Category Archives: Windows 10

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows tools

PowerToys 55.2 Fixes Things Up

February 13, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

If you read this blog regularly, you may be aware that in early January I reported about a fix for a strange Zoom issue. Seems that for some odd reason, the Mute Video Conference feature in PowerToys when enabled clobbers Zoom. Turn it off in PowerToys, and it works again. A workable, if not entirely satisfactory, repair. I’m pleased to report that PowerToys 55.2 fixes things up. I have a feeling it’s .NET related and comes thanks to the tool collections update to the .NET 6 framework and so forth.

But hey! I’ve been busy for the past two weeks. Cliff Rutkas and his team could’ve slipped an earlier fix past me. Be that as it may, I can now use both the Video Conference Mute feature in PT55.2 *and* Zoom on the same PC. Good-oh!

PowerToys 55.2 Fixes Things Up . . . and More!

While I’m on the subject of PT (any version) I’d like to extend my further thanks and appreciation to that team for the work they’ve done on the toolset lately. Installation has become much more routine. There’s been no need to stop mid-way through the initial “turn off old components” section lately, jump into Task Manager, and kill stuff before the installer can proceed. Instead, the process sails through to completion without human intervention — just the way I like it!

This tool is definitely gaining polish and capability. I had already liked it quite a bit. Now I like it even more. If you’re not familiar with PT be sure to check out (and read over) its documentation. It will definitely clue you in, and get you going with this terrific Windows toybox full of handy little tools.

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

Monitor 2 Blink Mode Gets Easy Fix

February 12, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Talk about great timing. I just finished a marathon work engagement on Thursday, and was playing catchup yesterday. As I was beavering away at a mountain of email and phone calls, I noticed my right-hand monitor acting up. It started going into what I call “blink mode.” That means it would go black every 30-60 seconds, after which it would return to what looked like normal operation. As you can see from the lead-in screencap, the right hand monitor is labeled “2.” Fortunately, monitor 2 blink mode gets easy fix (this time, anyway).

Here’s How Monitor 2 Blink Mode Gets Easy Fix

From long experience I know that when Windows monitors/displays start acting up, there are two common causes. Most common is a misbehaving graphics driver. Second most common is some kind of hardware fault, out of which the cable running from PC to display is most likely.

“Hmmmmm” I found myself thinking “Didn’t I ignore a recent Nvidia Studio Driver update because I was too busy to mess with it?” And indeed, when I ran GeForce Experience, it updated itself right away. Next thing I noticed was a new release of the aforementioned driver (Version 511.65) was out with a February 1 release date.

Consequently, I grabbed and installed that driver right away. Luckily for me, it fixed the problem. The monitor hasn’t blinked once since the update (at least, not that I noticed). It’s a good thing that the obvious fix sometimes works. It’s a better thing that it worked this time. Better still, this problem didn’t manifest until AFTER my recent work marathon ended. It would have been problematic troubleshooting an issue in the middle of a deposition, with the clock ticking away.

What If The Driver Update Didn’t Fix the Problem?

I keep cable spares around as a matter of routine. Thus, my next attempt would have been to swap out the DisplayPort cable from monitor to GPU. If that hadn’t worked, I would have swapped the monitor from one of my test PCs (I have a spare, but I’m using it to check dual-screen behavior on Windows 11 Dev Channel). I’m pretty sure the GPU is OK, because Monitor 1 has remained rock steady throughout this situation. That said, I could always switch the second monitor to HDMI, on the chance that the GPU port itself was having issues.

That’s the way things go here in Windows World. I’m glad the simplest, most obvious fix did the trick. You would be too, if it happened to you.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows OS Musings

Serious Zoom Shenanigans Make Meetings Interesting

February 11, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Wow! It’s been a wild, wild two weeks. Attentive readers will have notice my blogging frequency dropped, and may have wondered why. I make a large part of my living working as an expert witness and I’ve recently testified at two depositions and attended a third. All were conducted over Zoom, and all lasted at least 10 hours. Around those “depos” as they’re called, I had lots of other side Zoom meetings. And indeed, serious zoom shenanigans make meetings interesting — and sometimes slow and frustrating. Let me explain…

What Serious Zoom Shenanigans Make Meetings Interesting?

There are two classes of issues that loomed large in setting the rhythm and pace of all my many recent Zoom encounters:

Performance issues
User interface driving issues

I’ll discuss each one under its own heading below, but I will observe that the three depos were capped at a certain number of hours (X) of recorded video time. Each one last at least 1.4X hours from start to finish; the longest one went 1.64X. Ouch!

Zoom Performance Issues Observed and Endured

I’m lucky. I myself experienced no Zoom performance issues at all coming from my Zoom PC (a 6-core 8th-gen Intel i7 8850H CPU with 32 GB RAM and dual NVMe SSDs running Windows 11). That was probably thanks to my reliable and reasonably speedy “Gigabit” level connection through Spectrum/Charter here at Chez Tittel. I did have a moment of panic yesterday while testifying when I saw I had inadvertently unplugged that unit’s wired GbE dongle. But the machine sits right next to my 802.11ax WAP (and supports 802.11ac at 160MHz). Apparently, it switched over from GBE to Wi-Fi (and back again) without any noticeable hiccups. Thank goodness!

Other participants weren’t so lucky. During a winter storm last week, another person found himself dealing with all kinds of glitches. These included voice issues (drop-outs, loss of volume, ringing, and so forth), stuttering video (turned off for a while to conserve bandwidth), and very slow uploads for materials he needed to share.

Thus, I couldn’t help but notice that performance issues can — and at least in once case, did — exert a powerful drag on productivity. As a result that particular meeting stretched out far longer than it needed to, or should have.

Driving the Zoom UI

Then, there were the usual issues in dealing with UI interaction that often come in Zoom meetings. Some attendees had to be instructed on how to perform certain activities (mostly surrounding uploading or downloading files). Others struggled gamely through learning how to use the environment’s features. A couple reported log-in issues, which were quickly resolved by the legal meeting service provider’s excellent tech support staff (though not without multi-minute delays here and there).

I myself had to call in once, which is how I know their tech support staff was superb. Meeting invitations arrive a day in advance, and include the notification “If you don’t get a meeting link by one hour before the scheduled start time, please call this number to obtain one directly.” I didn’t get a link to yesterday’s soiree by that time, so I followed those instructions. And indeed, the person with whom I spoke had me fixed up and into the Zoom meeting in under two minutes. Bravo!

Another Zoom Wish Pops Up

During one meeting another participant, when faced with a large number of items to download asked “Why doesn’t Zoom have a feature to zip up multiple items and send them in one file?” Good question! I hope the Zoom developers have this on their list of planned enhancements. It would certainly make it faster and easier to manage meetings where numerous documents have to be exchanged.

All in all, it’s been a trying and busy, busy, busy last two weeks. I’m looking forward to getting back on a more regular and predictable schedule. And it will be a while before I find myself missing marathon Zoom sessions…

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Update

WU Update Connectivity 8 Hours vs Minutes

February 8, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, so it’s “Patch Tuesday” once again. I’m updating my fleet of 10 PCs. I’ve got one eye on the clock and the other on a recent article from WindowsLatest. It’s entitled Microsoft: Windows 10, Windows 11 need eight hours online to deploy updates. As I update my various Windows 10 and 11 PCs I’m seeing times in minutes, not hours. Why assert WU update connectivity 8 hours vs minutes?

Why Is WU Update Connectivity 8 Hours?

As I’m timing my various machines, the X1 Carbon took about 7 minutes to handle the updates from start to finish. My production desktop is at 11 minutes and counting. What does the story say? Here’s the most salient quote (emphasis mine):

Your device should be online for at least eight hours to process Windows cumulative or feature updates properly. This period is called ‘Update Connectivity’ and eight hours is necessary to get the latest updates from Microsoft’s servers and successfully install them.

I can only understand this one way. This is the interval that’s needed when the user doesn’t initiate updates. It sure doesn’t take that long when one requests an update from WU. My production PC (i7-6700) took 15 minutes to get to the “Restart required” notification. Prior experience says it will take another 5 minutes, max to the desktop. So why 8 hours? It gets more interesting, as recited next…

More Interesting Quotes

“The Update Connectivity period includes a minimum of two continuous connected hours and six total connected hours after an update is available for download.

Specifically, data shows that devices need a minimum of two continuous connected hours, and six total connected hours after an update is released to reliably update. “This allows for a successful download and background installations that are able to restart or resume once a device is active and connected,” Microsoft noted in a new blog post.

What does this mean?

It means it’s best to leave PCs connected to the Internet when the Internet is the source of updates for those selfsame PCs. Those who use their own servers to push updates (or other means of update distribution) won’t be subject to the same limitations. Fascinating, though: who knew?

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows OS Musings

Pondering 1.4B Active Monthly Users

January 26, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then: MS held its latest earnings call on January 25, to disclose Q2 FY’22 results with investors. One of the interesting nuggets that emerged was a claim I’m pondering 1.4B Active Monthly Users. Apparently, as Frank Shaw reported on Twitter, that includes both Windows 10 and Windows 11 users. Further reporting at OnMSFT indicates this number also include Hololens and Xbox devices as well. This is an interesting number, for a variety of reasons. Let me explain…

When Pondering 1.4B Active Monthly Users, What’s Involved?

First thing: On April 27, 2021, MS published an assertion that there were 1.3 B devices running Windows 10. Thus, the 2022 number represents a “mere” increase of 100M.

Second thing: The latest claim from the earnings call includes both Windows 10 and 11 devices in the newer 1.4 B number.

Third thing, in December 2020, Statista reported over 100M active Xbox network subscribers.

Fourth thing, the best current estimate of Hololens sales comes from website BuildWagon.com as of December 2021. It guesstimates that “total hololens devices sold, as per the available public sources, is around 520,000 devices.” Let’s say 0.5M, in round numbers.

What Do These Numbers Say?

Let’s assume no Xbox growth since December 2020, and discount Hololens completely (0.5M isn’t even a blip against 1.4B). My take: there has been no overall growth in active monthly Windows users since April 2021. My Xbox assumption is arguable, in fact. MS reported a 10% increase in Xbox content and services in the latest earnings call.

Even so, it looks like the Windows population may have peaked. My best guess: over time, Windows 11 growth will come mostly from Windows 10 upgrades or PC replacements.

What about new PC sales? eMarketer.com forecasts an 8.6% year-over-year drop in PC sales for 2022. Against projected sales of 344.7M for 2021, that translates into 315M new PCs sold.

How much of this translates into new Windows 10 or 11 users, and how much into an old license decommissioned instead? I don’t see ready numbers on this. But conventional wisdom says that PCs should be replaced every 4 years. Global PC gamers alone account for about around 1.7B users (Statista). Figure another 1 B non-gaming users around the world, and 25% of that total (675 M), dwarfs projected 2022 PC sales.

That’s my basis for suggesting that Windows may have reached its peak. Could I be wrong? Sure. But think about the overall context, and the relentless advance of smartphones vs. PCs. Time will tell, but I stand by my analysis. ‘Nuff said.

[Note Added Jan 27] For a completely different take on these numbers and what they mean, see Paul Thurrott’s Jan 26 story: 1.4 Billion. He sees the numbers going up overall, despite an apparent decline in official, reported numbers. Check it out.

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

Self-inducing Windows 10 keyboard output delays

January 21, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Recently, while troubleshooting an issue on Windows 10 where Zoom kept crashing unexepectedly, I observed something even more vexing. The cure for that specific issue is to turn Video Conference Mute off in PowerToys (on by default). But as soon as one does that, keyboard input slows to a crawl. Indeed, when self-inducing Windows 10 keyboard output delays that way, it can take seconds for a keystroke to appear on-screen. If you type even modestly fast (like me) that means you can finish a whole sentence before output shows up on screen. When you make occasional typos — as I sometimes do (1 in this sentence so far) — that’s immensely frustrating.

When Self-inducing Windows 10 Keyboard Output Delays, Easy Fix

At first, I tried restarting the Explorer task in Task Manager. That sometimes helps when such symptoms appear. Not this time. The next standard fix is a system restart. And indeed, that did the trick for me.

I know that PowerToys ties into Windows at a pretty deep level. I’m guessing that turning default settings off in the program may change low-level system behaviors. Apparently, the Video Conference Mute change is discombobulating enough to change the delay involved in keyboard echo (the time it takes for a keypress value to show up on screen).

Another “Interesting” Issue Caught and Killed

This happens only on Windows 10, though. I tried the same changes on Windows 11, and it didn’t affect keyboard output at all. On Windows 10, I first noticed it in the WordPress editor. But then, it showed up in Outlook and Word — and even, Notepad — so I assumed it was an across-the-board thing.

Thus, I’m glad that an old standby in whacking Windows weirdnesses — namely, a restart — fixed the issue on my production PC. I use that machine all day long, every day, and mostly enter text on a keyboard for a living. Thus, fixing anything that slows down text entry is of major importance — to me, at least.

Stay tuned. As things are always interesting with Windows in some odd way or another, this is a thread I’ll have no trouble adding to in my daily writing. As Roseanne Roseannadanna often said on SNL: “It’s always something!” Too true…

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows OS Musings

Zoom Resume Ruminations

January 19, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Last week, I reported that disabling the Video Conference Mute feature in PowerToys fixed constant Zoom crashes. This morning, I participated in a successful Zoom conference on the fixed PC. This has me thinking… Thus, I’ll share Zoom resume ruminations to celebrate a return to more or less normal operations. (Note: the lead-in graphic shows PowerToys Video Conference Mute “Off”.)

Where Do Zoom Resume Ruminations Lead?

Having expunged multiple Windows issues in the past week, I’m pondering best Windows troubleshooting practices. First and foremost, I’m reminded that when actual Windows errors present, the best way to find solutions or workarounds is to start from error messages or codes that appear on-screen.

Thus, searching on “Zoom quit unexpectedly” and “Windows 10” is what ultimately led me to the PowerToys fix. Ditto, when I found a sizable string (7 in all) of repeated COM Surrogate “stopped working” critical events in Reliability Monitor. That, too, led me to a set of possible causes and related fixes.

Troubleshooting Requires Proper Context

If anything I learned while studying anthropology still works for me as a tech person, it’s the importance of putting things into context to really understand them. Troubleshooting research definitely requires taking error messages and including enough context to filter out irrelevancies and focus in on useful insights.

As I look back on my problem-solving efforts of late, I observe certain “context data items” make useful adjuncts to error messages and codes. These include:

OS version or application name
Build number (where applicable)
Filenames that appear in error details
Complete error code strings (e.g. 0XC0000005 instead of C05)

When I’m looking for present-day errors, I sometimes find it helpful to restrict the time scope for searches to the “Past week” or “Past month” setting in Google. That focuses on current events, as ’twere, and makes results more likely to apply to whatever issues I’m chasing right now.

Works for me, anyway. Hopefully, that means such techniques might also work for you, too!

Notes Added 1 Hour Later

Two things:

1. I just updated PowerToys on the Production PC to version 0.53.3. I’m pleased to report it preserved my “Off” setting for Video Conference Mute. If I turn it back on, the crashes resume (works fine when set to “Off,” though).

2. I learned yesterday that the WindowsInsider Team renewed my Windows Insider MVP (WIMVP) Award for 2022. I’m pleased and humbled to remain a member of that active and vibrant community.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, Windows 10, Windows 11

Chronic COM Surrogate Windows 10 Failures

January 18, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, then. I was poking around on my Windows 10 production desktop yesterday. Inside Reliability Monitor, I counted up 7 of 10 recent Application Failures from a single cause. It’s shown in the error detail window that serves as the lead-in graphic for this story. All 7 are more or less the same, where I see chronic COM Surrogate Windows 10 failures at work.

With Chronic COM Surrogate Windows 10 Failures, What to Do?

Look it up on the Internet, of course. Using “COM Surrogate stopped working dllhost.exe” as my search string, I found plenty of data to read and digest. As it turns out, this is a pretty common gotcha.

The COM Surrogate is a host process executable named dllhost.exe (as the error info also indicates). It runs as Explorer or other filesystem-related code works it way through file and folder navigation. The process also handles thumbnails (and viewing same) in Explorer and other similar interfaces.

Most of the renditions I perused, pointed to 4 potential causes:

1. a GPU driver problem
2. interference from Data Execution Prevention (DEP) causing a crash
3. munged DLL file connection (e.g. dllhost.exe)
4. corrupt DLL file

Fixes Follow Causes, Right?

Fixes relate directly to causes. For the first cause, replacing the graphics driver with a known good working version is the trick. This may mean rolling back, to reverse a recent problematic upgrade. Or, it might mean rolling forward, if a new version is available (especially one that mentions fixing thumbnail access issues).

For the second cause, creating an exception for dhllhost.exe in the DEP pane in System Properties, Performance options does the trick. Here’s a partial snapshot of what’s involved (for 32-bit Windows 10, navigate to System32; for 64-bit, navigate to SysWOW64 instead):

This basically instructs DEP to ignore access to dllhost.exe

For the third cause, re-registering the DLL should ensure that dllhost.exe is properly plumbed into the Windows Registry (for more info, please see this MS Support page). This requires entering a pair of commands in an administrative Command Prompt or PowerShell session:
regsvr32 vbscript.dll regsvr32 jscript.dll
This should handle anything related to DLL registration.

For the fourth cause, MS recommends first running

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

Follow that up with sfc /scannow until it comes back with “Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.”

My Chosen Fix: DEP Exception

Because thumbnails are working OK on my system, I decided that causes 1, 3 and 4 were unlikely. So I implemented a DEP exception, as shown in the preceding screencap. So far, it’s working: no COM surrogate errors since that change. I’ll keep an eye on it, and amend this story if that changes. Stay tuned!

Note: this same approach also works on Windows 11, should the COM surrogate cause problems a PC running that OS instead. Cheers!

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

Escaping Excess Windows Audio Reverb

January 17, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

My first job out of college was in an archival sound studio at the Library of Congress. Believe it or not, they even send me to a summer audio engineering program. (The Eastman School of Music, Summer, 1974.) In the nearly 4 years I worked there, I’d like to think I learned a little something about quality sound delivery. That’s why I’ve been chafing during recent attempts at escaping excess Windows Audio reverb. This morning, I finally fixed my problem on my production desktop.

Hows and Whys of Escaping Excess Windows Audio Reverb

First: a problem description. Any kind of music playback on my external speakers has sounded weird lately. (When I play sounds in “the open air,” I use a set of Axiom Audio components. These inlude: L, R, and subwoofer speakers with external amplifier.) Here’s my best problem description. On playback, music sounded like it was in a concrete stairwell or in a big tiled bathroom. From my years in the studio and subsequent experience, I knew it was a reverb problem.

First, I went poking around in the Realtek Audio Console app. It’s shown as the background for this story’s lead-in graphic. But none of the changes I made in the equalizer, or among its various settings options (Rock is show in the afore-mentioned screencap), made any difference.

Thus, I realized it had to be something in the old Control Panel Sound widget. It was. At one point or another I must have checked the box shown in the screencap foreground red-arrowed “Enable audio enhancements.” As soon as I unchecked that item, my excess reverb disappeared. Everything returned to normal and my various music sources sounded as much like their original recordings as my semi-pro sound chain (external amp and speakers) could deliver.

When in Doubt, Experiment…

I don’t think I would’ve been able to solve the issue if I hadn’t fooled around with the EQ presets in the Realtek Audio Console. As soon as it was obvious that this element in the audio software chain wasn’t responsible (I was sure I’d picked the “Club” or “Party” presets, both of which seem to boost reverb noticeably), I knew it had to be the Sound widget. And sure enough, whatever audio enhancement had kicked in when I checked that box made a BIG difference.

Fortunately, it was easily fixed and my tunes are now back to normal. Now the question becomes: what do I want to listen to today? As I finish out this post, I’m enjoying the alt-pop sounds of 90s British group “The SUNDAYS.” Good stuff (and it sounds like it oughter…).

Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Update

2022 Gets First Windows 10 WUCU Woohoo

January 12, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I can’t help it. I have to have fun with my headlines occasionally. In this case, WUCU refers to a Cumulative Update (CU) delivered via Windows Update (WU). Hence my proclamation, as 2022 gets first Windows 10 WUCU. The woohoo part is just for grins. I was busy enough with writing and phone calls yesterday that I didn’t notice the download and install part. But when I logged in this morning, I saw a notification that led me to the “Restart required” message in WU. It’s present on all the “regular PCs” in my fleet (those not running an Insider Preview).

When 2022 Gets First Windows 10 WUCU, Then What?

Why, restart all those machines, of course. I just checked the Windows 11 PCs, and they don’t seem to be queued up for Patch Tuesday action. I wonder if this is just a one-off, or if the update cadence for the newest desktop OS might be changing. I guess I’ll have to keep an eye on things, to see what happens.

Closer investigation shows that KB 5009566 hit Windows 11 machines yesterday (January 11) as well. It’s labeled as a Quality Update in Update History, not a CU. So it looks like the cadence continues as always, but that the labels attached to the Patch Tuesday update can be either QU or CU depending on their contents and recent prior preview update activity. Good to know!

Here’s what that looks like on my production-level Lenovo X1 Extreme (8th-gen Intel CPU, vintage 2018).

The update for Windows 11 also arrived on January 11, but it’s a QU not a CU. Go figure!

It seems that Windows 11 is finally starting to diverge from Windows 10. I think we may see some exciting new developments and capabilities in the run-up to this fall’s upcoming equivalent to a feature update. Should be interesting. Stay tuned: I’ll keep you posted.