Category Archives: Troubleshooting

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, Uncategorized, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Update

KB5012170 Can Provoke BitLocker Recovery

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Here’s an interesting tidbit that’s making the rounds right now. KB5012170 appeared on August 9 on the latest Patch Tuesday. According to various sources — see this Neowin story, for example — some users’ PCs boot into BitLocker Recovery after the mandatory post-update restart, rather than business as usual. Thus, applying KB5012170 can provoke BitLocker Recovery (though unintentionally).

Of those affected, some have been able to get back to rights by applying the PC’s BitLocker Recovery key. Others have had to update their UEFI before that key application “takes.” In my case, I apparently dodged that bullet, because none of my production Windows 11 machines (four Lenovo laptops of various descriptions, and a Ryzen 5800X desktop) fell prey to this gotcha.

You can see the “success” report for this KB item boxed in red in the lead-in graphic for this story, in fact…

If KB5012170 Can Provoke BitLocker Recovery, Then What?

BitLocker keys can be stored in at least three ways. 1. On paper, 2. Electronically (usually on a USB drive). 3. Associated with a specific MSA (Microsoft Account). I prefer method 3 because it’s easy to set up and MS manages it automatically on your behalf.

You must log into your MSA online (I go through account.microsoft.com). Then go to Devices, and pick the affected PC. Next, click on Info & Support. There you’ll find a Bitlocker data protection item that includes a link to “Manage recovery keys.” That’s what you want. It will show you recovery keys for all the devices associated with that MSA (I show 11, of which I’m actually using 2, so I just got rid of the rest after saving a backup copy to an encrypted disk).

BTW, that means it’s essential to add all devices you might ever want to recover to your chosen MSA. Do so right away, if you haven’t already!

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Insider stuff, Remote Desktop (RDP), Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

MSA RDP Login Issue Resolved

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Today could be a red-letter day for me. I’ve finally figured out how to use an MSA (Microsoft Account) to login to RDP on certain “problem” PCs. I even now understand what made them problematic, and how to fix things. And in the process, my odd MSA RDP login issue resolved itself. Hooray!

Let me explain an odd combination of circumstances that caused this situation to show up on certain laptops. Buckle up: it’s a bit convoluted.

How the MSA RSP Login Issue Resolved Itself

One of the more outstanding online sources of esoteric admin wisdom is a website named SuperUser.com. I found a reference to an item therein entitled Windows 10 Remote Desktop Credentials at another of my favorite haunts, ElevenForum. That item Unable to Access w/Remote Desktop until a Local Logon w/Password is Performed pretty much summed up what I was struggling to resolve.

Here’s the deal: for RDP to be able to use an account/password combination for remote access, that hashed data must be in the target PC’s password cache. If one only logs into that PC directly using a PIN, Windows Hello (or other biometrics), or a security token, that data never hits the cache. If that data isn’t cached, the remote login can’t authenticate and you can’t get into the PC that way. The local account technique works because it does have that data available, and thus it can serve to let the remote user in.

Where Things Get Interesting…

There’s a high-security Account setting in Windows 10 and 11 that falls under Settings → Accounts → Sign-in options that reads “For improved security, only allow Windows Hello sign-in for Microsoft accounts on this device (Recommended).” If you elect this option, you cannot login to that PC using a password. If you can’t login to the PC using a password, that info can’t make it into the cache. And then, as a side-effect, you can’t use that account to login to RDP.

So I had to disable the option,  and use the password to login locally for my chosen MSA. After a restart, I was indeed able to use that same MSA and its associated password to login to a remote session using RDP. Then I re-enabled the option and proceeded on my merry way. Problem FINALLY solved!

Just goes to show: if it ain’t one thing in Windows, it’s almost always something else. And this was “something else” indeed. Glad to have it fixed, and somewhat better understood…

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

Snipping Tool Save Fail Fix

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I have to laugh. I found myself trying to save a screen capture in Windows 11 on the X390 Yoga just now. The WinKey+Shift+S sequence brought up the Snipping Tool notification header, and it let me navigate to pick rectangular or free form area, windows and so on. But the save notification didn’t open and I couldn’t find any saved files anywhere. This had me looking for a snipping tool save fail fix so I could make screenshots from that PC. The answer proves maddeningly easy, but maddening nonetheless. Let me explain…

Snipping Tool Save Fail Fix.header-control

The control would pop-up, but once a save mode was selected, nothing showed up for me to save. Decidedly odd.

OK Then, What’s the Snipping Tool Save Fail Fix?

As an app, I went to the Store to see if it needed an update first and foremost. Nope that wasn’t it. But when I entered the app name in full “Snipping Tool” I got its Store window with an Install button showing. WTF?

Of course that means, for whatever reason, Snipping Tool was NOT installed on that laptop. And indeed, as soon as I installed it, the key combo worked just like it’s supposed to. Then indeed, the notification item shows up and I was able to start saving screencaps. Easy-peasey, right? Yeah, sure, but I don’t undersand why the app went MIA in the first place.

Don’t Overlook the Obvious…

It’s just a reminder that when apps get — or in this case, seem — flaky in Windows (and this applies to both 10 and 11), it’s best to check from the ground up. Though I didn’t expect this built-in app to be MIA, I quickly ascertained that’s exactly why I couldn’t get it to work. I guess that proves it’s hard to use something, if it’s not installed. Go figure!

At least I can console myself with the understanding that visiting the app in the Store is a smart and sure check on its functionality. In this case, that check led me directly to a quick and workable fix. Sigh.

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Insider stuff, Networking, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 11

Signal Strength Impedes Swapped PC WiFi Access

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OK, then. Yesterday, we spent a small fortune packing up and shipping out a tower PC and 27″ monitor to my son’s college address. In the aftermath, I moved the other B550 tower with Ryzen 5800X upstairs to his room. But alas, because I left the high-end, PCIe WiFi card in the shipped-out unit, I couldn’t get any of my plug-in (or built-in) WiFi devices to connect to the Spectrum router. Hence my claim that signal strength impedes swapped PC WiFi access.

Overcoming Signal Strength Impedes Swapped PC WiFi Access

There’s a whole litany of checks I ran through to see if I could get such WiFi devices as were at my disposal working. The PC could “see” the Spectrum router. Alas, it just couldn’t connect, not using any of the following:

  • A 5-year old Asus 802.11ac USB 3 (USB-AC 56) device with external antenna
  • A similar vintage NetGear 802.11 ac USB 3 (AC 600) device with no external antenna
  • The built-in M.2 slot with a non-Intel 802.11ax mini-card (but no external antenna)

I worked through all of the following checks, too, just to cover all the bases:

1. Reboot PC to reset startup network settings
2. Ran the network troubleshooter
3. Enable/disable device drivers in Device Manager
4. Reset Network Settings as per ElevenForum Reset Network Adapters in Windows 11 tutorial

No joy on any of these, though. Sigh.

An Alexandrine Solution?

Eventually, I installed a switch at the RJ-45 wall jack upstairs, then ran a long cable from that switch into my son’s bedroom to give him a direct, wired Internet connection. Of course, that worked right away once I’d gotten all the pieces and parts plugged in properly.

The story does have a happy ending, though. Check out the Fast.com speed test results I obtained after setting up the wired link into that PC. This is the fastest I’ve ever seen on my LAN.

I didn’t realize the Spectrum router could exceed 1 Gbps on its end. This PC has a 2.5 GbE interface, so it’s capable enough. But given a GbE LAN exceeding the speed limit makes me wonder…

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

Samsung NVMe Drive Failing

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In a recent story here, I mentioned a possible mismatch between some components. On the one hand: an old Samsung MZVPV512HDGL OEM NVMe drive. On the other hand: a brand-new PCIe x4 USB 3.2/Thunderbolt NVMe enclosure. Upon swapping in a newer ADATA drive my issues with the enclosure vanished. So I mounted the other drive in an older Sabrent NVMe enclosure. Now I’m getting indications of the Samsung NVMe drive failing. A strong indicator shows up as the lead-in graphic above.

What Says: Samsung NVMe Drive Failing?

The inability to perform write tests using HD Tune is a pretty big tell. Interestingly, though: chkdsk and CrystalDiskInfo both report the drive as healthy. My best guess is that write failures are occurring, and that HD Tune won’t “write past” such things, while the other tools rely on SMART data and surface analysis and aren’t seeing active errors.

My plan is to retire the drive as soon as the replacement part shows up. That’s been en route via Amazon for too long now, so I just cancelled that order and placed a new one. Hopefully it will be here tomorrow, including a 1TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus with internal read/write speeds of up to 6+/4+ Gbps. Of course, that’s not gonna happen in a USB 3.2/Thunderbolt enclosure. But I am darn curious to see how fast the bus can go when the drive is fast enough to get out of the way.

Stay Tuned: More to Come!

According to what I read online, I may be able to get read/write speeds in excess of 2 Gbps via Thunderbolt 3 from the NVMe enclosure. So far, the best I’ve seen from my older Sabrent (USB 3.2 only) enclosures is on the order of 1.1 Gbps. So it should be pretty easy to tell if the new drive/enclosure speeds things up.

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

Flaky Video Driver Forces Fix Revisits

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My production desktop’s dual monitor setup gets a little wonky from time to time. For some odd reason, the right-hand (primary) monitor will start blinking on and off. It’s annoying, but not overwhelming. When it happens, an apparently flaky video driver forces fix revisits. Basically, I keep trying stuff until something works. By no coincidence, that’s a decent operational definition for troubleshooting.

Items Checked When Flaky Video Driver Forces Fix Revisits

It usually goes something like this:

1. Use the Winkey-Ctrl-Shift-B key combo to reset the graphics driver. It does work, sometimes…
2. Check GeForce Experience to see if a newer driver is available; if so, install it.
3. If using the Nvidia gaming driver, switch to Studio driver, or vice-versa.
4. Uninstall, then reinstall the Nvidia driver. I also recommend using the freeware DDU tool to remove all traces of the old before installing the new.
5. Visit the Nvidia Driver Downloads page, and start trying older drivers, going back one version at a time… The recent entries in that list for my GeForce RTX 3070 Ti appear as the lead-in graphic for this story.

Today’s Fix Occurred Mid-way in Sequence

I got to Step 4 today before the blinking stopped. That’s a bit further than I usually have to go, but that’s Windows for you. I’m just glad I can concentrate on what’s showing on both displays, rather than how one or the other is (mis)behaving.

Some Windows errors or gotchas can be set aside and ignored for a while. Others — especially when they interfere with normal system operation — demand immediate attention. While today’s gotcha was one of the latter, it was familiar. Thus, I knew what to do, and how to do it, with minimum need for diagnosis and root cause analysis.

I just marched through the foregoing list and found my solution in under 10 minutes. I can only wish that all problems were so easily fixed. And that’s the way things are unfolding today, here in Windows World. Stay tuned: there’ll be more!

Note Added August 13

Yesterday, I installed a new NVIDIA Studio Driver (version 516.94). The problem has not re-appeared since I applied my uninstall/reinstall “fix” earlier this week. That jumps me up from Step 4 (original fix) to Step 2 (current fix). And so it goes…

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

Build 25174 May Drop Insider MSA

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Here’s a nifty little gotcha. After upgrading my two Dev Channel test PCs earlier this week, I noticed something missing. As you can see in the lead-in graphic for this story, despite Insider membership in good standing beforehand, things were different afterward. Hence my warning: Build 25174 may drop Insider MSA info, as shown in the graphic. Both of test machines were likewise affected.

If Build 25174 May Drop Insider MSA, Then What?

If you click on the “Please link…” entry shown in the graphic, it will automatically open the “Sign-in” page that lets you choose the MSA (Microsoft Account) you wish to associate with the Insider build on the target PC. I simply picked the one I had already associated with the PCs before applying the upgrade. It took all of 15 seconds to fix.

So why am I telling you this? I can’t extrapolate from 2 machines to the entire Dev Channel population. But I can guess that if both my machines were so affected, other Insiders running Dev Channel builds may find the same thing when they check their Insider status after the upgrade.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? This reminds me of other oddities I’ve seen post-upgrade for earlier versions of Windows 10 and 11. For a long time, in fact, I had to check “Private” vs “Public” network status after such upgrades, and routinely reset them to my desired states. This strikes me as just another case in point.

Nothing in the 25174 announcement…

I just checked the 25174 announcement, and it makes no mention of this particular gotcha. I’m reporting this to feedback hub as I write this item and I see no similar reports amidst that collection. Perhaps this is idiosyncratic and only applies to my PCs. But I bet it’s not, so check yours, too, please. Cheers!

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Remote Desktop (RDP), Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Weird Full-Screen RDP Effect

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I still use Windows 10 on my production desktop, but I run half-a-dozen instances of Windows 11 right now. Lately, I’ve noticed that with screen size expanded to fit the left-hand monitor — but not maximized — I get a weird full-screen RDP effect. I lose the start menu at the bottom of the screen. As I said: weird!

What Is the Weird Full-Screen RDP Effect?

The lead-in graphic for this story shows what I’m talking about from the Start Menu perspective. Up top, we see a Windows 10 Start Menu that surprisingly shows up at the bottom of a “full-screen” Windows 11 RDP window. When I hit the maximize  button at upper right, the lower (and normal) Windows 11 start menu appears. (Note: I selected “left” alignment in the Task Manager options to make it show up there for purposes of comparison and contrast).

Needless to say, when I don’t notice this and click on the full-screen Windows 10 menu, it doesn’t do anything to the Windows 11 RDP window above. This is disconcerting, to say the least. At worst, I start thinking I’ve got problems and start unnecessary troubleshooting actions. Sigh.

Why/How Did This Weirdness Present?

For some reason, this happened to me the last time I updated the Nvidia driver on my production PC. It’s now running version 516.93, installed last week. After the install completed, all the open windows moved to the right-hand (primary) monitor. That’s normal. But what’s different is that maximized RDP windows changed “auto-magically” to full-screen (but not maximized) layouts. That led me to the source of confusion when I dragged those full-screen windows to the secondary (left-hand) monitor.

Again: Weird! But by looking very closely at what I was seeing, I eventually figured out what was going on. Now I make sure to click the maximize button when using RDP. That way, I see the maximized RDP session controls at the top of the screen (see below) and know that the start menu at bottom is the start menu I want to work within that window.

Weird Full-Screen RDP Effect.controls

And that, dear readers, is how things sometimes go in Windows-world. As JRRT put it “All that glitters is not gold; not all those who wander are lost.” I wandered a bit, but ultimately figured out what was weird and why.

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

Store Reinstall Solves Stuck Terminal

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Interesting! As is my usual practice, I just installed KB5015882, the upcoming CU preview. It targets production Windows 11, and takes it to Build 22000.832. After that update and restart, I noticed two things. First, this PC was still running the old Windows Terminal version. Second, Windows Store offered me an upgrade for same, but it got stuck during the process. After forcibly closing Store, and returning to the same page, a Store reinstall solves stuck Terminal once and for all. Deets follow, and a general approach to app repair.

Praise Be! Store Reinstall Solves Stuck Terminal

To begin with, when I ran Windows Terminal, I noticed it was still running an old version (no access to Settings, nor various supported command line environments). When I visited the Store, and searched on “Windows Terminal” its app page hung while trying to upgrade that very tool. So I terminated the whole shebang by clicking the close button at upper right.

Just for grins, I ran winget upgrade --all. It did not upgrade my Windows Terminal install, though it found and updated numerous other items successfully. Go figure!

Then, I opened the Microsoft Store again. I repeated my search on “Windows Terminal.” Lo and behold, it offered an Install button this time. When I clicked that option, it downloaded and installed the latest version. As you can see from the lead-in graphic above, the result was a current version of Windows Terminal, which runs PowerShell version 7.2.5 by default. Fixed!

When Windows Apps Get Wonky…

When apps start going sideways, I go through a drill to clean them up. This drill consists of the following steps:

    1. Visit the Store, look up the app and see what it offers. Apply any resulting upgrades or installs. If this doesn’t work, go on to
    2. Use PowerShell and Winget to find the name of the package for the app in question. Here,  winget list terminal reports that name is Microsoft.WindowsTerminal.
    3. You can use winget to uninstall, then reinstall the package as follows:
      winget uninstall Microsoft.WindowsTerminal. Then,
      winget install Microsoft.WindowsTerminal
      will install the current version.

Most of the time — as in this instance — if the Store offers options, they will usually suffice to fix app issues. Steps 2 and 3 are only needed when the app itself is somehow damaged or corrupt.

Put this in your bag of Windows 10 and 11 tricks. It could come in handy someday!

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Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, Remote Desktop (RDP), Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Use NSlookup for Machine Name Checks

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Certain recent Dev Channel builds have played intermittent hob with RDP. Thus, for example, I had to switch from using the machine name to its IP address to RDP into one particular PC. In troubleshooting that issue, I quickly realize it makes sense to use NSlookup for machine name checks. Indeed as you can see in the lead-in graphic, when NSlookup resolves that name correctly, RDP will also accept that name to establish a connection.

Why Use NSlookup for Machine Name Checks?

Because it will tell you if RDP can recognize the machine name. Under the hood, both RDP and NSlookup rely on access to local DNS records to resolve the name into an IP address (see lead-in graphic). When the command line works, RDP should also be able to rely on the same underlying service — namely, DNS — to do its thing as well.

Of course, this raises the question as to why my local DNS server — which runs on the boundary device from Spectrum that sits between my LAN and the cable Internet connection — sometimes fails to resolve valid machine names. Feature upgrades can cancel existing IP address leases, and require the DNS cache to be rebuilt. And apparently, recent lightning storms can also mess with that device’s DNS cache when the power fails. So, I’m learning to flush and rebuild that cache as part of local device hygiene.

At least I now know what’s going on and why I must sometimes switch from machine names to IP addresses to access certain devices. Good thing it’s easy to log into and handle the reset over the LAN. It’s always something, right?

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