

But What About CPU-Z?

I thought I’d caught him out again for asserting this week that CPU-Z needed an update. The download page reports it as version 2.0.5, but SUMo wants version 2.0.5.1. And, sure enough, upon downloading and updating the latest version from the home page, it self-reports as version 2.0.5 (no fourth digit). But after updating and looking at the readme file, here’s what it says:

Sure enough, it really IS version 2.0.5.1. Says so right there!

I’ll be darned. Sometimes the toolmakers know more than the owners/developers do — or what they report, anyway. Very interesting! My thanks to @KCSoftwares: it is nice to know somebody’s paying attention.

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

Intel ARC Drivers Arrive Via WU

March 21, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

There’s a new set of Intel ARC drivers for built-in GPUs (and of course, discrete ARC devices as well). How do I know this? I just updated one of my Canary Channel test machines. During that process, I saw the Intel ARC drivers arrive via WU (Windows Update). Until this morning, I had been obtaining them exclusively from the Intel Driver & Support Assistant.

You can see the information about this latest driver from its Intel download page above. Notice the version number: 31.0.101.4146.

How Do I Know Intel ARC Drivers Arrive Via WU?

Check out the driver version in my Update History from the X12 Hybrid Tablet, captured minutes ago. Compare the version number for the “Intel Corporation – Extension” item and you’ll see it’s identical to the version number from the Intel download page.

The name isn’t terribly helpful, but the version number tells me what I need to know.<\p>

What else I can tell you about this alternate method is that it’s MUCH faster than installing the driver (plus supporting software) from the Intel download page. It took only 20-30 seconds to complete. The full-blown Intel package takes minutes.

Does this mean I will occasionally need to visit the Intel page to update the Intel Graphics Command Center software? Nope. The IGCC that works with Intel GPUs is a Windows Store app. And it updates itself, either through routine checks, or when you try to run that app the next time after installing a new driver.

Hey! I might actually like this. It’s faster and less work that using the Intel Driver & Support Assistant. Good stuff, and good job: MS & Intel!

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

P16 Mobile Workstation Gets Accolades

March 20, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Flipping through the Windows news this morning, I was tickled. I saw the very same Lenovo P16 Mobile Workstation sitting next to my desk come up first in MS PowerUser‘s rankings of the best i9 laptops for 2023. That’s right: in this story, the P16 Mobile Workstation gets accolades. And it IS a beast: i9-12950HX, 2 TB NVMe, 128 GB RAM and NVIDIA RTX A5550 GPU.

Here’s Why P16 Mobile Workstation Gets Accolades

It’s got a lot of power. The P16 can tackle tremendous workloads. The cooling is enough to keep it going even when taxed (excellent heatpipes & fans). It’s modestly expandable (my grouse: keyboard must come out to access second M.2 slot for NVMe). It’s especially laden with ports and connections (2 USB-A, 2 USB-C, HDMI, as shown in the lead-in graphic).

There hasn’t been anything I’ve thrown at this machine that it hasn’t chomped its way through faster than any of the other PCs around here. It really, truly is a beast of a machine.

What Might Stop Such a Stellar Purchase?

The list price on this monster is US$9,763.00 as configured. But with current coupons and discounts, it could be yours for a mere US$5,369.65, according to the Lenovo Store. I would have to get special permission from the Chancellor of the Exchequer (my wife, Dina) and be feeling quite flush in the bank account to go forward with such a purchase. But man: what a machine!

It’s got superlative USB4 and Thunderbolt 4support. The P16 delivers superfast IO, internally and through those ports. It’s got a great display, and works like a champ. Given its price tag, you’d have to expect all those things. Totally awesome, though: I completely agree with the MS PowerUser assessment, and understand how and why it showed up first therein.

Who needs a machine like this? It’s not a gaming box. It’s aimed squarely at people who need a portable workstation for developing code, creating media, or handling major, intensive workloads (lots of VMs, AI/ML tasks, 3D modeling, and so forth). Those folks will typically look at the price, understand what the PC can do for their productivity and throughput, and think “Good value for the money.” ‘Nuff said…

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

Winget Suffers Blanche DuBois Effect

March 17, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

There’s a famous line in Tennessee Williams well-known play, A Streetcar Named Desire. It comes from trashy, tragic Blanche DuBois. It reads “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” I hope I’m not over-reaching in finding a connection between Blanche and Microsoft’s built-in package manager Winget. Why do I say that Winget suffers Blanche DuBois effect? Because third-party developers must provide package definitions so Winget can handle their updates. Some do, some don’t is my experience on this front.

Overcoming Winget Suffers Blanche DuBois Effect

I turn to other tools to help me catch what happens when the “Blanche DuBois Effect” fails — namely, when a developer or owner does not supply Winget with the necessary package definitions. You can see what I mean by this in the figure below. (Click on it to expand to full-sized view to read what it says for yourself.)

Note that Winget sees 4 items in need of update; SUMo sees 7 or 8.

For the record, Winget sees about half of what KC Software’s Software Update Monitor (aka SUMo) does, to wit:

Tool	Count	List of items
Winget	4	VSEnt22, SUMo, TeamViewer, Jabra Direct
SUMo	8	Firefox, CPU-Z, Jabra Direct, Edge, Snagit, TeamViewer, WizTree (2)

For accuracy, Winget sees one thing that SUMo does not — namely, Visual Studio Enterprise 2022 (abbreviated as VSEnt22 above). OTOH, SUMo sees 5 (or 6) things that Winget does not — specifically, Firefox, CPU-Z (a false positive, in fact), MS Edge, Snagit, and WizTree (in both 64- and 32-bit versions). That’s why I use other application update tools to help me keep up on the ten-plus PCs in residence here at Chez Tittel.

Winget Supplements of Choice Are…

My tools of choice to cover what Winget misses are:

1. Software Update Monitor (aka SUMo) from KC Softwares
2. PatchMyPC from PatchMyPC.com

Why two? Because PatchMyPC sees fewer things than SUMo does. But what the freeware version of PatchMyPC sees, it also updates automatically and easily. The free version of SUMo sees more, but only the paid version tries to update those things for you (and its track record is far enough from stellar on performing updates that I’m not sure it’s worth the US$25-30 you’ll be asked to pay for it).

I’ve learned to use SUMo solely for detection, then I let PatchMyPC handle for me what it can. I do the rest myself manually.

Frankly, though, I think MS should put some of its much-vaunted AI capability to work so that Winget can generate packages for third-party applications on its own with no need to, as Blanch DuBois once did, rely on the kindness of strangers.

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

RAPR V0.11.92 Remains a Real Gem

March 16, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’m working on revisions to older stories I’ve written for ComputerWorld. Just yesterday, I revised my CIO story for them about purging duplicate and obsolete drivers from the Windows driver store. For that purpose, there simply is no better tool, nor one easier to use than Driver Store Explorer (aka RAPR or RAPR.exe). Indeed among my many Windows cleanup tools, RAPR v0.11.92 remains a real gem.

Why RAPR V0.11.92 Remains a Real Gem

Here’s the deal: when you update a Windows driver, it gets stashed in a special storage area with all the other drivers. What most people don’t know — including admins — is that when you update a driver, its predecessor remains present. And in fact, it never leaves unless you remove it yourself. In a nutshell: that’s one of the things that RAPR does with ease and grace.

When I wrote the afore-linked CIO story back in 2015, RAPR could help you find and remove duplicate and obsolete drivers. (Note: that item is now carried under the ComputerWorld masthead for IDG’s ineffable reasons.) But you had to do it more or less “by hand.” This took some time and effort to accomplish. No more: now RAPR includes a “Select Old Driver(s)” button. It automatically flags items that might potentially be removed from a target PC’s driver store. Click the Delete Driver(s) button next (see lead-in graphic) and RAPR will remove any selected driver that’s not in actual use.

Why (and When) to Use RAPR

The why comes from reducing the size of the driver store. This applies to any and all windows images for which driver updates get applied. If you put a new one in, RAPR lets you take the old one out. For deployment images — which may run on hundreds to thousands of PCs (or more) — this is especially important.

I’ve gotten in the habit of using this tool monthly. I seldom recover less than 100-200 MB of space. And when GPU drivers come into play (most of them occupy 1.0 -1.2 GB of disk space) those numbers really jump. My biggest-ever savings on an older PC that hadn’t been touched for a couple of years was on the order of 4-5 GB. That’s something fairly substantial.

You owe it to yourself to visit Github and download the latest version of RAPR. Use it to look at your standalone PCs, and the Windows images in your deployment library. I predict space savings all the way around.