Category Archives: Insider stuff

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

Upcoming PowerShell Updates Arrive via WU

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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.

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Windows 10 Retirement Date Is 2025

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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.

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

Goodbye Lenovo X220 Tablet PC

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I’ve just learned something potentially useful. As a Windows PC ages, it tends to lose vendor support somewhere along the way. And with that comes missing or incompatible drivers and firmware updates. I’ve hit that point now with my Lenovo X220 Tablet, which was built and purchased in 2012. It was my first-ever touchscreen PC bought to learn touch interaction in Windows 8. But because of increasing decrepitude, I must now say goodbye Lenovo X220 Tablet PC.

Why Say Goodbye Lenovo X220 Tablet PC?

Why? Because it takes longer for me to get the device update ready than it does to apply pending updates. As it’s been a Dev Channel test machine, that’s a lotta updates. Because this phenom includes Defender updates, it’s become a daily thing. Sigh.

I’ve developed a “workaround ritual” to keep the machine updated. First, I try WU by itself. Sometimes, it works. When only Defender updates fail, I next go to the updates button in Windows Security/Virus & Threat protection. If that doesn’t work, I manually download the latest update file and install it “by hand.”

If other updates are involved, I try WUMT. It often succeeds when WU hangs during either download or install phases. Sometimes, I have to reset the entire update environment using Shawn Brink’s Reset_Reregister_Windows_Update_Components.bat file. It’s nearly infallible.

Another problem that’s cropped up is the outright failure of the Intel Management Engine on that PC. I’m not especially worried about that, per se, but this does mean that I must remember to manually strike a key each time the system reboots (and it does so 3 or more times each time any upgrade is installed, which happens weekly on a Dev Channel test machine). Otherwise the system just waits for input before it can proceed further.

When It’s Time, It’s Time…

Long story short, it’s become too time-consuming to work around the X220 Tablet’s limitations and gotchas. I still love this machine, but as a freelancer I always have to keep one eye on the clock and manage my time carefully. This laptop is now more trouble than it’s worth, so I’ll be passing it onto the folks at ReGlue for a wipe and a LInux install. Some schoolkid will still get good use out of its 4-core/8 thread i7 2640M CPU, dual (small) SSDs, and 16 GB RAM.

 

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Windows 11 Rumors Swirl Bemusingly

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In the past week, there’s been a flurry of rumors around Windows. Indeed, Microsoft will announce a “what’s next” for Windows at an upcoming live-stream event scheduled for June 24. The lead-in graphic for this story comes from the illustration just below the invitation text. That text reads (in part) “Join us to see what’s next for Windows … 06.24.21 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time” Notice the light passing through the window (below) is missing the crossbar above. This simple discrepancy has swept the Internet, as Windows 11 rumors swirl bemusingly.

What Makes Windows 11 Rumors Swirl Bemusingly?

The two bars of light beneath the Window could represent the number 11, to those inclined to find signifance therein. Leaks reproduced in sites like WinAero.com cite references from usually well-informed sources to confirm the 11 numbering (or nomenclature).

Am I onboard for such speculation? Maybe I’ve been following Windows for too long now. I just can’t get too excited about the idea of an “increment by 1” operation on the current Windows major version number. Given that the same breathless sources positing such an increment is inevitable also say “Windows 11 uses the same code base as Windows 10,” it doesn’t seem like a seismic shift of any sort to me.

We Still Don’t Know Enough …

Sure, Satya Nadella said at Build 2021 that “one of the most significant updates to Windows of the past decade” was in the offing. He also referred to it (as has Panos Panay, the guy now in charge of Windows development as MS) as “the next generation of Windows.” But what does it really mean when Nadella goes on to say:

We will create more opportunity for every Windows developer today and welcome every creator who is looking for the most innovative, new, open platform to build and distribute and monetize applications.

Answer: we’ll find out more on June 24 when the livestream event goes down. In meantime ask yourself how much difference a different version number will make? Frankly, I’m more interesting in learning whether or not moving from old to new versions will be free (as it was from 7 to 8 to 8.1 to 10) or require purchasing a new license? Hopefully, we’ll find out. Stay tuned!

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Old PC Shows Interesting Update Behaviors

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I’m still running my 2012 vintage Lenovo X220 Tablet. It’s so old, it’s got an Ivy Bridge CPU (i7-2640M). I’ve been getting signs for the past year or so that this PC is nearing obsolescence. For one thing, the Intel Management Engine always comes up in a “recovery state” which I’ve learned means the related firmware is no longer working. In the past month or so, this old PC shows interesting update behaviors. That means it often hangs during update downloads at 0% complete, especially for Windows Defender Security Intelligence updates. Take a look at the lead-in graphic to see what I mean (reproduced below so you can click on it to see all the details).

Old PC Shows Interesting Update Behaviors
Old PC Shows Interesting Update Behaviors

Click on image for full-sized view.

What Old PC Shows Interesting Update Behaviors Truly Means

Simply put, Windows Update isn’t working reliably on this PC any more. This has persisted across the last half-dozen or so Dev Channel upgrades. The only way to break the logjam seems to be to bring an old tool into the mix — namely, the Windows Update Management Tool (aka WUMT).

If you look at the lines from that application dated June 2 in the lead-in graphic, you’ll get an idea of what’s going on. Notice, the third line from the top shows Defender update failed from MoUpdateOrchestrator. That’s the native service inside WU that coordinates automatic updates. Next, WUMT itself fails (because I actually launched it AFTER firing off a manual update scan in Windows Security’s Virus & Threat protection). That shows up as Windows Defender under “Applications ID” in the top item, and is the one that succeeded.

What Makes This Update Behavior Interesting?

As you can see in the update history, none of the update agents (apps) always succeeds. Sometimes, MoUpdateOrchestrator (WU itself) works. Ditto for Windows Defender and WUMT. I keep using WUMT, though, because it seems to break the 0% download logjam pretty reliably (even if it doesn’t always end doing the download itself, as the lead-in graphic shows).

I am getting a strong sense that the X220 Tablet is nearing the end of its useful life. That’s because I’m deliberately using it to push the envelope to see how well aging hardware copes with Dev Channel Insider Preview builds. When it becomes more work to troubleshoot and get upgraded, I’ll give this machine to my friends at ReGlue and promote one of my two 2018 vintage Lenovo X380 Yoga PCs into that role. If the X220 Tablet is any indication, they should be good for at least another 6 years or so!

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Notepad Makes Microsoft Store Debut

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Here’s an interesting item. The venerable Notepad plain text editor has moved out of the basic install image for Windows. In fact, Notepad makes Microsoft Store debut as an app, from whence it can be updated easily and more frequently. The lead-in graphic shows the Store entry for Notepad (left) and its About window (right).

The full text description for Notepad in Store reads:

Notepad has been the fast and simple text editor on Windows for over 30 years, and now it’s available in the Microsoft Store! View, edit and search through plain text documents and source code files instantly.

If Notepad Makes Microsoft Store Debut, Then What?

The requirements section in the app says users must be running Windows version 19541.0 or higher. Current versions of 20H2 or Release Preview/Beta Channel run Builds 19042 and 19043, respectively, so they don’t qualify. But Dev Channel certainly does: that’s where I generated the foregoing screenshots.

19541 emerged on January 20, 2020 (nearly 16 months ago). I don’t remember seeing Notepad in the Store earlier, or hearing about its distribution through that app channel. In fact, I learned about it in a Windows Latest story dated May 16, 2021. That makes me wonder if the Store-based version has been on internal beta until 21382.1 hit last Friday — a typical MS release practice — and is just now making its way into Insider Preview Dev Channel releases. Such would be my guess.

Looking through update history in the Store, I don’t see any updates to Notepad in there just yet. That said, the “All Owned” apps list in the Store itself says that Notepad was last modified on 4/3/2021, which puts it into Build 21343 at the time (Flight Hub). Indeed, that could mean it made its way to the store on or before April 3. Because I didn’t notice and can’t find earlier reports about Notepad in the Store, I just can’t say for sure.

And boy, isn’t that just the way things go sometimes, here in Windows-World? Whenever it showed up in the Store, it’s good news for those who use Notepad and want quick access to new features, fixes and so forth.

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SetupDiag Illuminates Updates Too

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About three months ago I wrote about the Microsoft SetupDiag.exe tool. In that February 17 post, I explained how it provides info about upgrade errors and gotchas. Although the Microsoft Docs article doesn’t really say so, SetupDiag Illuminates Updates too. That is: you can use it to gather information and intelligence about update errors, failures, and so forth. Because those occur more frequently than upgrades, this capability is perhaps even more valuable.

If SetupDiag Illuminates Updates Too, Then What?

A failed Windows Upgrade leaves a copy of SetupDiag.exe behind, in the $Windows.~BT/Sources folder. Windows Update does no such thing. Thus, would-be investigators should bookmark this link, from whence the latest and greatest version may always be downloaded:

Download SetupDiag

Once you have this tool in hand, open an administrative Command Prompt or PowerShell session, then enter its full path specification. I found one in the Windows.old folder hierarchy on a recently-upgraded Dev Channel test PC, and it produced the following (partial) output:

SetupDiag Illuminates Updates Too.output-example

Run a local copy of the program if you’ve got one, though it’s best to download a current version instead.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Once SetupDiag runs through all of its log searches and processing rules, it will produce a report that provides the error code and error string (aka “bug check code” and “bug check string,” respectively). This is usually enough information to lead affected users to possible solutions. Just today, in fact, I read a story about update failures for the May 11 KB5003173 that used such data to diagnose possible issues with manual Microsoft Edge removals. It seems that leaving old directories behind will stymie the update. See this Windows Latest story for details.

The Consummation You Should Seek

Be it upgrade or update, you’ll eventually want SetupDiag to show you something like this to indicate a successful outcome:

Once you’ve finished troubleshooting, and fixed things, SetupDiag should tell you something like this.
[Click image for full-sized view.]

Cheers!

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KB5003173 Brings Critical Security Updates

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This month’s “Patch Tuesday” fell on  May 11. Windows versions 20H2 and 21H1 went to Build Numbers 19041/42.985. The delivery vehicle KB5003173 brings critical security updates to users, including fixes for three zero-day attacks labeled “critical:”

  • CVE-2021-31204 – .NET and Visual Studio Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability. Affects Visual Studio 2019 version 16.0-16.9, .NET 5.0 and .NET Core 3.1 (reported straight from MS).
  • CVE-2021-31207 – Microsoft Exchange Server Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability. A Microsoft Exchange vulnerability previously used in the 2021 Pwn2Own hacking challenge, attributable to either Devcore or Team Viettel.
  • CVE-2021-31200 – Common Utilities Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (affects Microsoft’s Neural Network Intelligence (NNI) toolkit, and comes courtesy of Abhiram V/Resec System via Github.

Experts Urge Installing KB5003173 Brings Critical Security Updates

Most discussion of the new CU from security experts strongly recommends installing this update (see, for example, this BleepingComputer item). In addition to the 3 critical items already cited, this update fixes 55 vulnerabilities overall, one more of which is also labeled “critical”. 50 are designated “important” and one “Moderate.” To most people in the know, this makes the update worth installing, even though the three afore-mentioned vulnerabilities are not yet known to be exploited in the wild.

What Else Ya Got?

In the KB overview info, MS specifically calls out the following highlights (quoted verbatim from that source):

  • Updates to improve security when Windows performs basic operations.
  • ~Updates to improve Windows OLE (compound documents) security.

  • Updates security for Bluetooth drivers.

That document also mentions security updates to the Windows App Platform and Frameworks, the Windows Kernel, Windows Media, the Microsoft Scripting Engine, and the Windows Silicon Platform. A little bit of everything, in other words. For further details on all 55 items covered in this update, check the May entries in the Security Update Guide from MS.

I concur with the experts: this update is worth installing. Check it out, and make the call for yourself. For the record, I had no trouble with it on any of the half-dozen machines eligible for the update. No issues during install, and nothing noticeable afterwards. So far, anyway…

 

 

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DevMgr Gets View Devices by Driver Option

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Here’s something new and interesting. Dev Channel Insiders can see a new View menu option in Device manager. That’s right: with Build 21370, DevMgr gets View Devices by Driver option.

The menu element is shown in the lead-in graphic for this story, above. To the left, find a long version of that same screencap. It’s menu-free and shows just under half of the total listing that appears.

Please note: you can see all drivers listed using oemnnn.inf names. In fact, these are assigned as drivers get installed. To the right, you see the true driver name — e.g. netwbw02.inf for oem1.inf –which tells you it’s a Bluetooth networking driver of some kind.

This Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga has 119 drivers installed. That’s a pretty normal count for a Windows 10 PC.

As I look at my other Windows 10 PCs, I see driver counts as low as the low 80s to as high as the low 200s. Actually, that number depends on how many devices (both Microsoft and third-party) are installed in some specific Windows 10 image. Indeed, what’s present and accounted for is what shows up in such tools and their listings.

Is DevMgr Gets View Devices by Driver Option Good?

The purpose of the change, according to Sergey Tkachenko at WinAero.com, is to “make it easier to see what hardware is using which drivers.” I’ve grown fond of the GitHub project DriverStore Explorer (RAPR.exe) for that same purpose, but it is nice to get easy access to the OEM numbers associated with drivers as in this view. Any device name with a carat to its left (e.g. oem11.inf) is actually the root of a device tree. Expand same by clicking the carat and you see various PCIe, LPC and PMC controllers for which it is a parent.

This view is pretty handy for understanding how some hardware elements in a PC are related to others. In fact, this makes for an interesting, informative and useful addition to Device Manager. It’s rumored to be targeted for inclusion in the 21H2 “Sun Valley” release of Windows 10. That’s far enough out that it could easily change. Stay tuned, and i”ll keep you informed. DevMgr has always been a fave tool for me, so I’m more than just a little interested.

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N&I Rollout Hits Production PCs

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It’s heeeeeeeere! The Dell Optiplex 7080, with its 10th-generation i7 CPU, popped up with News & Interests (N&I) in the notification area. This followed after updating to KB5001030. I’d read this was underway. But I now have personal, tangible evidence that the N&I rollout hits production PCs. Now the question becomes: how long will the rollout take to get to other, older PCs?

I See That N&I Rollout Hits Production PCs

You can see it, too, in the lead-in graphic for this story. It shows the Winver.exe  window just above the notification area, including the “weather bug” for N&I. So far, this is the only 19042 or 19043 PC (I have 5 of them altogether) on which N&I has made an appearance.

As you can read in this Windows Latest story, the rollout is underway. But I can tell you from personal observation that it’s hit fewer rather than more of its potential targets at the moment. Here’s how the afore-linked story explains things:

Unfortunately, the feature isn’t available yet for all users, according to several user reports. It looks like a wider rollout is not expected until the end of the month.

That story also concludes with the following statements:

News and Interests feed will be enabled automatically with a server-side update. More users are expected to receive the feature on May 11, while others will get it by the end of the month or in June.

I’m inclined to go along with this, though I do find myself wondering where and how they come up with this information. There hasn’t been much discussion about how rollouts work from MS itself, except to say that it starts out with a smaller population of PCs, and gradually extends its coverage to includes a larger population over time. Seems like the veracity of the timing will be demonstrated in the next 7 to 8 weeks. We’ll see!

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