Windows 10 Lockscreen Follies

OK, it may be another case of: gradual rollout, I’m on the tailing end. Or it may be something is misbehaving. I’m trying out the new Lock Screen behaviors in Windows 10 Build 19045.4239. I can see the weather bug, and I can turn on the “other lock screen apps” but none of them show up. Right now, I’m updating a VM on another PC so I can take screencaps to show what’s happening. Hence my assertion I’m engaging in Windows 10 lockscreen follies. Fun, actually!

What Windows 10 Lockscreen Follies Tell Me…

I’m a great believer in trying out and observing new stuff as it shows up in Windows. I’ve learned that I don’t understand things anywhere near as well when reading about them, as I do when installing or setting them up, then using them. There’s something about the actual experience that improves my apprehension and comprehension. Plus, I like to tinker with stuff (to the point where I’ll try to break things so I can learn how to fix them).

Once I confirmed I was indeed running 19045.4239 I started playing with the lock screen settings. Again, I can see the background coming from Spotbright, and the weather info. And again, I cannot see status from the other apps I’ve chosen for display. Homer Simpson moment hits: I bet they have to be RUNNING to show something. …goes off to try … doesn’t seem to help (nor does placing the open app window on my #1 screen, which also might be a factor).

Trailing Behind the Gradual Rollout…Again

Looks like I’ve got all the controls up and going, but they’re not doing anything. But about “more content” on the lockscreen, the announcement says “This feature might not be available to all users because it will roll out gradually.” Based on my nearly unbroken record in avoiding the front ranks during such times, I’m guessing it will make its way to my lockscreens later, rather than sooner!

Stay tuned, I’ll keep you posted. The Lord only knows why, but I’m starting to like the idea of a status-filled lockscreen…

 

 

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24H2 Versions Gain Storage Pool Delete

Once upon a time Storage Pools in Windows fell under Control Panel’s sway. Bit by bit, control over Storage Spaces has been moving from Control Panel into Settings. With Build 26080 (Canary channel) Windows 11 24H2 versions gain Storage Pool delete capability in Settings as well. I learned this today, thanks to an article in WindowsLatest by Abishek Mishra. Note: this article also provided the source for the lead-in graphic, as I did not have time to set up a NAS to build a local storage pool myself.

Reflecting on 24H2 Versions Gain
Storage Pool Delete

There’s been a slow but inexorable switchover from Control Panel (and its CPL executables) to the Settings app since it first appeared in Windows 8 in February 2012 (Technical Preview). That’s been underway for over a decade now, and the process is not yet done. But each little step away from CP toward Settings marks incremental progress toward a new way to control and manage Windows.

This has me wondering: will I live long enough to see that switchover complete? My best guess is that the switchover is somewhere between half and two-thirds accomplished. There are still around 20 CPL executables in Windows 11, of which most still run. Thus, MS still has work to do to make the switchover complete. I’ll keep watching, and keep reporting, as this process grinds its way along. Stay tuned!

Warning: AskWoody Item Coming Soon!

I’ve actually been working on a series of stories for the AskWoody newsletters to look at the ongoing move from Control Panel to Settings. I am completing a piece on Settings that shows where CP still comes into play. I’ll follow that up with a complete listing of all CPLs still present in Windows 11, and also indicate which ones lead back into Settings and which ones remain necessary and outside that umbrella.

It’s fascinating stuff, trying to tease the details out of an OS as big and complex as an average Windows 11 instance. Fun fact: a typical Windows install will have a Settings tree (a map of all the functions and capabilities it provides) of between 1800 and 2000 nodes. That’s big, and it changes to reflect what’s plugged in at any given moment, and moves around as the OS gets updated. It’s both fascinating and mind-boggling at the same time…

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Restore Point Pros & Cons

By default, Windows 10 and 11 both turn on restore points (RPs). These may be used to return an OS environment back to a prior state. The OS typically shoots one RP daily, and takes one as it starts the WU process. In addition, app developers may include taking an RP snapshot early on during their own install processes. All this said, there are plenty of Restore Point pros & cons.

What Are Restore Point Pros & Cons?

These days you reach Restore Points through the System Protection tab in the System Properties window in Control Panel. Interestingly enough, you have to navigate through Settings > System to get there. Once you find what you’re looking for (see lead-in screencaps) you can enable or disable RPs, and also allocate a maximum percentage of the system/boot disk which these system snapshots can occupy.

RP Pros

RP’s positives include the following:

  • Convenience and ease of use: you can create an RP manually with a few mouse clicks, and it takes little time to complete one. It’s also fairly easy to revert to a Restore Point using either Windows built-in tools or one of my faves (it’s an oldie, but a goodie): System Restore Explorer. It tool 33 seconds to create one on my i7Skylake desktop, and 1:05 to restore same on that PC.
  • Provides a simple layer of system protection: can easily revert Windows to undo update, app or application, and driver changes. This is faster — but more limited in scope — than even the fastest image backup restore. As a knock-on effect: this can also undo software or library conflicts (after adding an app or application, or a new .NET version, or something else that’s similar).
  • Some cleanup when removing new software: This might be somewhere between a pro and a con.  Restoring an RP does result in removal of executable files and dlls added when installing apps. But shortcuts, preferences, and other files (including home folders — e.g. inside C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86)) remain intact.

RP Cons

By contrast, RP’s negatives include:

  • No antivirus protection: restoring an RP won’t necessarily eliminate triggers for or stealth executables that cause malware infections. Thus malware can return even after using an RP.
  • No data file backup: RP copies the contents of the system volume shadow using the Volume Shadow Service (aka VSS). This does not include data files by intention. So RP provides no data restore capability (see the note at the end of this story for a 3rd-party tool that does provide such capability, however).
  • New user accounts are not protected by RP: if you define a new user account after the point in time at which an RP shapshot is created, those accounts will no longer exist when that RP is restored. That said, the User files for that account will persist. IMO, this is a kind “worst of both worlds” situation. Sigh.

My Net-Net Is: Don’t Rely Solely on RPs

Reading through the previous plusses and minuses, it’s pretty easy to see that  RPs can have value in a limited set of circumstances. But they’re no substitute for a recent image backup, and they’re no panacea for solving non-trivial Windows issues or problems.

I don’t use RPs much myself anymore myself (though I did in the Vista and Windows 7 eras). These days I rely mostly on in-place upgrade repair install for semi-serious to serious troubleshooting, and a clean install (or image restore) for outright system failures and boot problems. It’s also my repair of last resort when nothing else will produce a working Windows instance. Go figure!

Note Added March 19: More Madness

I got a comment from TenForums.com and ElevenForum.com regular “Old Navy Guy” (ONG) this morning reminding me that the NirSoft ShadowCopyView tool does allow users to view and copy certain data files from a VSS snapshot. This *does* allow access to user files and folders and adds to what you can recover from such a snapshot.

I totally forgot about this tool, and am glad to be reminded of same. More important, I’m grateful to have the chance to point this out to you, dear reader — and to make that tool known and possibly useful for you. AFAIK, this capability applies only to files and folders in the Users folder hierarchy, so if you keep stuff on a data drive — as I do — it won’t help much, or at all. But it could still be helpful nevertheless. Cheers!

Note Added March 21: Including Other Drives

Another Homer Simpson moment has come and gone for me. ONG commented again to remind me that ShadowCopyView does data drives, too. I initially wondered how VSS could accommodate drives other than the C: (boot/system) drive where the OS and other key stuff lives. Then it hit me: you must enable RP protection on those drives, too. Here’s an illustrative screencap:

Restore Point Pros & Cons.ddarrow

Turn on Protection for the D: drive so it gets VSS snapshots, too.

Maybe there’s more to this protection scheme than I originally gave it credit for. It took 12 seconds to capture an RP for my C: drive and 13-14 seconds for my D: (Data) drive on a Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga. WizTree says C: contains ~80GB of data, while D: contains ~400GB. So it is indeed remarkably fast. And with VolumeShadowCopy providing access to contents, it provides workable file and folder level access to bring back items one-at-a-time or as portions of a target drive’s file hierarchy. Good stuff!

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Widget Screenshot Users, Beware

Wow! Did I get an ugly surprise in the mail yesterday. I got two demand letters from a Canadian image rights company, seeking payment of US$1,334 for use of two thumbnails in a screen capture I made. Where and how did this happen? I was reporting about the introduction of the Windows News Bar (Beta) app, before the whole news and weather widget stuff rolled onto the Windows taskbar. That’s why I admonish fellow bloggers and Web content developers: “Widget screenshot users, beware!”

Ouching into Widget Screenshot Users Beware

The actual images the claimant asserts I’m using without a license are thumbnails. They measure 78×41 pixels. They’re included as an illustration of what the news bar looked like on the Windows desktop at the time (after I downloaded and installed the app).

Of course, news and weather info is now available from the taskbar. It comes courtesy of the so-called “Widgets” icon there, where the popped-up window that clicking on it produces is simply called Widgets. It shows both captions and images because it has more pixels to work with. This original design let users pick whether to see captions or images (images by default). Because I screen-capped two of their clients’ images on March 30, 2020, I must pay . . .  says the claimant.

Fair Use to the Rescue

“Not so fast,” is my response. I replied in writing  as follows:

  •  I make no money from my website
  • I was reporting news about a new MS Store app (News Bar Beta)
  • I used the image strip (5 or 6 of them altogether, if memory serves) purely to show what the app looked like, and made no reference to individual images
  • I reproduced the strip as thumbnails only, heavily cropped
  • I do not sell or license images to any third parties, and I make no money from the site, so it can’t impose commercial losses on the copyright holders

These are all part of the arguments through which “fair use” is proven in the US. I think I’m on solid ground, but it’s pretty disturbing nonetheless. Going forward, I’ll look more closely at exactly what’s in my screencaps. I’d advise you to do likewise for anything that goes online as well. Better to avoid trouble than to have to (de)fend it off.

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Another Teams Iteration Hits Build 26080

Yesterday, March 13, Windows 11 Canary Channel saw a new feature update hit the Insider Preview Canary Channel: 26080.1. Amidst the many changes it brought, I found an add-on of particular interest — Microsoft Teams. In an era when Teams (classic) and Teams (work or school) coexist side-by-side, a new version of the latter is available via WinGet or the Microsoft Store. You can see its icon in the lead-in graphic. If you read this blog, you can probably guess that when another Teams iteration hits Build 26080, I got it via WinGet. You can also see its traces in the next Windows Terminal screencap that follows.

Another Teams Iteration Hits Build 26080.winget

Examine this closely to see a new Teams version ending in .1505.
[Click image for full-size view.]

Why Another Teams Iteration Hits Build 26080 Matters

For the longest time I’ve had to use both Teams (classic) and the previous iteration of Teams (work or school).  Actually, I’ve often used its web-based counterpart to avoid Taskbar confusion.

No longer! This latest version lets me use the same program, define multiple accounts, and switch easily between them. Minor quibble: MS says this switching is “fast” but it does take a while. Indeed, some of my Teams logins use 2FA and require re-authorization each time I enter the environment. I guess I’m starting to grok what passwordless  authentication is about, eh? But once you’ve got multiple taskbar elements open, switching takes only a mouse click.

For the moment, though: I’m tickled. It is a lot more helpful to be able to use both AD- or Entra-managed work or school accounts alongside personal ones. Good work, MS. I wish you’d done it this way from the outset. But, as things sometime turn out in Windows-World, later is always better than never.

News Flash Added 1 Hour Later

In both 26080 announcements (it’s out in both Dev and Canary channels) MS talks about “a preview experience of the new, unified Microsoft Teams experience on Windows.” Windows Central calls it a “unified Teams client.” I like that terminology and wish I’d made it up. You’ll definitely want to read the announcement for lots of useful deets and examples. Good stuff.

Another Possibly Helpful Test/Observation

Just for grins, I made an image backup of one of my Canary Channel test PCs, then uninstalled the old version of Teams from same. With the new version installed by itself, I am still able to do what I need to do with just the one version installed. That said, I do seem to have lingering MSA issues when using only my personal account. Very interesting!

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Failed Update Shows Increasing Winget Smarts

Here’s an interesting observation. Since its release in May 2020, built-in Microsoft packaging tool Winget has been a work in progress. I don’t mean this as a critique: it started out pretty good, and it’s kept on getting better and better. I was reminded of this yesterday when an update for my CyberPowerSystems UPS software failed. But that failed update shows increasing Winget smarts. You can see the whole trail of events in the lead-in graphic.

How Failed Update Shows Increasing Winget Smarts

You can see the error message about one-third the way down from the top as it reports:Installer failed with exit code: 1. But it’s the lines above that really show off Winget’s increasing smarts:

v.2.5.1 cannot be updated through the installation package. Please remove the old version of Personal first and then install v2.5.1

This remove-replace (reinstall) maneuver is a fairly frequent occurrence when using Winget to update Windows software. It’s usually the next thing one tries if an update/upgrade fails. What’s new here is that Winget itself explicitly recommends this strategy. Previously it might indicate a “change in installer technology” to make such recommendations. This seems like more general — and broadly applicable — advice. I like it!

Doing What Winget Says…

If you look at the bottom section of the lead-in graphic, you’ll see it did just that (right-click that image, and select something like “Open image in new tab” to see the whole thing). Using the package’s ID string for unambiguous identification, I first uninstall it, then I install it again (note that it picks up the desired version: v2.5.1). That works: good stuff!

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Checking Wi-Fi Signal Strength

Here at Chez Tittel, most PCs use wired Ethernet for their network connections. That is: of the 10 PCs on various LAN segments here, 7 use GbE connections; the other 3 use Wi-Fi. But our cellphones, iPad, and other devices — including 3 thermostats — are all on Wi-Fi. It’s a mixed bag. I like to check Wi-Fi quality from time to time, so I have to thank Mauro Huculak at Windows Central. He just reminded me about what’s up with checking Wi-Fi signal strength. See his story “How to check Wi-Fi signal strength…” for a raft of potential ways in Windows 11.

Checking Wi-Fi Signal Strength: Command Line

I’m a command line junkie, so I’ll skip the various UI-based methods he describes. There’s a single command in the network shell (netsh) that will tell you what you (or I, in this case) want to know:

netsh wlan show interfaces

Mr. Huculak also provides a tasty one-liner version in his article that’s worth sharing and keeping around (cut’n’paste into a text editor like Notepad, and remove all but one space between the text on the 1st & 2nd lines, please, so it will run in Command Prompt or PowerShell):

(netsh wlan show interfaces)
-Match '^\s+Signal' -Replace '^\s+Signal\s+:\s+',''

You can see both of these at work in PowerShell on one of my Windows 11 test PCs in the lead-in graphic above. The short version produces all of the interface info for the one and only Wi-Fi interface on that machine; the long version simply shows the signal strength as a percentage (i.e. the “99%” at lower left above). You can go either way. Works the same on Windows 10, too. Very handy!

Thanks again, Mauro. Made my morning…

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Office Update Hiccup Is Easily Fixed

Last Friday, WingetUI informed me that Microsoft Office needed an update on my production PC. When I tried to update it, however, it failed inside the tool and running winget inside PowerShell. Then, it did nothing inside Outlook when I clicked Files > Account > Update Options > Update Now. Obviously, something was hinky about Office itself, or perhaps the update package. I got an error message that read “Installer failed with exit code: 4294967295.” Fortunately, this Office update hiccup is easily fixed.

How Office Update Hiccup Is Easily Fixed

As it happens, I wrote a story for ComputerWorld back in April 2021. It’s entitled “4 steps to repair Microsoft Office.” I only had to go to Step 1 “Run the Office Quick Repair tool.” You can see the steps to get there, and the Repair button to run it, in the following screencap:

Here’s how to get to the embedded repair info: Settings > Apps > Apps & features > click on Microsoft 365 Apps (for enterprise in my case, YMMV by version). If you click Quick Repair it uses local windows files from your PC. If that doesn’t work, you can try Online Repair and use files from the MS Office download page instead.

I didn’t have to, because the first try did the trick. After the repair completed the update ran without further difficulties. Darn! It’s nice when an easy repair succeeds. Read the rest of the CW story to see what other steps might be required if the Repair tools shown above don’t work. Things can get interesting in a hurry, so I’m just as glad they did not. As Sinatra famously sang “…nice and easy does it every time!”

 

 

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Windows Backup App Handling Disappoints

Learned something very interesting this week. In testing out the new Windows Backup app in Windows 11 (also back-ported to Windows 10, BTW) I found something. You can tell Windows Backup to “Remember installed apps and pinned app preferences.” But that doesn’t lead to the restore out come you may expect. To me, Windows Backup app handling disappoints because it doesn’t restore them itself. It just makes it easier for you to do so, either manually or programmatically. Let me explain…

Why Say: Windows Backup App Handling Disappoints

You store a Windows Backup snapshot by running the Windows installer. Based on the MSA you use to login, it offers you its latest snapshot for the machine you’re on, plus a list of other snapshots for PCs on which the same MSA has an account (and enabled backup to OneDrive). During the install process, you get to pick what you want.

But if you continue on with restore, when you finally get to the Windows desktop, you will find links to install the apps you had installed before. That’s what MS means when it says “Remember installed apps …” and so forth. You still have to visit each such item in the Start menu, and click install. Or, you can go through and make a list of what needs installing and write a matching winget configuration or PowerShell installer.

Not Exactly Restore, IMO

To my way of thinking this is not what I expect when I restore a backup. I want the system as snapshotted at whatever time and date to reappear on my desktop with all pieces and parts working. MS expects somebody to go through the added time and effort to reinstall apps and applications by script or by click. It’s not the same and it’s presumptuous to equate it with a real restore that does it all on its own with no additional effort required.

What do you think? Shoot me a comment and let me know.

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KB50001716 Is Puzzling

OK, then. I was reading Martin Brinkmann’s post to gHacks this morning. It’s entitled “Microsoft’s sneaky KB5001716 Windows 10 update pushes Windows 11.” I don’t think my production PC qualifies, because its Intel SkyLake i7-6700 falls outside the range of supported CPUs. So I went looking for it, and learned some useful things. Let me share them with you…

Why KB50001716 Is Puzzling

First off I went to look at WU Update History to see if KB5001716 was present (or absent). I quickly realized that reading the whole WU history was more than a little taxing on a machine that’s been running Windows 10 since 2016.

So I turned to PowerShell where some operating on the Get-WUHistory command seemed like a good idea. When I figured out my Update History had 528 entries, that idea seemed even better. You can view the update history by creating a variable named $history, like so

$history = Get-WUHistory -last 1000

This grabs up to the last 1000 entries in the history records and assigns them to the variable $history. If you look at that output it’s kind of hard to ingest from Windows Terminal. It makes more visual sense if you look at it this way:

$history | sort date -desc | Format-Table Date,KB,@{l=’Category’;e={[string]$_.Categories[0].Name}},Title

[Note the preceding lines are a single PowerShell command string. If you want to try it, cut’n’paste into a text editor and make sure it’s a “one liner” before pasting into PowerShell. This produces output that looks like this:

KB50001716 Is Puzzling.table-output

Table format is more readable, but still too much to take in.
[Click image for full-size view.]

So I changed up the command string to write it to a file. That required appending the following string:

> i7wuhist.txt

The > symbol redirects the output, and the filename resides in folder context in which PS runs. Working with a file I was able to figure out the following:

1. I had no instances of KB5001716 in there anywhere
2. There were a total of 528 entries in that file.

I also concluded that my PC’s failure to meet Windows 11 hardware requirements probably meant that the upgrade offer (and indeed KB5001716 itself) were not forthcoming. Good to know, and I learned some interesting stuff along the way.

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