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

Windows 11 Health Check Details

June 25, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Now that MS has done the big reveal, I can affirm the rumors — and the existence — of Windows 11. So without further ado, I downloaded the new PC Health Check tool (find a link in the final paragraph of this story). It comes in .MSI (Microsoft Installer) format and installs quickly and easily on most PCs. Digging into the Windows 11 Health Check details, though, I fell victim to at least two rude surprises. Maybe more: read my story, then you tell me…

First surprise: my 6-year-old production PC won’t run Windows 11.

Good/Bad News from Windows 11 Health Check Details

In his story about this tool, WinAero.com principal Sergey Tkachenko lists the Windows 11 hardware requirements as follows (quoted verbatim):

A 64-bit dual-core 1Ghz CPU or better.
4GB of RAM or better.
64GB of storage or better.
A 9-inch display with a minimum 1366×768 resolution.
A motherboard with UEFI, Secure Boot, and Trusted Platform Module 2.0.
A discrete or integrated GPU with DirectX 12 support and WWDM 2.X.

Actually there’s a bit more to it than that. Interested parties are advised to check these official MS items: Find Windows 11 specs, features and computer requirements and Windows Processor Requirements. They led me to some interesting but depressing realizations, including:

1. Windows 11 PCs must include TPM 2.0 support, along with UEFI and Secure Boot
2. Windows 11 PCs won’t run on 7th generation Intel processors or older: 8th generation is “as low as they go.” On the AMD side, processors number 29xx or higher are compatible with 11. I still have 4 systems with older CPUs here at Chez Tittel.

My production PC, which I’d been planning to refresh, is ineligible because it runs an i7-6700 CPU and has no TPM chip. My son’s desktop is in the exact same boat. Then there’s the Surface Pro 3, which runs a 4th Gen Intel CPU (i74650U). And of course, I’m waiting to give away the Ivy Bridge (2nd Gen Intel i7-2650M) to Reglue.org as soon as they can send somebody by to pick it up.

Change Is Coming, Sooner Not Later

Looks like I need to refresh two desktops before the holidays (when Window 11 is scheduled to go public). I’m guessing October, to give shoppers time to buy Windows 11 equipped PCs before Xmas. Looks like I will also give the Surface Pro 3 (with dock, alternate keyboard, and other accessories) to ReGlue, too. Time to revisit my bill of materials for those builds, and get the orders flying! I’d hoped to wait until GPU prices came down, but will just re-use the GeForce 1070 Ti cards in those two desktops in the meantime.

Note added June 26 (1 day later)

In response to feedback from users that PC Health Check’s info was insufficiently detailed, the company has already released a new version. It’s much more informative. Thus for example, it now spells out what I had to visit several tables to figure out on my own — namely, that the 6th gen i7 in my production PC is not supported:

Now, the tool spells out specific causes for incompatibility.

Thus, interested readers should be sure to grab the latest version of the tool, available at https://aka.ms/GetPCHealthCheckApp. I’ve turned off the out-of-date link at the head of the story to help readers avoid confusion. Kudos to MS for responding to useful user input so quickly and effectively!

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

Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0 Follies

June 24, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

As it turns out, I should’ve read the Microsoft announcement more carefully. The Windows Insider blog post that announced a new Experience Pack warned me that things would be different for Beta Channel and Release Preview PCs. It said: “For Windows Insiders in the Release Preview Channel, this will be an optional update for you.” I just didn’t pay sufficient attention. And that, dear readers, led me to some unnecessary but still effective Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0 follies yesterday.

What Kind of Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0 Follies?

The kind where I decided that because WU didn’t offer my Release Preview PC an obvious and immediate download, I would get it by other means. So, I turned to TenForums.com, where sure enough. I found a thread with a link to a reliable online source. Because this was a .CAB file, I then ran DISM /add-package … to get it installed. It worked!

Then I found out that the Release Preview mechanism differed from the Beta Channel one. Beta Channel (Surface Pro 3) got a direct offer from WU. Release Preview had a new item show up as an “Optional Update” — just as the afore-linked blog post said.

Sigh. One of these days, I’ll slow down and pay more attention. I swear. As Jerry Pournelle used to say in his Byte column from Chaos Manor “Real soon now.” Fortunately, there’s usually more than one path between Points A and B here in Windows-World. Yesterday, mine took me off the beaten track, and had me do manually what WU would have done for me automatically. Sigh again.

I did get here eventually, but not via the most direct route.

One More Thing…

I used DISM to install the KB5004393 update on the Release Preview PC (Lenovo ThinkPad X380). Thus it doesn’t show up in WU Update History (unlike the screencap at the head of this story, which came from the Surface Pro 3). Indeed, I had to go into Programs and Features and use “View installed updates” to find it instead. When you do things manually, reporting changes, too. A word of warning, by way of factual observation.

Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10

WU Extends X390 21H1 Offer

June 23, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

This morning, I checked Windows Update on the 2019 vintage X390 Yoga (i7 Kaby Lake 8th Gen) as is my daily practice. Lo and Behold! There it *finally* was: WU extends X390 21H1 offer. I immediately downloaded and installed that update. What you see for this story’s lead-in graphic is the “Restart required” status that popped up less than 2 minutes later.

When WU Extends X390 21H1 Offer, I Take It!

After clicking said button, it took another 30 seconds or so to get to the actual restart. After reboot, it took less than 20 seconds to get to the start screen. I was able to RDP into the X390 with no delays to produce a 21H1 Winver screen (clipped to cut off email address).

No sooner is the offer extended, than it’s taken up. I’ve been waiting for this, in fact…

What I didn’t see after this update was additional updates to bring the 21H1 image up-to-date. That tells me WU is still keeping 2004-20H2-21H1 in pretty tight synchronization. In other words, I didn’t need specifically targeted 21H1 updates, because the necessary bits were already present. They’d been applied to 20H2 and stayed in effect across the image transition into 21H1. Good stuff!

Just for grins, I ran DISM … /startcomponentcleanup on the 21H1 image. It took a while to get anywhere, and left two persistent, supposedly reclaimable packages behind. I’ve seen this before, and expected a re-run to leave them untouched. It did, and quickly, too.

Another One Bites the Dust

At this point I’ve only got one more machine that hasn’t been offered the 21H1 update yet. Should be interesting to see how much longer that takes. Stay tuned: I’ll let you know when that happens.

Networking, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

Jabbering Transceiver Error Rears Its Ugly Head

June 22, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

My first real networking job was as a Networking Consultant for Excelan in 1988. That company was purchased in 1989 by Novell, where I stayed quite happily until 1994. My initial training for the position included learning a hardware-based protocol analyzer (the LANalyzer, in fact). One of the things we learned in class was a coax-based 802.1 10 Mbps transceiver could crash an entire physical LAN. This device had a classy alias: “vampire tap.” It was scre-clamped onto a thickwire coax cable to add one or more network ports. Sometimes, its built-in circuitry would go bananas and overrun the network with bogus traffic. This problem, known as a jabbering transceiver error rears its ugly head recently. It happened on one of the Chez Tittel GbE switch domains.

When Jabbering Transceiver Error Rears Its Ugly Head, Divide and Conquer

Here’s a quote from the 2000 classic by Charles Spurgeon: Ethernet: The Definitive Guide

The quote comes courtesy of Google books, pg. 107.
(I still have a hardcopy on my bookshelf).

I’m pretty sure that NICs don’t have transceivers any more, so they aren’t really subject to such failures. But similar behavior — specifically, failure of a switch domain — is well-known to occur when hardware problems bedevil a LAN segment. For a while there, I was chasing random network failures in my office. They would kick all the machines off the switch, but would gradually let everybody back on.

It wasn’t until I quit using the built-in GbE port on my retiring X220 Tablet PC that the problems stopped. I was able to confirm the issue by plugging the RJ-45 cable back into that until and watching the circus start back up. If I switched to a USB dongle instead, the GbE domain attached to either or both switches in my office worked fine. One is a standalone NetGear 8-port GbE switch, the other an 8-port switch integrated into my Asus 802.11AX WAP/router.

Historical Note

Divide and conquer was the recommended troubleshooting method to identify a jabbering transceiver. One would subdivide the cable segment by interrupting it at a repeater, and terminating each sub-segment. Whichever segment stayed broken had the failing device. Repeat until the device can be identified, then replace it. I did this for TRW in Austin in 1988 on an actual service call there…

It wasn’t really until I started the trip down memory lane to my first-ever Ethernet networking class in 1987, and my trip to TRW, that I understood what was happening. The built-in GbE interface was failing, and acting like a jabbering transceiver. I can’t exactly say “everything old is new again.” But I can say, an old lesson learned came in handy. And indeed, that is the way things sometimes go, shooting trouble here in Windows-World!

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

Pondering Free Windows Upgrades

June 21, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

The world is expecting information about a new major Windows release on June 24. I’ve been watching the byplay and discussion of what could be new, and what might be next. For me, one question is paramount. Will the next upgrade be free? Or, will users have to pay for that privilege? That’s what has me pondering free Windows upgrades, as the Microsoft event comes in a just a few more days.

History Guides Me, In Pondering Free Windows Upgrades

Let me think back on my own personal Windows history. I remember most early upgrades to Windows were neither free (because they came on “official media”) nor terribly expensive (because MS wanted users to stay current). If I remember correctly, upgrades cost US$50 to $99 for Windows 3.0 and 3.1. Windows 95 upgrades listed for US$109.95, but deals were sometimes available. Ditto for Windows 98, which also offered a pre-order price of $94.99 for upgrades to those willing to spend less sooner and get the media later. Windows Vista is the last version that I remember Microsoft charging a fee to upgrade and it cost more: US$120 (Home), US$200 (Business) and US$220 (Ultimate).

Since then, upgrades to 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 have pretty much all been free to those with legit, valid Windows licenses for previous (and sometimes older) versions. To my way of thinking, this says that recent history argues that a “next upgrade” should be free for Windows 10 licensees. OTOH, there’s plenty of older history that argues directly to the contrary.

Time Will Tell … and Soon, I Hope!

With a major announcement coming up on Thursday, June 24, we may soon be finding out what any upgrade deal will be for Windows 10 licensees. Because I have 10 PCs here at Chez Tittel, I’m more than a little interested in (and apprehensive) about the upcoming upgrade policy. In the meantime, I’ve got my fingers crossed that recent history trumps ancient history now that physical media are seldom needed, and OS downloads represent the most common and widely used distribution channel for Windows install files.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows OS Musings

Tom Petty Got Windows Wait Right

June 18, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

As the community of Windows Insiders, journalists, watchers and hangers-on collectively holds its breath for June 24, I’m thinking about an old Tom Petty song. The name of the song, of course, is the 1981 classic “The Waiting.” The lyric runs “The waiting is the hardest part.” And wow, how true is that as time marches toward Microsoft’s next generation Windows event on June 24. For me — and I imagine, many others — Tom Petty got Windows wait right.

Because Tom Petty Got Windows Wait Right, Hang In There!

Earlier this week, a leaked version of what purports to be the next Windows release appeared online. Since then, all the usual Windows news outlets are abuzz. These include WinAero, Windows Latest, Windows Central, OnMSFT, Thurrott, and countless others. All are awash in exposition and analysis of “what’s in there.”

Visit one or more of the widely read third-party Windows sites to see what I mean. On every one, stories about the leaked version dominate their home pages. Here’s a quick “count analysis” of what I see. In fact, most of them have devoted over half their line items to this topic. Some go as high as 90 percent.

When the Hardest Part Is Over, Then What?

I’m crossing my fingers that MS will indeed release an official next-gen version during or after the June 24 event. Because I’m an Insider MVP I’m not allowed to write about details regarding leaks and unofficial releases, hacks and other similar stuff. That probably explains why I’m a little frustrated that there’s so much activity already underway that I can’t dive into just yet.

In the meantime, I’ll keep humming Mr. Petty’s tune and watching the clock. There’s really not much else I can do right now — except, of course, to keep plugging away at all the real work I actually get paid for. Do stay tuned: as soon as I can, I’ll start covering this next big Windows thing, whatever it turns out to be.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows Update

Upcoming PowerShell Updates Arrive via WU

June 17, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting tidbit. Starting with Preview edition 7.2 preview 5 or newer, Windows Update will take over responsibility for updating PowerShell as new versions emerge. Used to be it would notify users an update was available, but they would have to visit GitHub to grab the .msi, or use a package manager to install the new version. But now, certain upcoming PowerShell updates arrive via WU.

It’s not clear when this will click in for production versions, but the shift is already underway for preview versions. If you download and install PowerShell 7.2 preview 5 or 6, you’ll be queued up for this grand experiment. (Visit the Releases GitHub page to find them.)

Rolling Out Upcoming PowerShell Updates Arrive via WU

As is typical when introducing new features and capabilities. MS will start this process with Preview editions of PowerShell. You can read more about the rollout plan in the June 16 PowerShell blog “Preview udpating PowerShell 7.2 with Microsoft Update.” Some registry tweaking is required, but the blog post provides all necessary commands in scripts designed for easy cut’n’paste use.

This is a nice step forward for Windows-heads who, like me, are regular and interested PowerShell users. It’s one step closer to real OS integration now. The post doesn’t say when this treatment will include PS production versions, but I’m hoping it will be soon. Perhaps it will come along for the ride into “next generation” Windows 10? Stay tuned, and I’ll tell you when that news hits.

Uncategorized

Odd Win10 News and Interests Issues

June 16, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I’ve been noticing some odd and unusual behaviors from the now widely-available News and Interests taskbar item lately. Other sources have been reporting something similar (Windows Latest, OnMSFT, etc.) as well. For some, it has included “blurry text” for N&I on the taskbar. That is not anything I’ve seen on any of my 10 Windows 10 PCs. But it seems certain that odd Win10 News and interests issues are rampant right now.

What Kinds of Odd Win10 News and Interests Issues?

The weirdest thing I’ve seen appears to indicate synch or dynamic update issues. I’ll often look at N&I on my production desktop and see a different weather icon and temp than in an RDP window on the other display. Just now, for example, I saw partly sunny and 87F on my left-hand monitor, and sunny and 88F on its right-hand counterpart. I’ve seen the N&I info show up when RDP-ing into other PCs with information that is hours old or from the previous day.

Is this a problem? No, not really. It’s more of a curiosity. It also has me wondering about how MS manages communications between the notification text and the back-end servers that feed it information. Methinks it’s likely there’s some rough spots in the polling or interval handling for refreshes involved.

That said, MS is reported to be aware of these issues and working on fixes. Other sources assert that N&I went out the door lacking polish and may not be completely “cooked” yet. My own experience is not that negative. However, it is easy to observe that some aspects of N&I don’t work as smoothly or seamlessly as they could. I’m sure this will be the focus for ongoing updates, refinements and enhancements in upcoming updates ahead. I look forward to its continuing elaboration and evolution. Stay tuned!

Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows Update

Forcibly Upgrading 20H2 PCs Many Ways

June 15, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, I’ll admit it. I got tired of waiting. This weekend, I forcibly upgraded my 20H2 production desktop to 21H1. As it happens, when forcibly upgrading 20H2 PCs many ways to the new version are open. I took one of the easiest: installing the enablement package. Links for x32, x64 and ARM64 versions are available at TenForums, via KB5000736 self-installing update files.

Forcibly Upgrading 20H2 PCs Many Ways Requires Follow-up

Of course, it’s been a while since KB5000736 first appeared on May 18. After I got through that install — which took under 2 minutes on my SkyLake i7-6700 PC — I had additional updates to install:

KB4023057: Update for Windows 10 Update Service Components
KB5004476 Out-of-band MS Store fix for Xbox Game Pass games

These took MUCH longer to download and install than the enablement package for 21H1, much to my surprise. Not all updates, apparently, can happen as quickly or easily as its minimalist changes (which mostly involve flipping switches for stuff already in the 20H2 OS).

Other Ways to Forcibly Upgrade from 20H2 to 21H1

Though it may be the fastest way to get from 20H2 to 21H1, other methods are also available. The Microsoft Update Assistant and an in-place upgrade install from mounted 21H1 ISO (both available on the Download Windows 10 page) will do the trick as well. But not only do these methods take longer, they also leave Windows.old and related cruft behind. That’s why I use the enablement package whenever possible. If you run out of patience like I did, I suggest you take the same route to get to 21H1 yourself. Enjoy!

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

Windows 10 Retirement Date Is 2025

June 14, 2021 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

The exact date is October 14, 2025 to be more precise. This information comes from the Windows Lifecycle page for Windows 10 Home and Pro. Other online sources brought it to my attention last week. After earlier statements from MS that Windows 10 would be the last version, ever, this comes as something of a surprise (here’s a BBC story that reports this same observation). Notice, though that this statement — namely, Windows 10 retirement date is 2025 — covers only Home, Pro, Pro Education and Pro Workstation versions in the intro screencap. But if you visit the corresponding Lifecycle Page for Windows 10 Enterprise and Education, you’ll see that same date there also:

Windows 10 Retirement is 2025--including Enterprise and Education, too. — Windows 10 Retirement is 2025–including Enterprise and Education, too.

EOL = Windows 10 Retirement Date is 2025

This information certainly adds some frisson to the upcoming June 24 announcement of what’s next for Windows. Indeed, the current reigning version has always had this expiration date, according to Microsoft internal sources. Frankly, I just hadn’t looked closely at the Lifecyle data in quite some time.

Given that a 10-year life for Windows versions is more or less standard, that means a new, replacement version is more or less obligatory. The next generation’s name, content and release details still remain a cipher. however, as the June 24 event day draws ever closer.

Gosh! I find myself a whole lot more interested in the upcoming event than I had been. I suspect a great many Windows watchers, reporters, and professionals my share that feeling. And with Windows Cloud PC now apparently working I find myself wondering if that version won’t also switch over to “the next big thing” sooner, rather than later.

Up until last week, Windows 10 versions (e.g. 2004, 20H2, and 21H1) all came with expiration dates. I mistakenly thought that Windows 10 itself never had a retirement date of its own. In fact, it always had been slated for a 2025 end date, and I somehow missed that boat. I’m reminded of Donkey’s line in Shrek I: “Of course you’re a girl dragon!” In that vein, of course we should have known something must succeed Windows 10. Perhaps on June 24 we’ll find out more about what that could be.

I Must Apologize for Misunderstanding…

Note: This item was substantially revised on June 15, when I learned from sources within Microsoft that the retirement date has been published and present for some time. Indeed I can find this information in the Wayback Machine as far back as September 22, 2020. My apologies for any suggestions that this is a big change or that it is of more than ordinary significance. It’s just the normal working out of the software lifecycle.