Category Archives: Device drivers

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

KB5018496 Lands Poorly So Far

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KB5018496 is out as of October 25. It takes production-level Windows 11 22H2 systems to Build 22621.755 when applied. To be fair, it’s a Preview CU, so not entirely cooked yet. But I observe that KB5018496 lands poorly so far because

(a) I don’t see any of its cool gradual rollout features on any of my PCs (e.g. right-click in Taskbar to launch Task Manager)
(b) When I attempted to explore the new Microsoft Accounts (MSA) capabilities, it crashed when I attempted to open the P16’s camera. I know that works because I use camera-based Hello to log onto that machine and had just done so minutes before. Sigh.
(c) I was unable to verify my identity in Settings → Accounts, because of the camera issue, so also unable to backup my MSA data. Sigh again.

Again: this is a preview release. And I’m qvetching about gradual rollout elements that either haven’t made it to my PCs, or that aren’t yet working as they should be. It’s a kind of “business as usual” thing, I guess.

What KB5018496 Lands Poorly So Far Really Means…

It’s pretty much par for the course that a few rough edges will show up in a preview release. Thus, for example, when I went to Accounts → Windows backup in an RDP session, the PC “knew” it couldn’t use the camera for validation. So I got an email to my MSA address instead. That worked just fine. The relevant screencap appears as the lead-in graphic for this story.

I assume there’s some kind of driver hiccup with the camera when logged in directly. It threw an error code that pointed squarely in that direction. That should be easy to run down and fix, so I’ll report it to Feedback Hub later today.

I’ve been using the right-click access to Task Manager in the taskbar on Insider versions of 22H2 for a while now. Thus, I also know it’s just a matter of time before it, too, shows up in production versions of 22H2.

Self-Inflicted Wounds? Perhaps…

So why do I install previews on production PCs? Because I’m an Insider and it’s my job to take such stuff on, and report what I see and find. I make daily image backups on those PCs, so the worst that can happen is a rollback to the previous image. I don’t generally do real work on those PCs unless I’m on the road. And in that situation, I probably wouldn’t mess with a preview because I wouldn’t want to lose the time (or the work done) since the last backup anyway.

And that’s how things go here in Windows World. Stay tuned for further developments. I’ll qvetch some more another day, for sure!

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

P16 Safeguard Hold Lifted

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OK, then. I performed my daily ritual WU check on the P16 Mobile Workstation on Friday (Oct 14) . This time, the P16 safeguard hold lifted, and I was able to update to Windows 11 22H2. As you can see in the lead-in screencap, the 22H2 download was available during capture. Neat-o!

And indeed a quick visit to the 22H2 Known Issues page shows that my hold-up — the Intel SST drivers — appears as “mitigated.” Here’s what that looks like:

P16 Safeguard Hold Lifted.SST-info

The P16 blocking issue is now resolved, thanks to Intel driver updates. These appear in DevMgr under the “Software Components” heading.

With P16 Safeguard Hold Lifted, Upgrade Proceeds

I got a little concerned right after the first reboot (from the GUI-based portion of the install, into the post-GUI phase). The P16 sat at 0% complete on processing updates for what seemed like an eternity (about 4 minutes). But then, it started to chunk through the process and finished in about 20 minutes during that install phase.

I noticed that the update included a raft of driver updates –14 in all — by checking Reliability Monitor later on. The two items of greatest import show up in the software components category where various sound -related items reside.

Whatever the issue might have been, I’m glad to see it resolved. And so far, the P16 is running without apparent issues. I’m connected to it remotely via RDP right now, so that recent bugaboo is not present here, either. Good-oh!

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

Windows Upgrades Bring New Drivers

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Whenever one upgrades a Windows installation, the installer locates and installs a new slate of drivers by default. There are ways to overcome this by customizing the Windows install image (with DISM, for example). But I was forcibly reminded that Windows Upgrades bring new drivers. It happened two days ago when the Installation Assistant took the P360 Ultra to Windows 11 22H2.

Fortunately, I knew how to fix this. Because the latest Nvidia driver is the culprit, I simply switched to Intel UHD graphics. This took me from a black screen to working graphics output. I’ll roll back the affected driver this weekend. That will put things back to rights.

Showing Windows Upgrades Bring New Drivers

I had to roll back the Nvidia driver on the P360 Ultra to get the RTX A2000 GPU to work. That’s because there is a known issue with all drivers newer than 30.0.15.1165, as I learned from Lenovo’s engineering folks last week (see this Sept 16 item for details).

I’m a big fan of the GitHub DriverStore Explorer project (aka RAPR.exe). As you can see from the following screen snippet, there’s an older INF file on the U360 Ultra for my proper target version (30.0.15.1165). But alas, DevMgr won’t roll back to that version (I think it’s because the older version is a Quadro/Studio driver, while the new, in-place version is a Game-ready driver).

Windows Upgrades Bring New Drivers.RAPR

RAPR confirms that the new version is installed, and shows the old version, too. [Click image, then zoom to 200%.]

Luckily I still have the Lenovo update package that they provided. As its Properties window shows, file m3vdo008d.exe is exactly what I need. I know from recent experience – the first time I fixed this gotcha – that I can simply install this exe file, and it will replace the buggy new driver with the stable, working older driver. Sometimes, one has to run the Driver Display Uninstall (DDU) tool to completely remove all traces of the new, before installing the old. That’s NOT the case here, I’m happy to say.

Windows Upgrades Bring New Drivers.LenovoPkg

If I install this older driver, I can then use the Nvidia GPU without problems.

How Driver Trouble Happens During Upgrade

If a particular PC needs an older (or non-current) driver, Windows isn’t smart enough to steer around such potholes. As soon as I upgraded this PC, I knew I was going to have to fix the automatic update it would make to the latest (and incorrect) Nvidia driver. Sometimes, that’s the kind of thing you need to watch out for when upgrading Windows. Consider yourself notified, if not warned!

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

Thunderbolt Software Upgrade Strategy

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At first I thought “Catch-22.” Those using PCs old enough to run Intel’s Thunderbolt Software have reason to ponder Heller’s famous catch. An updated replacement — namely, Thunderbolt Control Center — is available from the Microsoft Store. But if you run Thunderbolt Software, it doesn’t show up there. Nor is there an easy upgrade path. That’s why, in fact, I had to come with a Thunderbolt Software upgrade strategy.

Finding a Thunderbolt Software Upgrade Strategy

All I can say is “I got lucky.” I chose as my search string to dig into this topic “Thunderbolt Software vs. Thunderbolt Control Center.” It immediately struck gold in a Forum post from Mac/PC oriented website egpu.io. There, those same terms appeared in inverted order.

There’s a trick involved in making this upgrade. It works as follows: if one downloads newer DCH drivers for the Thunderbolt device in DevMgr → System Devices, updating that driver causes Windows 11 (or 10, for that matter) to update the related software automatically. It’s actually pretty easy. I’m going to upgrade my remaining holdover system (one of my Lenovo X380 Yogas, acquired in late 2018) and take you through the steps involved.

NOTE:For a Thunderbolt device to show up in DevMgr, you may need to plug in an actual Thunderbolt or USB4 device. That’s what I had to do on each of my three 2018 vintage systems that needed this upgrade.

Making the Transition, Step-by-Step

Step 1: Visit this Intel Download page and download the ZIP file available there. Don’t be put off by the NUC notation: I’ve run in on a Yoga 380 and an X1 Extreme, and it worked on both systems. It seems to work on any Intel Thunderbolt controller.

Step 2: Unzip the file into a target directory. I named mine TBdev to make it easy to identify.

Thunderbolt Software Upgrade Strategy.unzipped

Contents of the ZIP file in the V:\TBdev folder. The INF folder is where the action will be.

Step 3: Open DevMgr, navigate to the Thunderbolt controller, right-click, and pick “Update driver.” In the resulting pop-up window, pick “Browse my computer for drivers “(lower item). Browse to your TBdev\INF folder, as shown here, then click “Next.”

Click “Next” and the driver should update itself from the various files in the INF folder.

If this process succeeds, you’ll see something like the following Window appear.

Guess what? If this worked, you’re finished. Windows will now visit the MS Store on its own and install the Thunderbolt Control Center app for you. Until you next reboot your PC, you’ll see both the old software and the new side-by-side if you type “Thu” into the Windows 11 (or 10) search box:

Old (Thunderbolt software) on the left, new (Thunderbolt Control Center) on the right. Only TCC will work, tho…

After the next reboot, Thunderbolt Software no longer appears. Case closed!

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

Old School Driver Repair Still Works

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Whoa! I’ve had the Lenovo P360 Ultra SFF PC for a week now, and I FINALLY got the discrete Nvidia RTX A2000 GPU working. It showed only a black screen with the Acer XR382CQK monitor. With a Dell 2717 from my wife’s PC as a stand-in, it would run (briefly) then fall over (AppCrash on NvidiaContainer.exe). My suspicion of driver issues were confirmed by the ace Lenovo engineering team. And I was happy to learn that an old school driver repair still works.

What Old School Driver Repair Still Works?

Good question! Having just written a story for TechTarget about fixing black screens, this was chapter and verse for me. If the current GPU driver falls over, received wisdom goes “roll back a version. Keep going till it works…” I’m actually not sure how far that would have gotten me.

But what the Lenovo engineering folks told me falls in line with that approach. They simply said “install version 511.65” and furnished me with a Lenovo download link for same.

Long story short: I installed the older driver. When I rebooted the machine, the previously non-functional XR382CQK monitor worked like a champ in the miniDP port. I didn’t even have to lug my wife’s Dell 2717 into position instead.

A Further Bulletin from Engineering…

Here’s what one of the engineering team emailed to the group assembled to help me over this hump:

 I checked with our lab and there is a known recent issue with Nvidia’s latest driver 513.12 and later. There will be a P360 Ultra BIOS release by end of month to address the issue. However, the workaround in the meantime is to use driver 511.65.  The symptoms are similar to what Ed is seeing – driver crashes.

Given that insight, a quick confirmation that I was running 516.94, and a link to the download for that older driver version, I got straight to work. Problem solved! Nice to know the old school repair still works. Even nicer to get pointed at the last known working version by the Lenovo team.

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

Realtek Audio Console Goes MIA

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There are two flavors of Realtek Audio drivers for Windows 10 and 11. The most prevalent are the High Definition Audio (or HDA) drivers. The less prevalent but slightly more capable are the Universal Audio Drivers (UAD). Confusingly, these show up in Device Manager as Realtek(R) Audio. More properly that would be Realtek® Audio, but DevMgr apparently doesn’t do metacharacters like the registered trademark symbol (®). Whatever you call it, the Realtek Audio Console Goes MIA in the MS Store.

Knowing When Realtek Audio Console Goes MIA

One used to be able to access this app through the Microsoft Store. No longer. Confusingly, the app says Realtek Audio Console in its title bar, but the Store listed it as Realtek Audio Control. Thus, for example, if you visit it at MajorGeeks.com (a usually safe and reliable download source), its Microsoft Store download link is broken. Likewise, a direct search at the Store produces no results. Ditto for a search at the Realtek downloads page.

Thus it looks to me that it’s at least possible that Realtek is de-emphasizing the UAD side of its audio drivers. In the absence of statements of direction or intent, it’s only possible to speculate. But it looks to me like UAD drivers and the app console may be orphaned, and no longer supported.

A Driver Search May Tell…

In looking at UAD drivers for Realtek, I see only Nahimic variants for the last half-dozen versions at Station-Drivers.com. None of these work with the plain vanilla FF00 audio codecs on my now-aging Z170 Skylake motherboard. I do have a B500 AMD rig that supports this Nahimic stuff, though.  In a couple of weeks, I’ll probe this mystery further and see if the Audio Console is available (and working) for that set-up.

Right now, I have a working UAD set-up with drivers that are now about a year old (version 9215.1, dated 8/3/2021). I have been unable to find any newer variants that work. Ditto for a newer version of the Realtek Audio Console (or Control). Very interesting!

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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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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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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, Windows 11, Windows Update

A-Volute Software Component Mystery Solved

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Oho! Yesterday was Patch Tuesday for July. Thus, I’ve been working through my stable of PCs, applying updates as I can. On my Ryzen 5800X Windows 11 desktop, I noticed something new and mysterious. Its MUC (Microsoft Update Catalog) entry provides the lead-in graphic for this story. Upon conducting research, this A-Volute software component mystery solved itself immediately.

How Is A-Volute Software Component Mystery Solved?

As with most such things, a quick trip to Google helps point me in the right direction. It turns out that A-Volute provides drivers for the Asrock B550’s audio circuitry. This also includes support for an Nh3 Audio Effects Component. It pops up under Software Components in Device Manager:

A-Volute Software Component Mystery Solved.dev-mgr-props

Googling online points me to a Realtek-related (Nahimic) audio driver, with matching entry in DevMgr. [Click for full-size view.]

I first found a credible mention of this at TenForums.  It appears in a thread on which I myself have been active. ( It’s entitled “Latest Realtek HD Audio Driver.”) Next, I find an entry named “A-Volute Nh3 Audio Effects Component” inside Device Manager. Presto! That convinces me the mystery is no longer unsolved.

I like to run things down when something new shows up amidst Patch Tuesday updates. It came along for the ride because MS  provides drivers as well as OS and other related updates. In most corporate or production IT environments, this doesn’t happen. Why not? Because untested drivers pose too many potential problems to simply let them through on their own.

Deconstructing Windows Mysteries

In general, when something new or unexpected shows up in Windows, it’s worth the effort to identify it. In most cases, it will be benign — as it was with this item. But sometimes, the mystery might deepen. Or it might even point to something malicious or malign. That’s when remediation comes into play. I’m happy that wasn’t needed this time. I’ll still keep my eye on new stuff going forward, though. One never knows when something wicked might this way come.

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Cool Tools, Device drivers, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11, Windows OS Musings

Windows 11 Clean Install Overlooks Certain Drivers

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OK, then: here’s a “new-ish” behavior in Windows 11 that I don’t love. Once upon a time, you could use the update function in Device Manager to search the Internet for device drivers. No longer: if a driver is absent, the “Update driver” function can’t find anything to use. That explains why Windows 11 clean install overlooks certain drivers. If they’re not in the driver store built into the ISO image, they’re simply unavailable.

If Windows 11 Clean Install Overlooks Certain Drivers, Then What?

Take my recently clean installed Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga. I happened to notice a half-dozen items under “Other Devices” in Device Manager yesterday. “Hmmm” I thought to myself. “Looks like the installer didn’t find some drivers while bringing the machine up.” Too true, as it turns out!

Fortunately, none of what was missing was essential to the laptop’s operation. Thus, that meant identifying the missing drivers, then finding and installing them. At first look, I saw 7 such devices. A quick hop to the Lenovo Vantage app (the company’s maintenance-update platform, which generally works OK or better) took care of three of them.

On a whim, I looked up LifeWire‘s story on the best free driver updaters (Tim Fisher updated it on April 4, 2022). It gives Driver Booster 9 Free the best rating (but the free version only updates 15 drivers, then requires users to pay ~US$23 to get a paid-up, for-a-fee version). It found 24 (!) drivers in need of update, so I concentrated on updating those that showed up with a “Driver Missing” label in that program’s output. Once identified, I knew I could handle the others on my own.

Back in  the High Life Again . . .

Indeed, the free version of the program did the trick for me. You can see in the lead-in graphic from Driver Store Explorer (aka RAPR.exe) that I was able to update 7 drivers (they show outdated versions). Add in another 7 new drivers added to go from “missing” to “found” and my system is now fully up-to-date, with no remaining “Other” device entries. No Device Manager items with the yellow exclamation point, either.

The gurus at TenForums and ElevenForum generally recommend against driver scan/update tools. I generally concur. But this was a big enough kerfluffle that I was grateful for some automated search-and-update help.

I guess that means I’m willing to make an exception when the “don’t check the Internet for available drives” behavior in Windows 11 prevents the installer from providing a full slate of items. I understand why MS did this (to prevent driver changes from adversely affecting naive users). But as I said in my lead ‘graph: I’m not in love with this design decision and its impact on clean install completeness.

That’s life, here in Windows-World. I can live with it, and fix it myself, when I must. So that’s what I did. And now the clean install machine is nearly production-ready. Just a few more apps and applications to go!

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