Category Archives: Thoughts & concerns

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 11

Pondering US$200 4TB SSD Availability

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I’m working my way up, slowly, to rebuilding a 5800X AMD desktop (on an Asrock B500 Extreme4 motherboard). The current build lacks a second M.2 NVMe SSD, so I’m also thinking about what kind (and how much) SSD to emplace in that currently open slot. Based on a teaser from NeoWin this morning, I’m also pondering US$200 4TB SSD availability, and its potential impact on that refurbishment.

Why Am I Pondering US$200 4TB SSD Availability?

Other than the obvious — amazing price for decent performance — I’ve got lots of reasons to think about choosing my second drive for this rebuild. Here’s a list:

  • I’ve got 3 or 4 good 1TB NVMe SSDs already in hand, all with 3K+ MBps read/write capability, plus 1 2 TB that’s PCIe Gen 4 and on par with the cheap-o 4TB item.
  • The B550 manual says the max capacity of SSDs it handles tops out at 2TB. So a 4TB unit might not even work.
  • I am trying to contain myself on this redo, price-wise, so I’m not sure I want to fork out another US$200, even though it’s a pretty potent price/performance combination.

Then I Started Thinking About HDDs

You can still buy a Seagate 5TB 2.5″ 5400 RPM hard disk for between US$140 and $160. That puts cost per TB on a roughly equal footing, though it does significantly impact performance. Indeed,  the HDD’s 450 MBps read/write is a decimal order of magnitude slower than this SSD’s reported 4,500 MBps or better. FWIW, I already own two of those so I could easily emplace one as a backup or archival drive in that build. Backup/archival space won’t be an issue, for sure.

So you see my situation: I have to think about what I want from the rebuild, and manage the expense versus capacity/capability ratio. I’ll keep thinking, and keep writing about it here. So far I’m leaning heavily toward “use what I’ve got, keep it cheap.” But that could change: Stay tuned!

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 11, Windows Update

Recent Rising Reclaimable Counts

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Recently, I’ve been noticing that Cumulative Updates (CUs) typically leave upwards of 10 or more reclaimable packages around, following installation. If my memory is any guide, numbers from 2-4 had been more typical until earlier this year. But recent rising reclaimable counts seem all too likely these days.

So I asked Copilot about it: “Why does dism /analyzecompo-nentstore find more reclaimable packages after CU updates recently?” Imagine my surprise when Copilot cited one of my very own blog posts in response as a potential source of “deeper insights.” Wow: that’s a shock to me!

Here’s what DISM told me after I updated Windows 11 24H2 to 26100.4202 last week: 10 packages reclaimable!

Why Rising Recent Reclaimable Counts?

When I check the component store using DISM /Get-Packages after recent CUs I see numerous staged and superseded items in the listing. These are what often gets cleaned up when a following DISM /StartComponentCleanup is run. Google AI says that  recent changes to “checkpoint cumulative updates” in 24H2 means that “Future updates then build incrementally from these checkpoints, leading to smaller downloads and potentially faster updates.” Looks like it means there are more and smaller items of this kind, rather than fewer and larger ones, as under the previous regime.

Thus, I think the phenomenon is real, and reflects a change in update approach and architecture. DISM dispatches these items pretty quickly (at least anecdotally more quickly than the older approach, in my own personal experience). So all in all, I’m inclined to find this a good thing.

It’s nice when incremental changes in Windows mean improvements in the general state of Windows-World itself. Today, that’s my story — and I’m sticking to it!

Note Added 6/7: A New Top Count!

I ran DISM /AnalyzeComponentStore on the X380 Yoga just now (running 24H2 Beta Channel Build 26120.4230). It reported a whopping 21 reclaimable packages, all of which vanish after running DISM /StartComponentCleanup. See this:

I’m inclined to take this as further validation of my thesis that CUs bring more (and smaller) packages for cleanup in their wake. What do you think?

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 11

Windows Start Soliloquy Gets Fanciful

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MS has started a new design blog under the general heading of “Behind the Surface.” It’s entitled “Start, Fresh –Redesigning the Windows Start menu for you.” The “Windows Design Team” is named as the author, rather than one or more specific individuals. It’s an interesting read, if a bit too breathless and wonder-struck for me. Indeed although this Windows Start soliloquy gets fanciful and overdone, IMO, it’s still worth your perusal.

Where (and How) Windows Start Soliloquy Gets Fanciful

In a list of so-called “guiding stars” the blog states four key principles driving Start Menu design. These serve as the lead-in graphic above, so I don’t repeat them. MS makes much of the work it took to rework the Start Menu. Those efforts presumably fit into the upcoming release of Windows 11 25H2 later this year. Here’s a representative quote from the post, likely from a user interaction during that process (note the tone and diction, please):

Help me find my apps faster. Let me bend Start to fit the way I work. And please—keep the magic, don’t lose the soul.

You’ve got to read the post and check out its images, tables, and language to really make sense of what it says. The key conclusions (and design changes) should include (each bolded item below is quoted verbatim from the blog post, sans quotation marks):

  • Dynamic recommendations: “files and apps” that “surface exactly when they matter.”
  • More and better views for all apps: Repositioned at the top of the Start Menu, you can choose “between logical categories, a neat grid, or the familiar A-Z list.”
  • Mobile content, gently blended: Integration with mobile devices mentions both Android and iPhone and stresses how you can reach out from the desktop to a mobile device.
  • Personalization, elevated: Stresses user’s abilities to zoom in on, or ignore, individual Start Menu sections, and to size it to match available screen real estate (bigger on big monitors, smaller on littler ones).
  • Under-the-hood speed: A commitment to making Start an “accelerator of your day” that loads “in a snap” not “dragged by lag.:

Generally MS makes an ongoing commitment to keep listening to user input and adjusting to what users have to say. Overall their goal is to meet their mantra for what the Start Menu should be:

Everything you need, right here, ready when you are.

This Should Be Interesting…

The rah-rah nature of the blog post and its overall tone and language aside, MS is putting itself out there. In the broadest of strokes they’re promising to improve the Start Menu, and to keep making it better. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in upcoming Insider Preview releases — and ultimately, in 25H2 itself. I’ll be watching — and sharing my observations — along that path. So will lots of other Insiders and other users. Stay tuned!

Note: here’s a shout out to Sergey Tkachenko at WinAero.com, whose story this morning pointed me at the MS blog post. Thanks! For a vastly different take on what’s going on here, see what Paul Thurrott has to say about this blog post.

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AI, Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

Copilot PowerShell Scripting Improves

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Hopefully, the observation that Copilot PowerShell scripting improves — and keeps improving over time — is noteworthy. And I mean outside a small circle of Windows nerds. From September through November of 2023, I wrote a series of stories about customizing Windows Terminal and PowerShell for TekkiGurus. As part of my research I used Copilot to help me build a raft of PS scripts. They served to read and write files, including JSON for profiles and configurations, counting text items, and more. That provides my basis for comparison between then and now. That experience grounds my assertion that Copilot has indeed gotten better at this. Let me explain…

What Copilot PowerShell Scripting Improves Means

In 2023, most of Copilot’s scripts of more than 2 or 3 lines of Powershell failed out of the box. All  suffered from minor syntax errors. Some included outright mistakes or errors. That said, they were close enough to the marks I was trying to hit to be helpful. I could debug and get them running properly, doing what I wanted them to, in an hour or two. That’s good, but by no means as magical as I might like.

Things are different now. Yesterday, for example, I learned that UniGetUI can save a complete list of all installed packages on a PC in file format. Upon examination, that format proves to be plain-text JSON, designed to be both compact and easy for humans and PCs to parse and ingest. “Great,” I thought, “If I can count the number of packages in that file, it will also tell me how many packages I have installed on the PC whence it’s generated.”

Indeed, I asked Copilot to generate a PS script to count the number of instances of “Name” in that file (each package has one such field). I took the resulting PowerShell and ran it, and it worked on the first try. You can see those results in the lead-in graphic for this blog post, at the top of the output (a whopping 454 of them, in fact). I’m tickled to death that I got the info I wanted without having to debug anything.

Where (and How) Copilot Still Falls Short

Ideally, an AI amanuensis could take this effort a step further. I should be able to ask Copilot: “How many packages are installed on my PC?” and get the same answer. Right now, it tells me how to get that answer via various PowerShell sources that include WinGet, the MS Store, and Win32 applications. We’re not quite where I want AI to be just yet.

One more thing: I asked Copilot to tell me when I wrote the TekkiGurus series of stories about Windows Terminal and it couldn’t tell me. For AI to work the way I want it to — and I think most readers could agree that it would be immensely helpful for that to happen — it would look up the initial Wayback Machine link, read the pub date, then follow the links in that story to other four elements in that 5-part series. It could then compile the full list of dates and titles and tell me what  I needed to know. Alas, not yet.

IMO, humans should drive AI to set tasks for it to handle and complete. AI should use its smarts to figure out how to get this done, and then to do it. Right now, it seems ready to tell me how to do it, and then do it for myself. But that’s not really the way it should work. Hopefully, we’ll be able to take that next step sooner, rather than later, in turning AI into a real assistant and amanuensis, and less of an advisor or source of guidance. In the months and years ahead, we will surely find that out!

 

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Security, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

E-mail Link Cynicism Is Well-Considered

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I’ll admit it: I’m a cynic when it comes to emails that ask me to follow a link to verify something. If somebody asks for verification unsolicited, I believe by default that request is malign. So when an email showed up asking me to verify my account to keep my email server going, my first instinct was “Heck NO!” And, as the NordVPN link-checker immediately confirmed , my instincts are good. It pops up instantly as a phishing site. Skepticism is spot on, and e-mail link cynicism is well-considered — at least IMO.

Check to See if E-mail Link Cynicism Is Well-Considered

If in doubt, check the link at a third-party site. NEVER click a link from an unknown sender. If you’re incurably curious, do it from a sandbox or VM you can blow away if something bad happens. The important thing is to think about what’s in your inbox, how it got there, and how it might bite you.

Here’s what the NordVPN site says. It’s great advice so I’ll repeat it verbatim:

Got a suspicious email or text? Check the link before clicking — it will significantly reduce the chances of you falling for a phishing attack.

When in doubt, check. If you can’t check, don’t click: wait until you can (or delete the email). If it’s really important and legit, the sender will resend and you’ll get another opportunity to recheck what’s going on.

Reverse Lookup Mojo

Indeed, if you are concerned about a reported issue or account problem, it’s much safer for YOU to visit a known, good, working vendor site to check on status. Amazon is a good example: I can’t tell you how many bogus SMS text messages I’ve gotten on my cell that ask for Amazon account details to confirm things, because I delete them as soon as they appear. As a matter of policy Amazon does not request sensitive info (passwords, credit card data, etc.) via SMS, though they do report  order and delivery status that way.

Be smart when you respond to emails. If there’s any doubt, open your own link to a trusted vendor and check things from your end. If you don’t recognize a sender asking for sensitive info, don’t respond. This is a case where doing nothing is exactly what’s right — and safest.

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Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

Why Run NVIDIA Studio Driver?

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The question in the blog post title — namely: “Why run NVIDIA Studio driver?” — means considering the alternative. That’s the Game Ready Driver, which gets updates 2 or more times every month. Look at what new Game Ready Drivers bring to the party. New games (and game versions) keep coming out, and GPU drivers need matching tweaks. Thus, the answer is “To play (new or updated) games.”

I just saw news that NVIDIA had released new cards (and drivers, presumably). Checking the NVIDIA app, I quickly saw no new Studio version available. But a new version of the NVIDIA app installed itself when I went to check. Indeed, its “About “banner headlines this blog post.

Why Run NVIDIA Studio Driver — Not?

If you don’t game, you don’t need to track the game-focused updates. Game Ready Driver users get new bells and whistles (NVIDIA calls them “optimizations and performance enhancements”) and a faster update cadence. Studio driver users get more stability and reliability, including more “extensive testing with professional software to ensure consistent performance.”

Interestingly enough, PCs can switch between the two drivers at will to exploit those trade-offs as they see fit. Because I don’t game (at least, not the kinds of games a GPU can impede or assist), I choose stability and reliability over optimizations and performance enhancements.

Indeed, I’ve been bitten when I’ve succumbed to the temptation to switch from Studio to Game Ready drivers upon various occasions. If you run this Google Search, you’ll see that I’ve blogged about NVIDIA stuff (drivers mostly, though occasionally about the app and its GeForce Experience predecessor) 9 times in the past year. That makes it a pretty regular thing for me to watch and report about.

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 11

Windows 11 25H2 Rumors Aswirl

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OK, then: there’s a growing chorus of sources predicting a new version of Windows 11 for the second half of this year, most likely in the fall. And indeed there are lots of Windows 11 25H2 rumors aswirl at the moment including: Windows Latest, Windows Central, Thurrott.com, and more. Indeed, MS has just bumped up Windows version numbering the Dev Channel to 262xx, and Windows watchers everywhere are seeing a new iteration in the offing this fall as a result.

With Windows 11 25H2 Rumors Aswirl, Here’s My Take

Given Microsoft’s annual cadence for Windows 11 updates at present, it’s no great leap of faith to see a new version coming later this year. It’s not at all unreasonable to posit from the recent change in Dev Channel build numbers that this may be the first tangible sign of what lies ahead.

Here’s my question, though: why is this hitting the Dev Channel, and not the Canary Channel? I’m a little confused as to the order and precedence among the Windows Insider channels right now (and I’m not the only one: Paul Thurrot’s afore-linked meditation on Windows in 2025 spends some cycles on wondering some of the same things).

I, too, find it challenging to keep up with 23H2 and 24H2 versions across production/GA releases, plus Canary, Dev, Beta and Release Preview channels. It seems like the Windows desktop is fracturing with lots of loosely connected box canyons that share no clear or common flow. If “a river runs through it,” it’s kinda muddy right now.

Is There Hope of Clarity or Simplification?

Going forward, I’d really like to see the number of separate tracks and trails diminish. It’s hard to keep a mental map of what’s changed where, and how things work in general and specific terms. That’s mostly because there are at least 10 different paths through Windows 11 versions right now, with no clear end to any of them in sight. Presumably, 23H2 needs to fall out sometime, but when?

Inquiring minds — including mine — would like some clarity, please. A road map would be no bad thing, either. Please help, Windows Insider team. It’s getting kinda crazy in here…

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Copilot+ PCs, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

Pondering Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU Strategies

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I’m confused. Intel has recently announced a massive uptick in its latest series of CPUs. Let’s call them Core Ultra Series 2 items, in keeping with Intel’s own nomenclature. Why am I pondering Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU strategies? Because of  the ratio of Copilot+ capable packages as compared to those that do not meet those requirements.

Teasing Out Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU Strategies

Here’s a breakdown of what’s currently “in the family” of Intel Core Ultra CPUs. The number of members in each category is in square brackets to the left of the colon:

200U Series  [4] : Aims at ultra-portable devices
200H Series  [5] : Designed for high-perf laptops
200HX Series [6] : For high-end gaming laptops
200S Series  [11]: Targets desktop systems
200V Series  [10]: Meet Copilot+ requirements

Think about it: it’s a family of CPUs with a total of 36 members in all. But only 10 of them meet or exceed Copilot+ requirements. That’s just under 28%, or less than one-third, of that entire group. My question is: what does this ratio tell us about Intel’s thoughts on Copilot+ vis-a-vis the entire market for new PCs?

Understanding Intel’s Planning and Posture

Two good places to start are:
1. Mobile Processors (Series 2) Product Brief: describes and points to all of the Mobile CPUs in the family (e.g. U, H, HX and V).
2. Desktop Processors (Series 2) Product Brief: Ditto for the 11 members of the 200S desktop series of CPUs in the family.

I’m going to float a possibly absurd hypothesis: Given that less than one-third of its latest offerings support Copilot+ requirements, it looks like Intel thinks that Copilot+ PCs will make up about one-third of expected market demand for such devices. And yet, Microsoft seems to make Copilot+ PCs the impetus and cornerstone for its “2025 year of the refresh” messaging.

But with 2 of every 3 new CPUs from Intel outside that envelope, I’m inclined to think that plenty of new PCs running Windows 11 — arguably, a substantial majority — won’t be able to exploit features and functions available only on Copilot+ capable units. I have to imagine it’s about price points and specific demand niches where AI-enabled and -driven features don’t (and won’t) play.

I have to believe Intel doesn’t see Copilot+ PCs as its only, and perhaps not even as its primary focus. Is that different from Microsoft’s vision for the future of Windows 11 computing? I think it is. My primary evidence is that Intel built 26 CPUs across ultra portable, high-end gaming and high-performance laptop categories, as well as a substantial desktop category, none under the Copilot+ umbrella.Indeed, how it unfolds will be extremely interesting to watch, as market uptake indicates if Intel’s strategy is sound.

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Lenovo Q3 Results Support Refresh Year Notions

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The world’s biggest PC maker — Lenovo, that is — just reported results for the third quarter of its fiscal year (ended Dec 31). It shows approximate growth in revenues and profits over Q3 for the previous fiscal year. One phrase from the report (PDF) caught my eye: “Commercial sales benefited from the Windows 11 refresh, with premium workstation sales spearheading demand recovery…” Hmm, could it be possible that these Lenovo Q3 results support “refresh year” notions for 2025? You bet!

How Lenovo Q3 Results Support Refresh Year Notions

Back on January 6 I posted about the MS supposition that AI additions to Windows 11 plus Copilot+ PCs could turn 2025 into The Year of the Windows 11 Refresh (that’s a link to their blog on this topic as well as a good summary). As the biggest player in the PC market, Lenovo’s latest quarterly numbers certainly plays into this picture. And it does so in a way that speaks for the “refresh year” idea, rather than against it. Could MS actually have a clue?

I cribbed the lead-in graphic for this story from Paul Thurrott’s coverage of this topic: Lenovo Revenues Jump 20 Percent to $18.8 Billion. It shows how the number have fared over the past 5 quarters, with a dip from Q1 to Q2 in that series, but steady growth and recovery since then.

What Else Could Speak to Refresh?

It is interesting to see how next-ranked PC players numbers either further support this notion, or call it into possible question. Copilot says that means HP, Dell and Asus (Apple holds spot#4, but I’m pretty sure they’re not much into playing the Windows 11 refresh game).

HP’s Q4 24 results show a 1.7% jump YoY (nowhere near Lenovo’s ~20%), but they do cite “steady progress in Personal Systems and Print.” Dell’s overall revenues and earnings declined over 2024, as did the number of units it shipped that year (39.1M vs. 61.8M for Lenovo, 53M for HP, and 17.9M for Asus). Asus was up 8.8% YoY in PC sales, and their strong showing in PC sales helped contribute to their success.

Nothing Entirely Clear Yet, Yea or Nay

Lenovo’s results are the only ones that mention the refresh phenomenon explicitly. But if it pans out further, I expect we’ll hear more from other OEMs, too. Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted.

 

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Waiting On Next NVIDIA Studio Driver

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Oho!  A new NVIDIA Game-ready driver is out. As you can see in the lead-in graphic this one’s numbered 577.42. But if you’ve been reading this blog of late, you already knew that both the January 30 Game-Ready AND Studio drivers gave my dual monitor rig fits (get the gist from this Feb 5 item). Hence, my response to the new driver is below tepid. Instead, I’m waiting on the next NVIDIA Studio Driver to come along. I hope my optimism that it might fix dual monitor gotchas is justified. We’ll see…

Why I’m Waiting On Next NVIDIA Studio Driver

The January 30 update included both Game-Ready and Studio driver version. Alas, both also exhibited the same unwanted behaviors on my dual-monitor setup. The left-hand monitor didn’t want to wake up from sleep, and I had to use a combination of two techniques to bring it back to life:

  1. Use the WinKey-Ctrl-Shift-B key combination (shortcut) to reload the graphics driver
  2. Use the Ctrl-Alt-Del “three-fingered-salute” to bring the desktop back to life

Shoot! I like it a lot better when I just hit a key, or click the mouse, and the PC wakes up on its own shortly thereafter. Neither of the preceding 572.16 versions were so obliging, which is why I rolled back to version 566.36. I don’t plan on updating until a new Studio version comes out (and I’ll be sure to back up 566.36 for re-use, should I need it back).

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