Category Archives: Windows 11

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

Canary Gets New Clock-based Widgets

Leave a comment

With the arrival of Build 27695, Windows 11 Canary gets new Clock-based widgets. One is named Countdown, the other Timer, so their clock affiliation should be obvious. One or both may be pinned quite easily into the Widgets column at the left-hand edge of the pop-up Widgets panel. Hint: Launch this by entering WinKey+W at some keyboard.

When Canary Gets New Clock-based Widgets, Then What?

You can see what these simple-seeming widgets look like by default in the lead-in graphic (Countdown left, Timer right). Inside the Widget Panel, you must click the top-line “+” (Plus sign) to open the Add a widget display. Then, you can pin either or both widgets, and they’ll start showing up in the Widgets Panel.

It’s always nice when MS starts adding functionality to its facilities. For a long time, that collection was pretty limited. Right now the count is up to 14: Counddown, Dev Home, Family Safety, Focus session, GitHub, Instant Play, Phone Link, Photos, Sports, Timer, Tips, Traffic, Watchlist, and Weather.

And if you click the “Find more widgets” option at the end of the Pin widgets list, you’ll be wafted off to an MS Store page named “Find your next widget.” Highly recommended: it offers better — and more nicely organized — widget listings than a simple search inside Store on “Widgets” offers.

Good stuff: too bad I can’t figure out a URL for that access. You’ll just have to follow the button inside the Widget panel as I did to get there. Enjoy!

AFD  until Tuesday, September 24

Later today, I’m going in for cataract surgery on my left eye. If all goes well — and they tell me this routine procedure has a 95-99% success rate — I’ll be back at the keyboard next Tuesday. Wish me luck!

BTW, AFD means “Away from My Desk.” I’m not sure if it’s a legit acronym, but I used it to shorten that heading length. Hopefully, it at least makes sense. Happy trails…

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

OneNote Updates Sticky Notes

Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting tidbit. If you install or upgrade OneNote on a Windows PC, it will also upgrade to a new version of Sticky Notes. Check the lead-in graphic: it labels this new version as such, and the old version (lacking that same (new) label)shows up in the Start menu. Hence my assertion that OneNote updates Sticky Notes. But wait: there’s more…

Exactly How OneNote Updates Sticky Notes

This dual appearance persists even after you add the (New) version via a OneNote update (or install). If you quiz that version for its About info, you’ll get the OneNote for Microsoft 365 info . It shows up as (line broken for WordPress readability, original is a one-liner):

Microsoft® OneNote® for Microsoft 365 MSO
(Version 2408 Build 16.0.17928.20114) 64-bit

OTOH, if you quiz the older version, it calls itself a UWP app with version number 6.1.20 (and a 2020 copyright date). Go figure!

Two Versions, or One?

If you want to keep both versions, that’s fine with me. If you want to lose the old version, I’d recommend using WinGet to uninstall same. The name of this app is “Microsoft Sticky Notes” so you need to enclose it in quotes (internal spaces) to get it to work. Or, you can uninstall it using the app id, as follows:

winget uninstall --id 9NBLGGH4QGHW

instead. Your choice. I did the latter on one of my X380 test PCs and it worked correctly. Now, I see only Sticky Notes (New) in the Start menu. Just for grins, I did likewise on my Windows 10 production PC: it behaves in exactly the same way, so this works for both OSes. Cheers!

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Backup/Restore, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, USB devices, WED Glog, Windows 11

Windows 11 Backup Request

Leave a comment

I have a modest request to make of Microsoft, where Windows 11 is concerned. Its new-to-11 Windows Backup facility uses Reset this PC as the basis for a new Windows image. It then rejiggers the Start Menu to show you which apps and applications need to be reinstalled. Hence my Windows 11 backup request. I see no file on the desktop or in the User’s folder hierarchy somewhere that lists  “missing” stuff.

What About My Windows 11 Backup Request?

According to the Answers.Microsoft.com something like this may be available in a file named removedapps.html. Or  perhaps “Removed apps.html” (with an internal space). If so, one could parse this data in PowerShell. Then, WinGet could reinstall most such things. (WinGet says it knows about 6,575 packages as I write this blog via (Winget search –source winget “”).count  .)

I’ve just made a Macrium Reflect image backup of a test PC, and I’m now going to restore that PC using Windows Backup. I’ll see if an html file shows up in the desktop (or somewhere else: e.g. windows.old) afterward. Let’s see…

Further Ruminations on Removed Apps

Turns out that when you go into this process, Reset this PC shows you the list of apps that need to be reinstalled. It also states “This list of apps will be saved to the desktop after reset.” That should do it.

List shows first 11 of 26 items, but does NOT allow text copy.

Just for safety’s sake, I screen-grabbed all items since this window doesn’t support text grab of the list contents. Good thing I did: when the machine booted, I could not find a file anywhere on the system that matched the string search “remo*app*.html” anywhere. Just for grins I also searched on *.html to look for all files dated today (September 9). Nothing relevant to removed apps there, either.

When in Doubt, Restore the Macrium Image

I eventually got back to where I started by disabling secure boot, booting into the Macrium Rescue media, then restoring the backup I made just before starting down this path.  Note: my PC wouldn’t boot from Macrium Rescue media unless I undid secure boot. Hey MS! Please fix this apps list issue: it makes Windows 11 Backup much less attractive or workable the way things currently stand.

The eventual part came from having to figure out I needed to turn off Device Guard before Secure Boot could itself be turned off. Then I had to steer around BitLocker stuff (a key is necessary before you can read an encrypted drive like the P16’s: I didn’t care because I was going to rewrite the whole shebang anyway). Then I had to wait for the backup to complete, go back and turn Secure Boot and Device Guard back on, enter the recovery key, and resume. Sheesh! A lot of time and effort to find out if Windows 11 Backup writes an app list to the desktop (or elsewhere). Too bad it does not…as far as I can tell.

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

Fast UFDs Need Fast USB Ports

Leave a comment

I just learned something amazing. I’ve long known that performance depends greatly on USB port selection. Indeed I posted about this nearly two years ago to the day: USB-C Port Choice Really Matters. Amusingly, it wasn’t until this morning that I figured out this caution applies to USB-A ports as well. Indeed, fast UFDs need fast USB ports for them to deliver their fullest capabilities. The speed difference is shocking, too: more than 20X faster for large read/writes; 2-10X faster for small ones. Let me show you…

CDM Shows That Fast UFDs Need Fast USB Ports

Check out the lead-in graphic at right. It shows CystalDiskMark (CDM) results for the same Kingston Data Traveler Max 256GB UFD I just had delivered from Amazon yesterday. It’s rated at 1,000 MB/s read, and 900 MB/s write on that purchase page. As you can see, CDM reports better numbers than those for queue depth of 8 on a 1 GiB object, and somewhat less for a queue depth of 1.

What’s fascinating, however, is the results shown on the left. These popped up in a pretty new ThinkPad T14s Gen6 Copilot+ PC I received from Lenovo last month. As the user manual confirms, both of its USB-A connectors top out at 5 Gbps, which makes them plain-vanilla USB 3.0 (aka USB 3.2 Gen1). As you can see given that I’m testing the same device in two different USB-A ports, the difference is down to the port. And that difference is MAJOR!

Here’s a Potential Workaround

You can purchase a dongle/adapter that is female USB-A on one side, and male USB-C on the other. It will let you plug a fast USB-A UFD into a presumably faster USB-C port. I bought a 2-pack of these from Amazon back in 2021. You can see there’s some pass-through loss (compare upper right results, and you’ll see what I mean) when taking this approach. But gosh! It’s still MUCH faster than a 5Gpbs connection. ‘Nuff said.

If you buy a fast UFD and your laptop or PC has only 5 Gbps USB-A ports, spend the extra $5-6 that a USB-A to USB-C adapter will cost. You’ll get a major performance boost as a result, even if it’s not as good as a native 10 Gbps USB-A port. Cheers!

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Recent Activity, Remote Desktop (RDP), WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Windows App Will Replace Remote Desktop

Leave a comment

I’m finally starting to get some clarity on the emerging Windows App, now out in preview. That clarity comes courtesy of a nice story from Martin Brinkmann at gHacks entitled “The Windows Windows app is real — replacing remote desktop app.” But I’ve got a problem with this tool –identical to the problems I had with the Teams (Work or school) version. I don’t have a qualifying MSA among the half-dozen or so I have set up. So, even though the Windows App will replace Remote Desktop, I’m still unable to use it. Sigh.

How Soon the Windows App Will Replace Remote Desktop?

Having been through this with Teams earlier this year, I  imagine Windows App will follow a similar trajectory. MS must eventually loosen its exclusive requirement for an Entra related MSA. Why say this? Because of 2 inescapable facts:

  1. The population of personal MSAs dwarfs that for the other kind
  2. Unless MS adds personal MSAs, it can’t replace Remote Desktop

All this said, the Windows App is now available in preview form. MS has various Learn assets for the program but none of them provides information about timing just yet. The best place to start is with What is Windows App? It leads to other useful info, too. My best guess is that this will be another element that distinguishes the 24H2 Windows 11 release from its predecessors.

Finding the Windows App…

Because “Windows app” is a generic term, and “Windows App” is the name of an MS Store object, some sleight of hand is needed to run it down. Best to search the store with “Windows App” (including caps) enclosed in quotes.

According to the MS Learn article Link to your app, you can synthesize the Store URL for an app by appending its Id string to this base string:

https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/

WinGet will happily provide that ID using either its list or show capabilities. Here again, I had to enclose “Windows App” in quotes to make this work, to wit:

As you can see, WinGet says the ID = 9N1F85V9T8BN, so that URL should be https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/9N1F85V9T8BN. Let’s see…

Works! Now, all I have to do is get a “real” Work or school MSA so I can use the gosh-darned thing. But that’s another kettle of fish entirely, here in Windows-World. Stay tuned.

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Early 24H2 Update Attempt Fails

2 Comments

When I read this morning on NeoWin that KB5039239 would update 23H2 Windows 11 to 24H2, I had to give it a try. So I visited the Microsoft Update Catalog and grabbed the x64 version to attempt an install on my Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation. No dice. Indeed, this early 24H2 update attempt fails on that laptop, as you can see in the lead-in graphic. The Windows Update Standalone Installer informs me that “the update is not applicable to your computer.”

Why the Early 24H2 Update Attempt Fails

The NeoWin story specifically cites to a non-Copilot AMD PC receiving the update via WU, complete with Update History screencaps to show it downloaded and applied. Thus, I can only speculate that KB5039239 is still missing some support infrastructure for Intel CPUs in general (or this Alder Lake i9-12950HX CPU in particular).

Whatever the case my be with this CU, something about it gets picked up as “not applicable” for this test rig. Last May, I blogged about a way to use the 24H2 ISO to run an in-place repair install as workaround to upgrade 23H2 PCs to 24H2. It worked back then, and I’m pretty sure it still works now.

All this said, I’m not sure why the afore-cited CU doesn’t cut the mustard on my P16, but it’s just one of those interesting things about Windows. If I truly wanted to upgrade this machine to 24H2, I could get there from here. But I really just wanted to see if the approach described in the Neowin story works on the P16. It doesn’t, but I will keep my eyes peeled for something similar from WU soon, and see if what else comes along for that ride changes things from “not applicable” to otherwise.

Stay tuned!

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

Start11 v2 App Launch Fails

2 Comments

Here’s something interesting to ponder. I’m running Stardock’s mostly excellent Start11 v2 start menu replacement on a couple of Windows 11 PCs. One them runs Insider Preview on Canary Channel build 27686.1000. When I upgraded version 2.0 to 2.1 this morning, I couldn’t get the Start11 app itself to open from the Start menu. Click the icon, and nothing happens. Right-click the icon and select “Run as administrator…”: likewise nothing. Gosh, that looks like Start11 v2 app launch fails completely, doesn’t it? Not exactly, as it turns out…

Poking Around the UI When Start11 v2 App Launch Fails

Then I right-clicked the name underneath my avatar image on the right-side of the Start menu (which comes from Start 11 v2). Notice that the highlighted option at bottom reads “Configure Start11.” That’s the secret to launching the Start11 app itself, even though its app entry is currently unresponsive.

I found a Stardock webpage entitled Start11 Changelog. It shows the latest version of Start 11 v2 is 2.1 which dropped earlier this week on 8/20/2024. It’s a long one! Reading it over just now, it says “ARM support is now in all versions” (good to know). But I see nothing that indicates the Start11 app won’t launch when called explicitly. In fact, I see nothing that says this reading back into the changelog as far as I’d care to go (half-a-dozen screenfulls).

What About V1?

This is what makes things interesting. If you click on Start11 in the app list on the Start menu, it launched that app immediately. I’m a little non-plussed that a right-click manuever is needed on v2 to launch the app, but not in V1.

So I installed v2 on another test PC — the brand-new Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra that showed up here last week. Guess what? Opening the app works fine on that machine (as does the right-click trick as well. Something is wrong with the install on my Canary channel test PC, it seems. I’ll report into the Stardock Forums and see what they say. Stay tuned…things might get stranger still. We’ll see!

One More Thing…

On the P3 Ultra I noticed that Start11 shows up in WinGet. So I updated all outstanding items on the Lenovo ThinkPad X380 (my other Start11 v2 test PC). Then I tried the old uninstall/reinstall maneuver on that PC. WinGet happily uninstalled the program, but I had to redownload and re-key the new instance from the Stardock website. But when I was done, the app once again worked as it was supposed to. Looks like the first upgrade broke something. Solved!

 

 

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

Reinstall Solves Nvidia Driver Issue

Leave a comment

This morning, I noticed a new GeForce driver for the RTX 3070 Ti on my production system via the NVIDIA app. Perforce I installed same. Then the screen flashing started: on and off, and on and off, and … you get the idea. I’ve been here before, but usually when an old driver needs replacing. I tried to roll back (but the option didn’t light up) so I used the REINSTALL facility you see at the upper right of the lead-in graphic. I’m happy to report that such a reinstall solves NVIDIA driver issue. The blinking/flashing is fixed. Good-oh!

Why Reinstall Solves Nvidia Driver Issue

When a graphics driver misbehaves  — as in going into blink mode — it’s usually because the driver itself is messed up. Or it might be that communications between the driver and the device aren’t working properly. Either way, something needs to change.

Ordinarily I’d use the rollback facility on the Driver tab for the RTX 3070 Ti to revert back to the previous version. But, as you can see in the next screencap, the “Roll Back Driver” button is greyed out. Alas, that means there’s nothing to roll back to. Looks like the new NVIDIA app doesn’t keep old driver versions around. What to do?

Because it’s greyed out, I can’t use Roll Back Driver.

Fortunately, as you can see in the lead-in graphic, the NVIDIA app offers a REINSTALL option for the current driver. Because the installed version was blinking I figured I had nothing to lose by giving REINSTALL a try. So I did just that.  Just to make sure everything got replaced, I also checked the installer’s Clean Installation option. And fortunately for me, it worked!

The desktop is back to normal, and the blinking is behind me now. All’s well that ends well in Windows-World, especially when it comes to misbehaving graphics drivers.

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
AI, Copilot+ PCs, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Recall Gets October Retry Date

2 Comments

OK, then. If you’re anything like me, one big impetus for trying out a Snapdragon-based Copilot+ PC was to experience Recall. This tracks all Windows interactions and provides a … wait for it … window into your Windows usage patterns and history. Alas, it also raised severe security concerns. That’s why it got scrubbed just before Copilot+ PCs appeared about two months back (June18). Now, MS says that Recall gets October retry date. It’s explained in a Windows Experience blog post updated today (August 21).

Wait for It Again: Recall Gets October Retry Date

I’m guessing this will coincide with the official public release for Windows 11 24H2, for which Copilot+ PCs are already the standard bearer. The real news is that MS will be offering an opt-in preview of Recall to members of the Windows Insider Program “in the coming weeks” ahead. That means hardy souls — including your humble author — will volunteer themselves to give Recall a try, and see what it can do for them (and report on related slings and arrows encountered).

MS intends to address security concerns as follows: “Recall snapshots will only be decrypted and accessible when the user authenticates,” in keeping with the company’s Secure Future Initiative (SFI). This should be interesting. I can’t wait. Hopefully, Recall will return sooner rather than later. Whatever happens, I’ll keep you posted…

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin
Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra Intake

4 Comments

When Lenovo asked me if I’d like to review another one of their well-engineered SFF PCs last week, my immediate reply was “Heck yeah!” The ThinkStation P3 Ultra Small Form Factor Workstation showed up lateThursday. I got to unboxing and setup over the weekend. So far, it’s been a gas, but a bit of a mixed blessing. Let me explain…

Working Thru Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra Intake

I’ve looked at a couple of recent Copilot+ PCs (Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x and ThinkPad T14s) and a couple of other late 2023/early 2024 laptops in the last 12 months. All of them included plastic-free packaging.  Thus, I was SHOCKED to see plastic bags and plastic twist ties in the P360 Ultra packing materials. That was my first clue this is no bleeding edge PC.

My next big clue came when I opened Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > USB and found no USB4 hubs in evidence. In fact, I had to revert to the old Thunderbolt Control Center (TBCC) to see (some of) my faster USB4/Thunderbolt4 devices and connections. Here’s a screencap:

My newest USB4 NVMe enclosures didn’t show up in TBCC, but the 2022 Acasis model did. Go figure!

I have two newer USB4/TB4 NVMe enclosures (Konyead and Maiwo models) that don’t pop up in TBCC. Because they DO show up on the Copilot+ PCs in the USB4 hierarchy, and I can observe they run at higher speeds, I know they’re working OK. But it’s a bit distressing to lack the level of insight and monitoring I get on USB4-capable Windows 11 PCs.

Speeds, Feeds, and So Forth…

These are, however, pretty darn minor as quibbles go. The P3 Ultra is a speedy and capable PC in a nicely compact package. Indeed, as equipped, it retails for about US$2,500 so it’s no lightweight by any estimation. Here’s what’s inside:

  • CPU: Intel 13th-Gen/Raptor Lake 19-13900 (24 cores)
  • RAM: 64 GB (2x32GB DDR5-5600 Hynix)
  • OS: Windows 11 Pro Version 23H2
  • Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 770/NVIDIA RTX A2000 12GB
  • Networking: Intel I225-LM 2.5 GbE and I210 GbE,  Intel AX211 Wi-Fi6 adapter (with external antenna)
  • Storage: Hynix OEM PCIe x4/Gen4 2TiB NVMe SSD, 1 open M.2 slot, 1 open SATA slot
  • USB ports: 2xUSB-C/USB4-TB4 40 Gbps front, 2xUSB-A 3.2 back, 1 front
  • 3xDisplayPort 1.2 ports (both miniDP and full-sized)
  • PSU: External 300W power brick

This is a nicely-equipped PC for sure, but its lack of Wi-Fi7, USB4, older DP version (1.2) and packing materials that include a tiny bit of plastic all speak to 2023 standards. And indeed, a quick check on the release date says May 2023. It is what it is, and what it is is a fast and fairly powerful mini workstation. I’m glad to have it here.

Set-up and Intake Process

Once I got the P3 Ultra plugged in and attached mouse and keyboard (included) and wired into a Lenovo ThinkVision P27u-20 monitor the OS came right up into a generic Admin user account. As is my wont I set up my usual MSA as another Admin account. Then came a slew of upgrades and updates, starting with this handful of Quality updates:

Then came a number (8) of driver updates:

I also perforce picked up the latest MSRT when I got the latest quality update. The whole process took about 15 minutes, including reboot and restart. Interestingly, Lenovo Vantage didn’t find anything new to add to the July 2 Intel Chipset update. But it just now found a new chipset and graphics driver so I’m installing them now (total time: 2 minutes plus reboot/under 3 minutes to get back via RDP).

Then I used PatchMyPC Home Updater plus a few manual installs to add 7-Zip, 8GadgetPack, Advanced IP Scanner v2, CPU-Z, CrystalDiskInfo, CrystalDiskMark 8, Everything, FileZilla, Chrome, HWiNFO64, Intel DSA, NotePad++, the NVIDIA (beta) app, Revo Uninstaller, and WizTree to my runtime environment. That took 15-20 minutes in all. I still have to install Macrium Reflect for backup, but I’m mostly ready to start working with and testing this PC. More will come soon, but what I see so far is fast and capable.

Facebooklinkedin
Facebooklinkedin