Windows 10 someday, maybe update

Subject: General Tech | November 22, 2018 - 01:25 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: windows 10, patch, oops, microsoft

The Windows 10 October Update, now to be referred to as The New ME, has now decided it dislikes the audio portion of a display driver from a tiny little company with little to no market share, known as Intel.  Microsoft have pulled the update, which is degrading audio input on systems with Intel graphics, which they blame on "OEMs that accidentally turned on unsupported features in Windows" according to The Inquirer.

In this case, one might be thankful for not checking for updates for Windows or Office for a while and eating turkey instead.

"Intel driver users join anyone with a small hard drive, anyone who uses ZIP files, anyone using iCloud, anyone who needs to map a network drive, anyone with an HP machine, and anyone who likes their files to be associated with installed programs."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• RTX 2080 Ti FE Escapes Testing by Dying After 8 Hours @ [H]ard|OCP
• 3 is the magic number (of bits): Flip 'em at once and your ECC protection can be Rowhammer'd @ The Register
• USPS Vulnerability Exposed 60 Million Users @ [H]ard|OCP
• Prices for low-capacity NAND flash devices bouncing back @ DigiTimes
• First Ever Plane With No Moving Parts Takes Flight @ Slashdot
• noblechairs Hero Gaming Chair @ TechPowerUp

Network drives? You don't need no steenking network drives!

Subject: General Tech | November 16, 2018 - 03:11 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: microsoft, windows 10, idiots

The latest update for Windows 10 is the gift that just keeps on giving; for those for whom snark is a joy to express.  The October 2018 Update, aka Build 1809, was pulled after users expressed a surprising dislike of having their files deleted without their consent and from the results of those testing the new build, that feature is still present.  That hasn't stopped Microsoft's innovations however as the new build also expresses an extreme dislike of mapped network drives.  As you should obviously be using SharePoint Online, which doesn't function well as a mapped folder or drive by design, this should obviously not be a problem.

Strangely, The Inquirer and various Microsoft users do not appreciate this new feature for some reason and have expressed some disappointment.  There is no fix as of yet, nor will there be for quite some time, apart from avoiding the update like you would a homeopath's office.

"This borkage isn't quite so bad - but it's enough to be a huge problem for sysadmins, SMBs and in fact, anyone with a NAS drive, because mapping of network drives is still not working properly."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• A new Raspberry Pi takes a bow with all of the speed but less of the RAM @ The Register
• BlackBerry buys AI cybersecurity outfit Cylance in 'biggest ever' acquisition @ The Inquirer
• Tech ARP 20th Anniversary Giveaway Week 7 – Western Digital
• NikKTech & AVM Wireless Freedom European Giveaway

Deactivate! Deactivate! Windows 10 will be deactivated!

Subject: General Tech | November 8, 2018 - 12:46 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: windows 10, microsoft, oops

If you were greeted by a message today indicating that your Win10 Pro is no longer activated or needs to be reactivated as Win10 Home, you are not alone.  Microsoft have acknowledged an issue with their licensing servers which is having a rather noticeable effect on machines in several countries.  The issue seems to arise most often on machines which were upgraded from a previous version of Windows, or installed fresh using a key from a previous version, which Microsoft has supported from the get go.  The problem is unlikely to last for long, so do not start downgrading or reinstalling until we have an update from Microsoft, unless you really get off on reinstalling OSes.

It is a toss up between the link to Slashdot and the one to Microsoft Answers as to which provides the most amusment; the comments in both are everything you would expect and more!

"If you're having trouble activating your Windows 10 Pro computer today, you're not alone. Forums and social media networks are getting flooded with complaints from users who say their machines have automatically become deactivated. Users say they are having trouble connecting with Microsoft's activation servers, with some saying they are being prompted to downgrade to Windows 10 Home."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Monday: Intel teases 48-core Xeon. Tuesday: AMD whips covers off 64-core second-gen Epyc server processor @ The Register
• AMD's Zen 2 architecture heralds the coming of Ryzen 3 processors @ The Inquirer
• Frank Azor VP of Alienware @ [H]ard|OCP
• NAND so it begins: Micron mounts head-on attack against 10K disks @ The Register
• Samsung shows off folding smartphone with Infinity Flex Display @ The Inquirer
• AKRacing Onyx Office Chair Build and First Impressions @ [H]ard|OCP

You shall not patch! Microsoft has blocked the new Windows 10 update.

Subject: General Tech | October 9, 2018 - 02:31 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: windows 10, microsoft, oops

It's hard to find users who upgraded to the new Win10 update that enjoyed the experience; so much so that Microsoft has actually pulled it and it is no longer available to install automatically or manually.  They also warn anyone who downloaded it to hold off on installing the update for now.  If you have upgraded and are missing files, stop using the machine and give Microsoft support a ring as they should be able to recover your files; something much harder to do if you have been writing new data to the drive.  If you have a Microsoft store in your neighbourhood you can visit it for a fix as well; perhaps you will be their first actual customer! 

You can see a glorious tweet and more info over at The Inquirer.

"Microsoft has taken the unprecedented step of pulling a Windows 10 release a mere four days after its arrival amid a clamour of users complaining about files not being where they had left them."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Echo Show 2018 review: Seeing is believing, and there’s a lot more to see @ Ars Technica
• Qualcomm chip roadmap leaks: Now with added hotdog @ The Register
• Apple Releases iOS 12.0.1 With Fixes For Wi-Fi 2.4GHz Bug, Lightning Charging Issue @ Slashdot
• First it came for your desktop, now Windows 10 1809 is coming for your Things @ The Register
• TSMC revenues increase 11.6% in 3Q18 @ DigiTimes
• Google+ users, upset over data leak, sue Google @ Ars Technica
• Intel reveals 28-core Xeon W-3175X aimed at pro users @ The Inquirer
• Everything Supercon: This. Is. Big. @ Hackaday
• Elgato Stream Deck Mini Review @ NikKTech

Microsoft Responds to October 2018 File Deletion Concerns: Please Don't Install the Update and Wait!

Subject: General Tech | October 6, 2018 - 03:07 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: windows 10, microsoft, fail

As Jeremy briefly noted in his news roundup, yesterday, there was some concern that the latest Windows 10 update could be causing some users to lose files. These concerns have not been confirmed by Microsoft. They have started to investigate it, however.

Until they know that there is an issue (and, if so, have developed a fix for it) they are suspending the rollout of the Windows 10 version 1809 update. They are also recommending the users who have acquired the installation media (because ISOs can be used to in-place upgrade a machine) do not install it until the patch exists.

At this point, there seems to be enough noise to suggest that there is a problem somewhere. Some speculation, as Jeremy mentioned, is that the drive clean-up (“Storage Sense”) process runs if the install process doesn’t have enough free space, versus simply failing the install. Storage Sense has been in Windows 10 for a while now, but the latest update adds the ability to remove local files if they are backed up in the cloud. Knowing the types of mistakes that programmers tend to make, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Storage Sense didn’t have local files flagged properly, because the Windows 10 update hasn’t installed yet to state whether they were correctly migrated to OneDrive or not, so it got rid of them thinking that they were online.

This is complete speculation on my part, though!

You can then go into how sketchy it is to have files automatically removed from a device’s storage given that online storage services do occasionally lose files. The feature can be turned off in the Settings app, however, under the System -> Storage category. I don’t know if that will fix the upgrade problem, however.

For now, stick on the April 2018 update until Microsoft says anything. Personally, I'll install the new version on my new PC anyway (because it will have empty drives and it looks like this bug only affects the update process) but that's a bit of a risk.

NVIDIA Control Panel's in the Windows Store

Subject: General Tech | October 5, 2018 - 07:44 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: nvidia, windows 10

My opinions about curated app stores has not really changed. Do not give up platforms, such as Win32, that allow you to publish without the approval of one or more organized bodies. Even if the company doesn’t use it to suppress content that they don’t like now, they might in the future and governments might even force them to.

That aside…

I’m not exactly sure when this happened, but NVIDIA has a version of their Control Panel software on the Windows Store. The screenshots show that they are running the 397.64 Game Ready drivers on a pair of 1080 Tis, which would suggest sometime after May 9^th. It is the typical control panel that we’ve known and used for probably around fifteen-plus years now. The app does not include GeForce Experience or anything like that. Beyond helping devices that cannot run Win32 software, needing to rely upon Windows Store and Windows Update, it demonstrates two things. First, it is another example of a Win32 app that was packaged into a Windows Store app. Second, it shows that apps can still have access to drivers and other low-level things.

One last funny note: the system requirements do not specify that your GPU needs to be from NVIDIA.

Microsoft Releases Windows 10 October 2018 Update

Subject: General Tech | October 2, 2018 - 08:13 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: microsoft, windows 10

While the April 2018 update barely made it out before May, Microsoft has published the Windows 10 October 2018 update on just October 2^nd. From an aesthetics standpoint, this release looks quite like the last one, although Dark Mode has expanded a little further and now overtakes the file explorer. That’s one of the last places that I can think of.

In terms of actual features, however, the big one will probably be improved support for NVIDIA RTX and DirectX 12 Raytracing. It’s not clear to me what exactly the new OS brings to the table in that regard. I know that it was hidden behind an experimental flag in the April 2018 update, but the actual difference is a bit muddled. I heard one developer claim that NVIDIA RTX could not be toggled on and off until the October 2018 update, but I’ve also heard people claim to do that on the April 2018 update. So… I dunno.

Regardless, it’s here now, and that’s probably sooner than your 2080 Ti.

One area that Microsoft is focusing on is their new Game Bar update. Apparently, at least if you use the Game Bar, Windows Update will delay updating and rebooting during your play sessions. It would be nice to have more direct control, rather than giving us an app that can indirectly influence how our PC receives updates, but it’s still a good tip none-the-less. I can also see where they are coming from, regarding how infrequently people updated previous versions of Windows.

Another benefit of the Game Bar update is that the audio controls can now be accessed in game. This was one area that kind-of annoyed me in the past, which is finally being addressed. There has been a few times (not many but a few) that I wanted to change output cards but I physically couldn’t reach the control because a game is fullscreen atop it. It’s extra annoying if that game is one of those games that hates to be minimized under the penalty of crash-to-desktop. I’ve needed to shutdown and restart games before just to change the sound device. Now? It’s in the Game Bar, as well as per-application volume controls and so forth.

So if you want the Windows 10 October 2018 update, and you’re on Windows 10 of course, then you can go to Windows Update and check for updates. If not? Well, it’ll come to you soon enough anyway.

An utter lack of availability and an impending deadline may see Win10 match it's predecessor this year

Subject: General Tech | October 1, 2018 - 01:04 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: microsoft, windows 10

It wasn't easy, but finally after three years, Windows 10 might see adoption rates as high as Windows 7!  It merely took removing the ability to purchase a machine with Windows 7 installed, or installation media to start the trend.  The lack of non-security updates for the past three years, along with the announced end of any support for Win7 at the beginning of 2020 also seems to have helped.  Like it or not, Microsoft have finally found a way to get people to adopt Win10, with 37.44% of machines using it, a mere 3.44% less than Win7; at least according to the numbers The Inquirer sourced. 

Also worth noting is Android and its wild array of difference personalities has the top spot globally, running a hair over 40% of all connected devices globally.

"The monthly numbers from Netmarketshare show 40.88 per cent of desktop users on Windows 7, with Windows 10 at 37.44 per cent, just 3.44 behind as we head into the busy period of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Santa's subsequent annual giveaway."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• GeForce cards mysteriously ... @ The Tech Report
• The touch-friendly version of Office for Windows 10 is on hold @ The Inquirer
• Intel to spend US$1 billion boosting 14nm chip output @ DigiTimes
• Spoiler alert: Google's would-be iPhone killer Pixel 3 – so many leaks @ The Register
• Ubuntu Linux 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish Beta Now Available For Desktop, Cloud and Server Versions @ Slashdot
• OCC Reviews the EWin Flash Series Computer Gaming Chair