Category Archives: Windows 10

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Update

DISM /Add-Packages Loses Windows 11 Mojo

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This week, I’ve been updating a story for ComputerWorld. Along the way, I learned a little about .msu files for the Microsoft Update Standalone Installer. They differ widely between Windows 10 and 11. TLDR version: it’s pretty easy to extract a usable .cab file from Windows 10 .msu from Microsoft Catalog downloads. For Windows 11 .msu, it’s not. That’s why I observe that DISM /Add-Packages loses Windows 11 mojo. Let me now explain…

Why Say: DISM /Add-Packages Loses Windows 11 Mojo

The contents of .msu files for Windows 10 versus 11 updates reveals some stark differences. For recent such updates  I chose KB5066791 for Windows 10, and KB5067036 for 11.

Turns out you can open .msu files in 7-Zip to examine their contents. The two files couldn’t be more different internally. The latest 10 update includes 5 files and is just over 700MB in size. The latest 11 update includes over 100K files and comes in at just under 3.5 GB.

The really big difference is that DISM /Add-package /online (the incarnation of that command that permits working on a running Windows image) REQUIRES a .cab file to do its job. Simply put: Windows 10 makes that easy to find, extract, and use; Windows 11 makes it pretty much impossible.

Where the Mojo Went…

That means you can use DISM /Add-Package on Windows 10 to apply updates to a running image, when Windows Update isn’t working or something goes sideways with some particular update. But if you want to use DISM to add a package to a running Windows 11 image, you must take that image offline, apply the update, then bring the image back online.

The net effect is that a quick and handy alternate update technique that works fine for Windows 10, turns into a slow and cumbersome slog for Windows 11. Better to try something else, instead. I’m sorry to lose a helpful tool from my Windows fixes and workarounds toolbox, but that’s the way progress sometimes works in Windows-World.

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Backup/Restore, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Update Gotcha Highlights BitLocker Key Backup

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Recent updates have triggered news and warnings that some PCs will request a BitLocker key upon restart. Reports from Windows Latest and Neowin confirm that KB5066835 (Win11) and KB5066791 (Win10) trigger such behavior for Windows Enterprise and Microsoft 365 Business editions. Apparently, as Copilot says of this issue “Intel-based PCs with Modern Standby are most susceptible.” But this update gotcha highlights BitLocker key backup and recovery techniques for all Windows users. Let me tell you about that…

New Update Gotcha Highlights BitLocker
Key Backup and Recovery

The easiest way to backup and use a BitLocker recovery key is to type Bitlocker into Settings, then select the resulting “Manage BitLocker” item that pops up. This takes you to the Control Panel pane for BitLocker Drive Encryption shown above, where you can click the entry labeled “Back up your recovery key.”

Resulting options read:

  • Save to your Microsoft account
  • Save to a USB flash drive
  • Save to a file
  • Print the recovery key

As something of a belt-and-suspenders guy, I usually save to a file named <machine-name>blrk.txt AND I print a copy that I stick in a folder in my filing cabinet labeled “PC Recovery Stuff.” Saving to a file means loss of access to its drives and backups could stymie recovery in some circumstances, so I like to have the hard copy as a fallback.

Of course, you can also register your PCs into your MSA (Microsoft Account) and get it online as well. The URL for that specific purpose is https://account.microsoft.com/devices/recoverykey. I’ve pretty much got that memorized because I do use it multiple times a year, every year, like clockwork.

Here in Windows-World, if you use BitLocker it’s wise to ensure you can access the recovery key when and as you need it. The techniques I’ve described will get you where you need to go, should that need arise. Cheers!

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Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

PowerToys Fixes Random Light Switch Toggle

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Just over a week ago, the PowerToys dev team dropped v.0.95.0. Highly touted amidst its new features: a Light Switch toy, which defines the default key combo Winkey-Ctrl-Shift-D to toggle Windows desktops from light to dark mode, or vice-versa. It’s also turned on by default. As I couldn’t help but notice after that, my PC(s) started toggling between light and dark mode with no help from me. Yesterday, the team dropped a new version: 0.95.1. It’s really worth installing because in that release, PowerToys fixes random Light Switch toggle behavior. I’m glad!

Why PowerToys Fixes Random Light Switch Toggle

PowerToys are supposed to work according to the user’s direction, not on their own recognizance. It’s a little disconcerting to be plugging away on one’s desktop and have the mode change whenever it feels like it. The timing was interesting, too: sometimes, it might happen once or twice a day. Sometimes, it would switch back and forth every 30 to 90 seconds. Disconcerting!

It’s easy enough to switch back if this happens to you. Fortunately, the key combo is quick: it’s close together and easy to enter. But better to avoid spontaneous mode switching if at all possible. That’s why I’m delighted to see an update that addresses such behavior sooner rather than later.

What the Release Notes Say…

The first Highlights entry is ALL about Light Switch. It lists 6 different fixes including: turning off enabled by default, not allowing sunset calculations to over-ride Manual time schedule, and renaming “Manual” to “Fixed Hours” mode. There’s even a new off mode that disables the switchover schedule but keeps the key combo working. Here is the new control pane for Light Switch:

I’ve already turned scheduling off because I don’t switch modes by time of day. If you use PowerToys you’ll want to update to v0.95.1. I’m glad to see this fix so soon, because it was a little disturbing.

But hey! “A little disturbing” describes a pretty familiar feeling — for me, at least — here in Windows-World. How ’bout you?

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Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Enduring Windows 10 Hangover

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It’s interesting and perhaps a bit puzzling. For “compatibility reasons” — some having to do with browsing the Web — Windows 11 has long reported itself as a kind of Windows 10. Indeed, one must examine Build numbers, mostly, to figure out which version of Windows is really driving the bus. To see this enduring Windows 10 hangover try this string in PowerShell:

[System.Environment]::OSVersion.Version

You can, of course, get the real skinny by running winver.exe, or a more nuanced Get-ItemProperty command in PowerShell:

Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" | Select-Object DisplayVersion, EditionID, CurrentBuild

You can see the results of these two commands in this blog post’s lead-in graphic. It still shows my production Windows 11 PC (Build 26200) with a Major version number of “10,” while the Get-ItemProperly output shows the “real deal” on this machine.

Will Enduring Windows 10 Hangover Get Fixed?

Now that Windows 10 is past its End of Service date, will MS fix this strange reporting practice? Probably not. There are reasons upon reasons why this reporting quirk is likely to remain unaltered.

The whole compatibility thing is HUGE: lots of driver models, apps and applications, and enterprise tools assume that Windows 10 is the end-all and be-all for modern Windows versions. Indeed, it’s much, much more than a browser user-agent assumption. According to Copilot, “enterprise environments rely on registry keys such as ProductName and ReleaseId for automation,” so “those keys are often left untouched in Insider Builds to avoid disrupting telemetry and deployment pipelines.”

Hence the following, also from PowerShell using this command sequence:

Get-ComputerInfo | Select-Object WindowsProductName, WindowsVersion, OsBuildNumber

Notice that my Production Win11 system reports in this command as Windows 10 Pro, version 2009, with correct build number.

At least, I now know why this apparent misreporting occurs, and understand that it’s for good cause. Here in Windows-World there are plenty of apparent mysteries whose simple explanations lie in the many twists and turns in Windows history. This is one of those, I reckon.

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So Long i7 Skylake

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It’s been a long, long ride. It must’ve been right around 8 years ago that I first brought up my Asrock Z170-based, i7 Skylake PC. Today, I made the decision to lay it to its final rest. I’ll decommission it in hours. Indeed, as I bid “So long, i7 Skylake,” I’m saving the drives and ordering a 12GB SATA drive to which I’ll back everything up before wiping and sending them onto Goodwill (or elsewhere). It’s safe to say this has retirement been a long time coming.

In yesterday’s blog post, I had planned to bring out the heavy guns next. That is, I unplugged all the drives from the i7 Skylake, and inserted a new, blank NVMe from which to boot. At first, it looked  like it wasn’t going to work. I even got past providing a license key. But then, the newer NVMe wouldn’t run even when I provided the right Intel RST driver version. When I switched back to the old drive, the PC would no longer boot, not even to the UEFI screen. Something serious quit working along the way, and I no longer want to spend any more time on this. It’s over…

What Does So Long i7 Skylake Mean?

Because I’m moving the unit out of my office entirely, it means I can set up a couple of other machines.  I’d set them aside during the “parallel runnings” phase as I was using the Ryzen 7 5800X build as my primary production desktop, but running the i7 Skylake just in case I needed something from that PC. Now, I’m going to content myself with snapshots of its drives for a while, and put the old beast to rest.

As I was looking inside the case today, I see it was reasonably equipped for a machine of its day:

  • 4 physical cores/8 threads (vintage 2015)
  • 32 GB DDR4 RAM
  • NVIDIA 3070 Ti GPU (originally a 1080)
  • TONS of storage (11 drives totaling 16TB)

But it’s been getting flakier and flakier over the past 3-4 months. So yesterday, when I couldn’t get the machine to handle a clean install of Windows 10 Pro, I decided “enough is enough.” I have plenty more PCs to work with, so I don’t need to nurse this one along anymore. If somebody in central Texas wants to come by and pick it up, they can have it, gratis. (I’ll be taking the 3070 Ti, but the rest of the build, including 6 drives with about 8 TB of total capacity — wiped, of course — will come along for the ride. Contact me if you’re interested.) Otherwise, it too is headed for a Goodwill drop-off.

I’m sad to see it go, but I’m definitely glad the X5800 build is working out quite well. Hopefully, it will see me into the next decade. But here in Windows-World, the strangest things can (and often do) happen. Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted.

 

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Backup/Restore, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

Win10 Boot Follies Galore

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Here’s my situation. I’m still running the old i7Skylake with its 2015 vintage Asrock Z170 motherboard. That machine is running Windows 10 Enterprise. Thus, it’s not eligible for the ESU (Extended Security Updates) offer from MS to keep that machine alive for another year. “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just clean install Windows 10 Pro, and take up the offer that way…” Instead, I’m dealing with Win10 boot follies galore, unable to boot to USB media to replace the current Windows image. It’s been heartbreaking…

Describing Win10 Boot Follies Galore

Copilot agrees that something is hinky with the UEFI on the Z170, and it’s preventing the PC from booting off a USB flash drive. So far, I’ve:

  • Turned off Fast Boot in UEFI, and discovered that toggling CSM (the compatibility support module that supports both MBR and GPT partitioning schemes) kills UEFI completely for UEFI version P7.60. Turns out that’s a known gotcha.
  • Built rescue and install disks on 8GB media to avoid FAT32 issues (using the usually reliable Media Creation Tool, and the still more dependable Macrium Rescue Media Builder)
  • Run those UFDs from USB 2.0 ports, on the off-chance that USB 3.x isn’t working for boot

So far, nothing has worked to install a different Windows 10 version on this PC. But I have a plan…

Bring Out the Heavy Guns

When all else fails while installing Windows, I’ve observed that disconnecting all non-boot drives, and replacing the boot media with a completely blank drive will sometimes work. I’ve got a 1TB Crucial T705 NVMe that I’ll prep in that way, and give it a try. IMO, it has a good chance of getting me over this hump.

I won’t have time to do this until the weekend. Stay tuned: I’ll follow up on Monday with a report on that experience. I’ve been bit on the hindquarters many times in Windows-World, but this bite kind of stings…

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Recent Updates Bork Reset Option

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In its Windows Issues list, Microsoft confirms that recent updates to Windows 10 and Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2 may cause the “Reset PC” option to fail if invoked. The actual issue is entitled “Reset and recovery operations on some Windows versions might fail,” and specifically identifies KB5063875 as a potential cause in Windows 11. WindowsLatest  also reports that KB506370 could do the same for Windows 10. Hence my heading “Recent updates bork reset option,” though versions 24H2 and 25H2 appear to be exempt.

Workarounds When Recent Updates Bork Reset Option

If either of the previously cited KB updates has been applied to a Windows install, one should avoid tempting fate. That means: don’t use the “Reset PC” button on such instances. Consequently, two options present themselves as workarounds:

  1. Perform a clean install of the same Windows version using an MS ISO or the identical version from UUPdump.net. Of course, that also means one must reinstall drivers and other software present on the PC when it left the factory…
  2. Roll back the update, then use the Reset PC button. The easiest way to do this is to visit Settings > WU > Update history, click the KB item therein, and select Uninstall. Alternatively, wusa /uninstall /kb:<number> /quiet /norestart should do the trick.

Better Not to Use It, If in Doubt

WindowsLatest also reports that the “Reinstall now” option may be likewise affected on 23H2 and 22H2 PCs (it’s not available on Windows 10). The best approach is to use alternative methods for repair and recovery, or one of the preceding workarounds, for possibly affected Windows PCs. This is a big enough deal, however, that MS will probably fix it as soon as it can.

Hopefully that mean this situaiton won’t persist for too long. But hey: It’s Windows-World. Anything is possible, and careful repair is always a good strategy. Stay tuned!

 

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AI, Backup/Restore, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Copilot Leads Me Astray

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I couldn’t leave it alone. I had to worry at the RDP problem between my old production desktop (i7Skylake) and the new one (Flo6). So I asked Copilot for help. Big mistake! It led me into an account replacement exercise that is still underway, 8 or 9 working hours later. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t ever spend that much time on fixing things. This time, I decided it was OK if Copilot leads me astray. And by gosh and by golly, that’s exactly what it did.

No Sense of Effort, As Copilot Leads Me Astray

I started following Copilot’s advice when we discovered that my user account primary directory differed from my login account name. It led me into deleting a bunch of registry keys and folders, to try to force the login process to restore my primary account. I was OK with all of this because I have a daily image backup to which I can always revert, if things go sideways.

But what I found so interesting was that Copilot had me do a bunch of stuff, without informing me how long it was going to take, and how much work was involved. Copilot may know how to solve technical problems — and I learned some useful stuff about how MSAs and local accounts work in the Registry Hives along the way –but it has no sense of balancing time and effort against the rewards that may or may not come, at the end of the day.

Copilot Offers Good Info, But It’s a Lousy Boss

I learned a valuable lesson. But I spent a lot of time learning it. Here ’tis: Copilot is a good source of info, and can guide you into and through all kinds of technical changes and tweaks to Windows. But it has no sense of how much time things take, nor how much work is involved.

Lesson learned: I can ask Copilot to tell me what needs doing, but I still have do decide if and when I want to do it. Others who let Copilot lead them into the briar patch should bear that in mind, as they lose sight of the clear fields around its edge.

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Insider stuff, Remote Desktop (RDP), Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Chasing RDP Login Takes Too Long

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OK then, I’ve hit my troubleshooting time-out. Now that I’ve switched over to the Flo6 5800X build for my production desktop, I’m keeping the i7Skylake up and running in parallel. Why? So I can grab or look up things I discover I need on the new build that are only available on the old. So far, that’s included some logins that didn’t make it into the Norton Vault (only stored in Firefox on the old PC, as it turns out), various files and some app configuration data I didn’t know I’d need. Only one small problem: I can’t RDP into the account where all the stuff I need lives. I can RDP into the i7Skylake on a local admin account, but I get an LSA error when I try to log into my primary account. Alas, chasing RDP login takes too long, so I’m using TeamViewer instead. Indeed, it came up on the first try.

Why Chasing RDP Login Takes Too Long

Something has gone weird with NetBIOS and/or Domain Name resolution for RDP into the i7Skylake. That’s why I can get in using a local account, but not the MSA for the primary account. I’ve tried everything Copilot and Google can tell me about fixing that, to no avail, including:

  • Flush DNS name cache
  • Editing hosts file
  • Turning off browse service
  • Trying cmdkey explicit access in Command Prompt

And a whole bunch more. At present, I’ve spent at least 4 hours trying to MAKE it work. But RDP stubbornly refuses to let me use my MSA to log into i7Skylake.

The TeamViewer Alternative: Armadillo Time

TeamViewer doesn’t use RDP for remote access. It’s got its own set of protocols and services to manage LAN and Internet-based connections. It took me all of 15 minutes to get everything downloaded, installed, configured and running. I was able to access i7Skylake using the MSA I wanted on the first try. Go figure!

Sometimes, the best thing about beating your head against the way is how good it feels when you stop. Here in Windows-World this is not an unfamiliar sensation. If anybody knows how I can fix my RDP issue, I’d love some added insight and info. But for now, I have lots of other things to do — including a big deadline tomorrow on a writing project — so I’m taking the alternate route. If you’re not familiar with Jim Franklin’s wonderful armadillo image of that same name, check it out courtesy of Coast Monthly (it serves as the lead-in image for a terrific story).

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Inching toward Flo6 Cutover

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OK, then. I’m just about there. But it’s been a much wilder ride than I expected, as I keep inching toward Flo6 cutover. That is, I’m almost ready to put the 5800X Flo6 build where my i7Skylake PC is right now. I’ll also leave the i7Skylake running for a while to pick up missed bits and pieces, as they inevitably come up. Let me tell you what’s happened so far…

Steps Involved in Inching toward Flo6 Cutover

In my July 28 post, I listed remaining steps before I could switch from old production desktop to new production desktop. Those included:

  • MS Solitaire: turns out I had to find and run a recovery utility to figure out to which MSA my stats belonged. Only then could I bring up the right account. Took about half an hour: done.
  • Macrium Reflect: 9AM full backup configured and running. This turned out to be dead easy, compared to the other items. Took all of 5 minutes, then another 10 minutes to fire off daily backups.
  • PaintShop Pro: Turns out 2023 is as new as it gets. I didn’t need to buy a new version, but I had to decommission the install on the i7Skylake before I could install and activate the Flo6. Also took about half an hour, most of which was figuring out how the heck to log in. Eventually, I figured it out and got it done.
  • PDF reader: I couldn’t get Nitro Pro to send me an email to reset my password for love or money. That took half an hour. So I switched to Adobe Acrobat Pro. Murphy struck again! The default Acrobat Pro installer — the one on its primary download page — doesn’t work on Windows 11 (at least not on the Flo6 install). It took me almost an hour to find and use the company’s standalone installer instead. That worked, but sheesh: a PITA!

Ready to Switch…

It’s after 5 PM on July 31 (Thursday), so I’ll unplug everything for both systems, switch their locations, and plug them back in after lunch Friday. Hopefully everything will come up as it should. If not, I’ll report further in an addendum hereto. With finger crossed, I’m hustling through the morning so I can get this handled in the afternoon. Wish me luck!

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