Category Archives: Tips, Tricks and Tweaks

Want to know how to make the most out of your Windows 7 system?
Here we share the things we have learned for what to do (and what not to do) to make Windows 7 perform at its best.

UFD Failure Presents Strange Symptoms

I had one of my 16 GB Mushkin Atom USB Flash Drives (UFDs) fail on me this weekend. Alas, it happened in the middle of a boot-into-restore operation on my Lenovo X220 Tablet.  Because I didn’t think I’d built Rescue Media, I stuck the UFD into the machine while that process was underway. After the restore ended,  because that very same UFD failure presents strange symptoms I blamed Reflect. Wrong!

When UFD Failure Presents Strange Symptoms, Then What?

As is my usual practice when a device presents odd behaviors or symptoms, I go into diagnostics mode. When I dug into the drive using MiniTool Partition Magic (MTPW), I could see 5 NTFS partitions on that device. Each was a miniscule 3.8 MB in size. But no set of contortions would return that device to operation. Diskpart didn’t do it at the command line, nor was MTPW able to return it to working order. When I inserted it into Disk Management, I got the ultimate judgement on its condition shown in this story’s lead-in graphic: “Bad Disk.” That seemed to sum things up pretty nicely.

This is the second UFD I’ve had fail on me in the past 5 years or so. I just counted 28 of them here in my office, in sizes ranging from 8 GB to 128 GB. I use them all the time. The smaller ones are usually bootable with OS images, rescue media, or repair tools. The larger ones act primarily as portable storage for project work when I go on the road. And apparently, they do fail from time to time.

Macrium Reflect Forum Sets Things Straight

I hope I can be forgiven for initially wanting to blame Reflect for trashing the UFD. It did go south on me in the middle of a Macrium operation, after all. Then, I learned more about how Rescue Media works, courtesy of MR forum regulars “Froggie” and “jphughan.” Now, I am inclined to agree with their analysis that the UFD’s failure was coincidental.

Let me explain: it seems that when invoked using the “boot to restore” operation, jphughan told me “the WIM file inside the Rescue Media cached build folder — but that is a folder on (by default) your C partition.”  Given that member jphughan has 8.5K posts on the forums and has reached “Macrium Evangelist” level, I’m inclined to believe he knows what he’s talking about.

And in fact, I saw my system go into Recovery from the usual boot drive (a Plextor SSD) on that PC. Turns out that there’s a sub-older inside C:\Boot that’s named Macrium. It in turn has folders for the drivers it needs, various Windows 10 Assessment and Deployment Kit elements (aka WA10Files) folder, where the all-important boot.wim file for the WinRE version that Macrium uses to boot its Rescue Media resides.

Given that the UFD doesn’t function properly, but the system not only booted and ran its restore, this is the only way to explain how that process occurred. Thus, I concur with my informants from the Macrium Forums that (a) restore ran from the C: drive and (b) the UFD was either dead or died somewhere during the reboot process that proceeded just fine without its help or involvement.

Just goes to show that coincidence is a powerful force, but one that can be reasoned past when needs must.

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TreeSize Offers Valuable System Volume Information Insight

The JAM Software program TreeSize is a great visualization tool for examining (and pruning) Windows disks. For those disinclined to buy a full-blown copy, the TreeSize Free version (shown in this story’s screencaps) will suffice. These days, in fact, I recommend TreeSize over the older Open Source WinDirStat project. Both provide colorful, easy-to-read tree map diagrams for disk space consumption. But WinDirStat hasn’t been updated since 2016, and JAM is keeping up with TreeSize in all of its current manifestations. Certainly, there’s no disputing that TreeSize offers valuable System Volume Information Insight.

And, in fact, WinDirStat doesn’t shed much light on the contents of the System Volume Information (SVI) folder found in every NTFS volume. TreeSize, OTOH, tells you quite a bit about where the space in that folder is going and can help guide at least one easy clean-up maneuver.

In the paragraphs that follow, I’m going to follow up on my January 13  “restore point failure” story. In this story, I’ll show both before and after screenshots (in reverse order).  The lead-in graphic for this story shows what a pared-down 2.2 GB SVI folder looks like. It’s the “after” shot, taken after I turned off restore points on my production PC and instructed the System Protection control panel widget to delete all existing restore points. Why keep them if you don’t plan to use them ever again? Gone!

The next screenshot shows the “before” state for that folder. Note its size is 13.8 GB and the primary items shown are all restore points ranging from 3.1 to 2.5 GB in size. Deleting them reduced the size of this folder by 11.6 GB — a pretty substantial disk space reclamation.

TreeSize Offers Valuable System Volume Information Insight.before-restore-point-delete

Pretty much all you can see in this before SVI shot is a handful of BIG restore point files.
[Click image for full-sized view]

How TreeSize Offers Valuable System Volume Information Insight

Simply put, TreeSize makes file and folder information available for the contents of the SVI folder. Digging into the “after” display, one can mouseover any item therein. This provokes an information display a couple of seconds later. This appears as a pop-up windows that provides information including Name, Full Path, Size, Allocated, % of Parent allocated, Files (count), Last modification timestamp, Last accessed timestamp, and more. This information is quite informative and can be helpful.

In looking at the “after” shot at the head of this story, you can see that SVI includes folders for a variety of MS apps, Office.OneNote, Windows Photos, Skype, Office.Sway, and a whole bunch more. I’ve never seen this level of detail for SVI before. You can even zoom in on individual items to see what’s inside them, if you like.

IMO, TreeSize Free is a great tool for all kinds of uses. In this case, I’m glad that it confirms significant space savings thanks to turning off restore points and deleting existing saved restore points. Good stuff!

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19043 aka 20H1 Early Tryout How-to

Here’s an interesting experiment for those with a spare test machine handy.  Note that this machine must run Insider Preview Beta or Release Preview Channel Build 19042.782 with KB4598291 installed. I found a handy collection of DISM commands from poster “moinmoin” at DeskModder.de. If run in an administrative Command Prompt or PowerShell session, the PC will advance to 21H1, as shown in the lead-in graphic for this story. It serves, therefore, as a 19043 aka 20H1 early tryout how-to for adventurous insiders.

Working Through 19043 aka 20H1 Early Tryout How-to

Essentially, the following sequence of commands does piecemeal what a full-blown enablement package does behind the scenes. In fact, DISM runs a series of .mum files, which are XML files that provide instructions to the Windows Update Installer for performing specific updates. Honestly, I’m not sure how “moinmoin” figured this sequence out. I’m guesssing he worked from analysis of other, earlier enablement packages. But that sequence worked on my Lenovo X380 Yoga test machine, which had been running 19042.782 for a few days.

Please, look below for the sequence of commands. Warning: Those using German versions of Windows should get them from the original post. I’ll provide instructions on how to modify the command text for other languages afterward. It’s safe to assemble, then cut’n’paste these commands one at a time in PowerShell. That’s how I “upgraded” my Lenovo test PC, in fact.

Putting DISM Commands together

In fact, all these commands start with same master prefix string. Simply append the other sub-strings and fire them off at the command line to do your thing.

That master prefix string is:

Dism /Online /Add-package:C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\

The 8 suffix strings are (do not grab the numbers and the period that follows them — they’re to help you find stuff, not for command-line use):

1.microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.782.mum
2.microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~10.0.19041.782.mum
3.microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-wrapper-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.782.mum
4.microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-wrapper-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~10.0.19041.782.mum
5.microsoft-windows-updatetargeting-clientos-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.782.mum
6.microsoft-windows-updatetargeting-clientos-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~10.0.19041.782.mum
7.microsoft-windows-updatetargeting-clientos-21h1-ekb-wrapper-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.782.mum
8.microsoft-windows-updatetargeting-clientos-21h1-ekb-wrapper-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~10.0.19041.782.mum

Even for German (and other languages) the first command above stays the same. The German version of the second command above reads

Dism /Online /Add-package:C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\microsoft-windows-product-data-21h1-ekb-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~de-DE~10.0.19041.782.mum

Note that the bolded language code for German German de-DE is embedded near the end of the string. To invoke the proper files for other languages substitute your language code where it appears. For example, a French speaker in France would use fr-FR, and a French speaker in Belgium fr-BE, and so forth. This applies to elements 2-8 for all languages, and is performed using string substitution on the German language version of the commands.

Necessary Precautions Beforehand

It’s probably wise to make a backup of your test PC’s OS image before you try this sequence of commands out. Also, make sure you have a working, bootable USB flash drive from which you can restore that backup. That way, should the worst happen, and your PC get bricked by the updates, you can boot to the UFD and restore the backup without too much muss, fuss, or lost time. Just because it worked on my Lenovo X380 Yoga doesn’t mean it will also work on your test PC. Better to have the backup and restore tools and not need them, than to not have them and suffer from their absence. Enjoy!

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Using Windows 10 Generic Keys

Sometimes, a Windows 10 PC requires a clean install. It might be because of disk failure or corruption, malware infestation, or any of a host of other good reasons. As long as Microsoft’s Activation servers (or your own KMS) recognize that PC, you needn’t worry about finding or obtaining a valid OS key. Instead, if prompted to supply a key during the install process, you can furnish a published generic key for your chosen Windows version. Using Windows 10 generic keys is perfectly OK, as long as MS already knows you have a valid license.

When Using Windows 10 Generic Keys, Use These!

You can find generic Windows 10 keys in many places with a simple search. I like the list at TenForums, because it’s simple and comprehensive. It also comes in the context of a peachy list of tutorials that explain how and when to use keys correctly. The lead-in graphic for this story is a snippet from its generic key table. That tutorial is named List of Generic Product Keys to Install Windows 10 Editions. Worth bookmarking, it tells you (or points you at) nearly everything you need to know about working with generic keys.

Note: KMS stands for Key Management Server, a Windows Server role that plays out in many enterprise or campus environments. That’s because those kinds of outfits usually work from volume licenses for Windows, and manage their own Windows keys for themselves. None of the Home editions have generic KMS keys because Home is not covered under volume Windows 10 license agreements.

What if a Generic Key Has No Valid Matching License?

You can use a generic key to install Windows even if there’s no matching license in the Microsoft Validation servers. But that installation will not activate unless you provide a valid key within 30 days of the installation date. After that, the product works only with limited features and personalization. It also warns you you’re in violation of license terms, which leaves you liable for unlicensed use of software. Those can result in potential fines and penalties if you’re found guilty of license fraud or misuse. Trust me: you don’t want to go there!

 

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Exorcizing Zombie Adobe Flash Player Elements

Some Windows 10 users may see a Flash Info logo show up on their desktops. Don’t worry: that’s Adobe’s way of telling you the Flash Player remains active on your PC, and needs to be removed.  I wrote about Flash end-of-life (EOL) and removal techniques on December 29. That story reported the EOL date falling at year’s end. Apparently not everybody has worked through its various uninstall possibilities yet, either.  The TenForums thread “Strange Logo on Desktop” turns out to be an admonition from Adobe to make Flash Player go away. Alas, the process doesn’t work 100%. Thus, I’ll explain how one goes about exorcizing zombie Adobe Flash Player elements.

Exorcizing Zombie Adobe Flash Player Elements.flash-info-logo

Here’s what the Flash Info log looks like: a faded Flash logo with the “i” (information) element superimposed.

Several Flash Player Uninstall Options Available

Flash shows up in lots of places, apparently. Likewise, uninstalling it requires a variety of removal techniques.  Adobe’s warning for its Flash Player Uninstaller hints at this. It reads: “These instructions are NOT applicable to Flash Player included with Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer on Windows 8 and later or with Google Chrome…” It advises those users to check out the Flash Player Help page for disabling same.

There’s also an uninstaller available via the Microsoft Update Catalog. Counter-intuitively KB4577586 is named “Update for Removal of Adobe Flash Player.” When downloading this item, be sure to grab the one that matches your current Windows version. Note: apparently, there is no such update for Windows 10 Version 20H2.

If Adobe Flash Player shows up in Programs and Features, you can use its built-in uninstall functions to get rid of it. Or you could turn to a third-party product like Revo Uninstaller to do the job instead.

Exorcizing Zombie Adobe Flash Player Elements May Require Manual Efforts

After running the afore-linked KB4577586, the original poster for the TenForums thread that prompted this story reports that the icon remained on his desktop. On top of everything else on screen, it wouldn’t get out of his way. Should that happen, one can remove the Macromed folder and its contents from these two parent folders:

1. C:\Windows\System32
2. C:\Windows\SysWOW64

Savvy readers will recognize that these folders are where Windows keeps 32-bit elements, tools and utilities for use on 32- and 64-bit systems, respectively. You may need to run a special-purpose delete utility to remove these folders or you can boot into command line recovery mode and delete them that way. Your choice. Either way, that should result in exorcizing zombie Adobe Flash elements that may still be hanging around your system. Et voila!

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Restoring Missing 21292 N&I Taskbar Item

Here’s an interesting learning adventure. Upon introducing Windows 10 Build 21286, MS also introduced a News and Interests (N&I) taskbar item. I covered this topic on January 8. But after upgrading my Lenovo X220 Tablet to a newer Dev Channel release, N&I disappeared. Remembering a related WinAero.com story, I followed its activation advice. And that, dear readers, is how I found myself restoring missing 21292 N&I taskbar item a few minutes ago. Here’s the deal…

Going About Restoring Missing 21292 N&I Taskbar Item

Restoring or activating N&I requires the third-party ViVe tool. Helpfully, it can enable or disable Windows 10 A/B and hidden features. Download ViVe from Github, where the latest release is v0.2.1. For myself, I just observed that v0.2.0 also works. That’s because  I just used it successfully on my X220T, not yet realizing a newer release is available.

After you download the ZIP file, extract it into a folder. Next, run an administrative cmd or PowerShell session from that folder. Then, execute the following sequence of commands:


vivetool addconfig 29947361 2
vivetool addconfig 27833282 2
vivetool addconfig 27368843 2
vivetool addconfig 28247353 2
vivetool addconfig 27371092 2
vivetool addconfig 27371152 2
vivetool addconfig 30803283 2
vivetool addconfig 30213886 2

Note: If using PowerShell, prepend the string “.\” before each command or it won’t work.

Cut’n’paste these commands into the window. Please execute each one individually. Next, you’ll need to restart your PC. Voila! The N&I item reappears in the Taskbar. At least, it did on my X220T PC.

8 Commands Too Much? Try Some Batch Files

OTOH, if you prefer, WinAero offers a ZIP file in its story. It  activates all necessary settings from one batch file, and deactivates them from another.

And remember, N&I only appears in Build 21286 or higher-numbered Dev Channel Insider Preview releases at the moment.

More About the ViVe Developers

Note: the authors of ViVe are Rafael Rivera and somebody named Lucas/thebookisclosed/albacore. Both are active Windows developers and toolsmiths. Rivera is also an occasional contributor to Thurrott.com (which is where I first came across him and his work). The other person is also the author of the excellent Managed Disk Cleanup utility, also available on GitHub.

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Restore Point Failure Forces Strategy Change

I run Macrium Reflect backup on my production desktop every morning at 9 AM. Hearing the big Toshiba 8TB drive chunking away reminds me it’s got things covered. I should’ve turned to that backup image immediately after a driver install yesterday. A new Realtek Universal Audio Driver (UAD) was expected out of that update. But I wound up with a Realtek HD Audio driver instead. Because I decided to try a restore point made just before that driver install, I bought trouble as well. And that’s why I say: Restore Point failure forces strategy change. Let me explain…

How Restore Point Failure Forces Strategy Change

Silly me. I should know better. I rely on Macrium to provide a failsafe against glitches. This includes self-inflicted wounds, like ignoring Device Manager’s warning that it couldn’t find a replacement UAD driver in the version v6.0.9045.1 pointer I picked up yesterday. Though it came from my own TenForums Realtek UAD thread, and a usually impeccable source, it didn’t work the way it should have.

Having been down the road of attempting a UAD update and winding up with an HD Audio drivers instead, I already knew the easiest way out of this spot was to roll back and start over. My mistake — which I will never repeat again — was to use a questionable but more recent Restore Point, rather than a known, good working Macrium backup image (an .mrimg file). When it failed, I found myself turning to that .mrimg file anyway.

When Failure Takes Longer Than Success…

The truly galling part of this misadventure is that it took 40 minutes for the Restore Point to fail and return control of the PC into my hands. It took just over 10 minutes to restore Macrium’s image backup file and for me to get restarted on the failed Realtek driver update (not to mention the Windows Update items for Patch Tuesday as well).

Ultimately, I did find a v6.0.9079.1 UAD driver at Station Drivers that did work as expected later. It was the easy part of the post Restore Point cleanup efforts, some of which are still underway. Ironically my big, honkin’ 8TB backup drive and the little 500GB SSD parked next to it in myWavlink dual SATA drive caddy both got hosed in the Restore Point’s wake. I’m using the Data Recovery feature in MiniTool Partition Wizard v12.3 to recover the 8TB drive’s contents now. This task has already taken 14 hrs and is 22% complete. When it’s done, the 500GB drive recovery should go MUCH faster.

What’s Next?

When the cleanup is done, I’ll be turning off restore point capture on my C: drive. I’ll also purge all the storage space that restore points currently consume (1.7 GB according to the WizTree graphic at  the head of this story). I figure if I don’t have any more restore points around to “try it and see what happens” with, I’ll be unable to repeat this recent debacle.

For the record, the item that caused the restore operation to fail was a Dropbox file. It’s ironic that something deliberately mirrored between cloud and desktop could cause such an operation to crash. Another copy is still in the cloud, safe and ready to mirror back locally when needed. Sigh.

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Failing Drives Need Copy First and Foremost

I’m a long-time member and supporter at TenForums.com (joined November 14 2014). Just recently I saw a thread where a member reported issues with an apparently failing hard disk drive (HDD). Immediately, he and other responders started chewing on how to diagnose and possibly fix the HDD. “NO!” I remember thinking as I started reading the back-n-forth. “Failing drives need copy first and foremost,” I went on, “so progressive failures won’t cause more data loss.”

Why Do Failing Drives Need Copy First and Foremost?

If an HDD is starting to fail, there’s usually a cascade involved. First, one or two small failures, followed by increasing frequency and severity of failures. After that: complete drive failure. Once you have a clue that a drive is starting to fail — and SMART monitors like HD Sentinel or CrystalDiskInfo will clue you in quickly — the next step in troubleshooting is: Make a snapshot!

When trouble rears its head, the temptation to start diagnosing and attempting fixes can be nearly overwhelming. But in this particular case — a possibly failing HDD — such diagnosis and fix activities can severely exercise the disk. If it is failing, that could either make existing data losses worse, or cause data losses that haven’t yet occurred.

How to Get That Snapshot

I’d try a disk image using something like Macrium Reflect Free. If the disk is seriously corrupted, however, it might not work. In that case, use File Explorer or copy commands at the command line/in PowerShell to copy anything and everything you can see.

On the other hand, if you have a reasonably current backup of the failing drive — and you should — you can copy only items dated since the backup was made. Once you’ve captured what you can, you won’t experience further data loss as you pursue various troubleshooting strategies. Now that you’ve done due diligence for data protection, go for it!

When in Doubt, Replace the Disk

In my experience over 36 years of working with personal computers, I’ve had half-a-dozen hard disks fail on me. (I bought my first PC in 1984: a Macintosh 512K, aka “Fat Mac.”) As disks start to fail, they become increasingly unreliable and problematic. I’ve always replaced them as soon as diagnosis pointed out unquestionable failure signs or symptoms. I learned the hard way to backup, too: I lost the better part of a book manuscript in the late 80s when an external (and expensive!) 300MB SCSI hard disk experienced a head crash. Please: learn from my bad experiences. Don’t wait to have your own. Take my word for it: you won’t like them, not one little bit.

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Lenovo X220 Tablet Hits IME Wall

I knew it was coming, but not when. I’ve already retired my Lenovo T520 laptop. I bought them together, so my X220 tablet has the same CPU — an i7-2640M Sandy Bridge– and  a 6 Series/C200 Series chipset. In the wake of the latest Dev Channel (Fast Ring) 21286 Build, this machine is now throwing  Intel Management Engine errors. As the lead-in screencap shows it tells me “ME is in Recovery State.” Then, it hangs until I hit the proverbial “Any Key.” When I say the Lenovo X220 Tablet hits IME wall, I’m really saying it’s too old for the installer. Simply put, Windows 10 apparently doesn’t know what to do with this old hardware any more.

If Lenovo X220 Tablet Hits IME Wall, Then What?

I can keep this machine going for a while yet, but I can tell its days are numbered. Upon investigation, its most current IME drivers and software date to the Windows 8.0 and 8.1 era. And then, there’s this cheery warning on the drivers and software download page for the X220 Tablet:

Key phrases in the warning are “no longer being actively supported” and “available ‘as-is'”. Translation: PC is old, and you’re on your own. [Click image for full-sized view.]

I found some fascinating discussion from others who’ve had this problem with this PC and others of its vintage. The most interesting item is at Bill Morrow’s Thinkpads.com forum. It prescribes a firmware hack as the best fix, which more or less turns off the Intel Management Engine (more recently renamed to Active Management Technology, or AMT).

To use this approach, I would have to buy a cheap (under US$20) EEPROM burner. Then I’d need to hack the bits for the BIOS myself  (through a Python program named ME_CLEANER).

I’m still chewing on whether or not I really want to do this. I will keep it running as it stands as long as I can, I think. I’ll pass it along to my old buddy Ken Starks at Reglue.org when I can’t upgrade Windows 10 on it anymore. Even with this glitch, by pushing the “Any Key” after each reboot during the Windows 10 install process, I got this machine upgraded to Build 21286. For the time being, I’ll just keep on keeping on until I have to do something else. Stay tuned!

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About 21286 News and Interests

OK, then. Right after I upgraded to the latest Dev Channel Insider Preview Build (21286.1000) I expected to see the new “News and interests” item show up in the notification area on my Taskbar. No dice on my Lenovo X380 Yoga test machine. But as I learned more about 21286 News and interests I came to understand that the Edge Browser is involved in its inner workings. So, I checked the update level on Edge on that PC. And sure enough: it needed to come up to the current version 87.0.664.75 to be fully up-to-date.

More About 21286 News and Interests

After updating Edge, and another reboot, News and interests showed up. You can see it in the lead-in graphic for this story, which shows the notification area on my taskbar. It’s off to the left. It shows the sun occluded by a cloud, and reads “45°F Partly sunny.”

If you’re running this Dev Channel release and News and interests fails to appear, try upgrading Edge. Another reboot, and you should see something like the lead-in graphic for this story. That’s because in this build, News and interests is turned on by default. What if you want to turn it off, or see less of what it has to show? Easily done!

Managing This New Taskbar Item’s Appearance

To manage News and interests, right-click on a blank area in the taskbar. A menu will pop up that includes the “News and interests” item (see below). Click on the fly-out symbol to the right, and a fly-out menu with controls appears. Set the one you want. It’s just that easy.

Tip: Hidden means you won’t see it. Or you can Show icon only, if you don’t like the default value Show icon and text. ‘Nuff said.

About 21286 News and Interests.controls

If you don’t like the default value (“Show icon and text”), here’s where you change related settings.

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