Microsoft (Windows) Latest Topics

Windows 11 Weather Widget is displaying wrong country/information

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 17:44:37 +0000

On my Windows 11 lock screen the weather widget is displaying information of Taiwan (zh-tw as country).

And the Microsoft News also has all China text/characters.
Btw, I live in the southern part of The Netherlands (Europe).

I guess something is wrong here. I don't use a (Taiwanse) VPN.

What can be the case that the location is displayed wrong?

is it really possible to disable aero in windows 10? really.

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 09:10:26 +0000

i've tried disabling aero, transparency, thumbnails, etc. but i've never been able to do it, even in the menu, i've unchecked the option and it's still there. it's a windows standard that old users don't like.

How to check in Windows 10 what is the product key I use?

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 19:23:15 +0000

In the past I have upgraded our computers from Win7 > Win10 or Win8 > Win10.

Whenever I upgraded components in any of these computers I have always used a new product key as it seems that in Windows 10 you can't call and say that you bought a new mobo.

We have four Windows PC's in the house and I just upgraded mobo and cpu in two of those. Now both of those ask for a new product key and I would like to check what was the product key used in each of these computers so I can cross those over on my product key list. I've tried everything, but none of the methods I find do not seem to show the key. cmd/powershell methods show blank key and on the registry there is the default VK7JG....

do you use tools/utilities after a fresh windows 10/11 installation from scratch or an update ?

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 07:27:46 +0000

seeing there are many settings like disable some services , windows prefetch (the ssd are so fast) ,microsoft antivirus defender , telemetry and so on

if you have to use install windows 10/11 or update several times for clients or friends , do you use some tools to make your job/task easier and faster ?

about tools i mean like Ultimate Windows Tweaker ,O&O ShutUp10++ or W10Privacy or other utilities /tools

thanks

Windows 10 vs 11

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 00:50:57 +0000

My system can upate to Win11, but the last I recall reading about 11 was that it was not very good for gaming. I'll admit that I have not done anymore research on this subject, but, I would like an unbiased opinion of 10 vs 11 and why one might be better than the other. Thanks!

GUIDE: Update from Windows 11 22H2 to Windows 11 23H2 on unsupported hardware THE EASY WAY

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:53:41 +0000

No need to download Windows 23H2 ISO!

Make sure that you have KB5031455 (Windows 11 Moment 4 Update) installed through Windows Update.

Download & install KB5027397 (Enablement Package) for x64 from here: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/kb5027397-enablement-package-for-windows-11-version-23h2-feature-update.19372/

Reboot

Congratulations, you have updated to Windows 23H2!

Where's the Windows 11 23H2 on my computer?

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 15:23:50 +0000

I have all latest Windows Updates installed (including October's Patch Tuesday), but still 'winver' lists 22H2.

How's that?
When will it turn to 23H2?

Enable Settings Homepage

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 19:16:42 +0000

Does anybody know how to enable "Homepage" in the Enterprise edition?
ViveTool and GPEdit don't work.

ViveTool: vivetool /enable /id:42058345,42058313

GPEdit: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Settings Page Visibility = "hide:none"

Cumulative Update Preview

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 16:45:36 +0000

What does "Cumulative Update Preview" mean? Is this beta or testing software, or final release? Why would someone see this if they are not in the "Insider" program?

Downloaded Win10 ISO directly from MS, seems the ISO is from the company "Thomson Reuters"

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 17:18:10 +0000

Recently bought a used Dell Optiplex so I wanted to install win10 from scrath. So I went to the MS site to get "Media Creation Tool", download the ISO and install it on a USB

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

I've used that site/tool for years now.

So turns out when I install it from the USB , after the initial setup , I get this

I also thought, well maybe this Dell was from that company , however bought it without any HDD/SDD.
It only has the 4 sticks of ram, a Quadro video card and a m.2 wifi/bluetooth card.

Anyone have any idea how this happened?
Thinking it was a MS error and someone from MS messed up the internal link, I downloaded Sunday and Today and still got same issue.

Windows Update Keeps trying to Install a Printer Driver I Do Not Have

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 12:09:01 +0000

I have a laptop running Windows 11. A few weeks ago Windows Update started trying to install a Canon printer driver update, The thing is I never had a Canon printer so I have no idea why this is happening. Any time I run Windows Update it tries to install the driver and then says failed but it's still always sitting there as an update that's ready to be installed. Is there a way I can get rid of it from Windows Update altogether so it doesn't keep trying to install? I checked under printer and devices and there is no Canon printer listed which makes sense since I never had one. Thank's in advance for your help.

Caution with the latest Microsoft Visual C++ update

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 14:50:39 +0000

Hi,

I'm running Windows 10 22H2 version 19045.3570

And this morning after updating “Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable Package 14.38.33130.0”, and having rebooted my laptop, all my desktop icons ended up on the left side, so I tried to drag them to their original positions on the right side, as soon as I released the left-click of the mouse, they returned to the right side, where they had been moved following this update.

DISM and sfc /scannow showed no problems!

Not wishing to install a third-party application, having never encountered this problem before, I had to perform a system restore, which completely solved the problem! All my desktop icons back where they belong!

I'm not saying that everyone could encounter this problem, but don't be surprised if it happens!

Another great job by Microsoft!

Problem solved by system restore!

Anyone else have the Win11 Moment 4 update installed but none of the features are enabled/available?

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 09:05:56 +0000

Anyone else have the Win11 Moment 4 update installed but none of the features are enabled/available?

Mouse pointer gone in Windows 11 23H2 ?!

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 22:19:42 +0000

Is it just me... or is my moise pointer sometimes on vacation and not responding in Windows 11 23H2 with all other updates?

For both my Razer mouse as well as the trackpad on my notebook.

Windows 11 - Never Combine Taskbar Labels - Finally Added To November Patches!

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 16:49:48 +0000

I've been waiting for this feature to be added since the launch of Windows 11. Wow that took a long time!

New Outlook push and making sure Microsoft isn't storing my email on their servers

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 06:20:52 +0000

PSA: Microsoft is pushing the web based Outlook to Windows users without giving the option to decline syncing email to their servers and keep using the existing clients. Hopefully the way around this (source) is to delete

settings.json

from

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\Migration

without agreeing to sync contents when The New Outlook first launches.

I have been happily using the built-in Mail application since Windows 8, when they added support for Email, Contacts and Calendar syncing with Google accounts, and have been doing my best to avoid The New Outlook like the plague it is.

Not only Microsoft's replacement mail app is a ###### Electron wrapper for the online version, it comes with ads AND to work it requires everything to be synced to "The Microsoft Cloud", so instead of just Google reading through my email to advertise, I'd have to allow Microsoft to do so too.

Up until now, this meant living with a new toggle in the toolbar and dismissing messages inviting me to to turn it on, but today was different: I got a message saying that on the next start of the Mail app I'd be moved to The New Outlook and I'd be able to toggle back afterwards, no option to refuse. At that point, I checked my installed apps and The New Outlook was there again (I had removed it once already when it first popped up).

I then closed the Mail app, waited a bit, and tried to reopen it. Sure enough, the app closed itself immediately and launched The New Outlook, which is where things get interesting: on launch, the only thing displayed is a wizard asking to enable syncing content in the Gmail account to "The Microsoft Cloud", with no option to refuse except by creating a new Outlook.com account. The rest of the window is empty, with no toggle to go back to the old Mail app (I assume it only shows up in the main UI after the wizard is complete)

After poking around a bit, I closed the app, without clicking the Continue button in the content sync dialog. Further attempts to launch Mail would repeat the same behaviour, basically locking me out of checking my own email.

It was only by finding this support article that I found a way to have the old Mail app launch again - by
deleting settings.json from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\Migration

At this point my worry is: did I actually prevent the syncing of my data to Microsoft's servers? Is there any way to check? If someone has gone through these steps, does the syncing need to be approved via Google's Oauth2 flow or does Microsoft just reuse the original authorization Windows gets when adding a Gmail account?

Fix Windows 10 Dark mode context menus with AcrylicMenus

Sun, 23 Oct 2022 09:56:52 +0000

*** THIS IS SOLVED - GO TO SOLUTION ***

It has always bothered me that someone thought this was beautiful in Dark mode. Windows 10 Light mode context menus are far nicer with the shadow effect. Even if that white border could be changed to dark grey, it would be an improvement on what's there now.

Here is the same sort of menu in Chrome.

Batch Job issue

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 19:53:24 +0000

Not sure where to put this so I am putting it here. If it is moved plz PM me and let me know where plz. I wrote a batch job but I am having trouble opening utorrent as I am not sure what is the correct path. This is where I think it is as I did a search for it:

cd "C:\users\johns\appdata\roaming\microsoft\windows\start menu"

Start utorrent.exe

But it is not working. Can someone tell me what is wrong plz?

Finding folders on PC with fewer than five files inside

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 14:02:42 +0000

Is this possible?

Microsoft should add Copilot to Windows 10

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 22:19:03 +0000

For many in academia (students, professors, researchers, etc.), Copilot is a godsend.

It's unfortunate that Microsoft is keeping Copilot to Windows 11 since many PCs don't meet the system requirements.

Yes, those on Windows 10 could use the browser instead to access Bing Chat, but that is just an extra hassle.

Microsoft should add Copilot to Windows 10.

curser placement

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 02:29:25 +0000

Hi,

Is there a way to have the cursor appear in the search bar as i open my chrome homepage of google? if easy, how do I do it please?

airplane mode

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 20:38:24 +0000

hi for some reason my laptop is in airplane mode and i cant get out of it. can someone kindly tell me how.

Filtering Windows' event logs properly, is it possible?

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 17:59:26 +0000

I want to track process creation on Windows, with their launching arguments, and from what I could see it is possible natively enabling event ID 4688, but I am having trouble processing what it is being logged.

It is a single local machine, so I don't have anything fancy to analyze those event logs. Searching on Google I got to software from various companies that deal in that, ingesting logs from multiple sources even, but not only it would be an overkill, I don't have a license for any.

The problem I have is noise basically, an abundance of entries. The native Windows Event Viewer does offer some filtering, but I don't think it could have been any simpler 😞, one can choose to only see 4688s, but that's about it, no way to even exclude by path or image name. I thought the "keywords" field could allow me to do it, but it is something else (outcome of the event trigger it seems).

Since some of you guys are sysadmins, I thought of asking, perhaps you had wanted to do this at some point or filter similar event logs and know how it could be done. I could filter by time, but it would be limiting either way, if at all possible I would prefer having those events logged at all times.

Stumbled upon another option to accomplish the logging that involves running the process(es) under a debugger of sorts that hooks the APIs you want, in this case it would be those that lead to the creation of a new process, and then see those calls and the parameters used ... Nuts. I think it is better to filter what Windows logs instead.

Thanks anyway!

is there a way to resize taskbar size in w11 ?

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 06:00:49 +0000

is there a way to resize taskbar size in windows 11 without any other software ?

for a laptop , it's pretty big

I guess they have removed as well the registry key to make it small

I have read about a program called Taskbar height and icon size by Windhawk , but i'm reluctant to use a third-party software

and hide / auto hide the taskbar well , i have done

thanks

windows issue

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 13:40:04 +0000

Hi, guys

my windwos just wouldn't update any help