Tag: Windows

Windows 11 comes with some Printer Problems and Other Issues

Paul

Windows 11

Printer Issues

It seems that if you have a Brother printer there is an issue with being able to print after the latest updates to Windows 11.   I am not sure why it isn’t on Windows 10 but according ghacks “Printers may not be detected correctly by the operating system if the printer is connected to the device via USB“.   This issue might not only be for Brother printers but more than that.   This is something just coming up on the net and not everyone knows what is going on but the fix for this issue is to make it a network printer and not connected to a USB.   Microsoft hasn’t yet said anything about this issue.

Performance hit using Windows 11 on AMD

This isn’t a surprise to me but I didn’t know about this until as of late.   It seems if you are using Window’s 11 and AMD than you might be getting a 5% -15% performance hit according to Bleeping computers.   It can be up to 15% performance hit if you are playing games on Windows 11.    The L3 cache is the issue with Windows 11 performance issues.   AMD is working on fixing the issue and should have a BIO’s update available later on this year.   Until then, I strongly recommend not upgrading to Windows 11.   You should just keep with Windows 10.

Windows 11 uses to much memory

It seems to be the File Explorer is using way to much memory for Windows 11 and Microsoft is looking into why this is an issue.  Microsoft has issued an update in the ‘Dev’ Channel according to bleeping computers and as of yet isn’t available in the release channel.   It seems to be a memory leak that is causing the file explorer to have up to a 1GB size in Windows 11.

Parts of Windows 11 not translated

According to a Reddit user, there seems to be a problem with Windows 11 not translating to the right languages.  I’ve seen the photo and I am not sure why it isn’t translate but you should check it out to find out what I am talking about.

These are just a few that I saw and thought I’d share with you about some of the problems with Windows 11 and the latest updates.   I am sure this isn’t just Windows 11 but probably some of this might be even Windows 10 but it seems like Windows 11 is getting people’s attention and I thought it should at least be considered to stay off of Windows 11 until they get something done or make something compelling to upgrade to Windows 11.

 

Windows Update in September causes printing issues in IT Support

Paul

Support Key

Print Nightmare Patch

Microsoft released an update for Windows (KB5005565 , KB5005566, and  KB5005652) that is causing quite some problems with Printers and networking.   There have been reports that I’ve seen of this affecting business and all around.   I’ve seen this in my Job also, Drivers not installing and Windows updates not installing because the drivers isn’t being able to be installed.   Paper sizes and even POS printers not printing due to the Printer spooler being patched by Microsoft.   Bleeping Computers even says that it broke the point to a network printer and is causing issues with people being able to print on the network.

Significant problems

Even I’ve seen the problems that came along with the new update.   The real problem is how to protect the business who need to use their network for business purposes.   What are some ways to do it and keep the business safe?  These are all the questions that need to be answered but as of yet no one knows what the really way to patch the problem associated with the Print Spooler and Print Network.

IT admins have said as much as uninstalling the update resolves most if not all the printer issues they’ve seen the last week or two but that isn’t really suggested by Microsoft due to the Print Nightmare issues and ransomware issues that might arise from it.   All I know is IT admins are left on the side of the road as to how to fix the issue without the patch or if there will be a hotfix now the road to fix the September update.  Either way there isn’t much we can do but wait and see.

Possible ways to Mitigate this issue:

Change your Group Policy Object (GPO) in Active Directory on the target computers on the network to “RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators = 0” but than again we are just opening up that hole that Microsoft is trying to close.

Registry add:

reg add “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers\PointAndPrint” /v RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Again this will only bypass what Microsoft is trying to close with the vulnerability in Windows point and print issue on the network.   You should be able to start printing after you reboot.   This however isn’t suggested by me or anyone who is looking to keep the printer from being used in a ransomware attack.

Installing V4 drivers instead of V3 Drivers will solve this issue also but some  vendors don’t even have V4 drivers available to install as of yet.  Until they make those drivers available, there isn’t really much we can do about it or even suggest to the business that are having difficulty with the printing issue at hand.

Resources:

Why Having a rolling updates for Windows 10 is a Good Idea!

Paul

Microsoft Windows 10

Those unexpected times

So you need your Windows 10 for something important from maybe a church service, or you have an important meeting on zoom for Tuesday.   You have something important going on and Windows brings up this notification that you should reboot your system for an Windows 10 update.  You can tell it to schedule the update later that day or even during the night with no problems but what if you have to reboot your system?   There’s the problem, you do have the option to restart without updating but most people don’t know that option.   It’s an easy fix.   Go into command Mode by typing Cmd into the search bar.

cmd prompt

and then type:

shutdown -s -t 0

Once it shutdowns you just reboot your system and you are back to where you left off.  It however isn’t always that simple with people who seem to forget that little trick from time to time.

Rolling Updates

What if You don’t have time to do this little trick or you forget.  Well you know what happens, you wait for the update to take place.  It can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes depending on how big the update is.   I’ve seen it take like 10 mins on some systems. It can take some time to update Windows 10 because you get some massive updates sometimes when it comes to updates.   You get new Revisions and you get new patches every 2nd Tuesday of the month.   What if you need the updates to update on a certain day.     There is a way to do it.  Depending on which day you need to do the updates, you can make Windows 10 pause the updates up to 35 days and that can be a very useful way to prevent unexpected updates when you need Windows 10 to just be working.   You can do this by going into windows update settings

WIndows update settings

Once you click Windows Update Settings and go to the menu.   You’ll want to hit the advanced options and then look for pause updates.   Then you can select a date up to 35 days.    This is something I tell my clients from time to time to do this because it really does help them from having those unexpected downtimes.

Once you do this, write down the date you selected and put it somewhere next your computer.   I like to use Google Calendar or some calendar app to remind a few days before that date and then I update Windows 10 at my convenience not the other way around.   You find a day that is convenient for you and you update windows before the 35 days or you just let it do it’s thing and you have two updates in one most of the time.   Once you update and restart your system, you go back into Windows update settings and pause the updates for another 35 days or whatever date you want to pause till.   You start the process over again and you have a rolling update schedule.

Change Active Hours

Something else I tell my clients is to change the active hours you work on your system.   Even though Windows 10 does a really good job, it isn’t perfect and thus you might be using the system when the system thinks it should be inactive.   You can also change that on the windows update setting page.   I usually turn off the active hours feature and then change the active hours and put it when I will be using the computer the most of the time.

Schedule the update

You can also schedule when Windows will do the update.   In the early days you could only pause the update for 4 hours before it would restart the system without your knowledge.   Now you can tell Windows when to restart the system and usually it will pick sometime while you are inactive and not doing anything.   So you can select the time that is convenient for you.   You can do this by just going to Windows update Settings page(See above) and hit the Schedule the Restart and then select the time of day you want the system to restart the computer.  This way if you forgot that there is an update and you are busy with work, you can tell it to wait till you aren’t busy with some important work.

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The Pagefile.sys and the early years

Paul

technology, electronic device, computer hardware, computer component, electronics, motherboard, personal computer hardware, cpu, computer accessory, Free Images In PxHere

from PxHere

What is the Pagefile.sys

When Microsoft created Windows XP, it became quite apparent that Windows UI couldn’t handle all the desktop users needs. Since this was in the early 2000 when we were still working with a very limited system resources. The systems we had at the time were 16 bit or 32 bit systems. This is where it gets interesting because the maximum you can have on a 16 bit system was 64kb of ram which wasn’t much. However we started with the 32 bit systems that would allow up to 4 gigabytes of memory total. It was quite nice but it still required the system to use the file system to hold or run programs. It would become self evident that the system was so bogged down by processor speed and amount of ram that was available. All the while they were working on the Windows operating system they had to create a way to throw the unimportant programs or sometimes important programs into the background to be able to load other programs. It was really a pain and I should say this isn’t something we have to worry about now.

What does it do?

Well it basically put the program to a mini sleep and throws it onto the hard drive and keeps a record of where and what it had to know in order to start the program back up. It was a way to keep memory space used to a minimum and still be able to have a really nice experience with Windows XP. Microsoft in all it’s wisdom, decided to incorporate this little feature into the Windows vista and other operating systems. I still think it has a use in Windows 10 but I doubt it is being used like was in the early days since most people usually have enough ram to not need to put to sleep any programs in the background to run programs.

Can I delete it?

Like many other experts, I say you shouldn’t even think about it. In the early days, when it was deleted or corrupted you couldn’t even boot your system. There were even cases of BSOD(Blue Screen of Death) and thus it is never recommended to delete or modify your pagefile.sys without fully backing up your system and then maybe. There are several ways you can do it but I won’t talk about that. I however will link to them and let you decide for yourself if you should do it or not.

Does it slow my system down?

In the early days, it would most likely slow it down but since we have so much more system resources than before we shouldn’t need to worry about. I honestly have 32 gigabytes of ram in my system and see no noticeable speed difference than when I had 16 gigabytes. Pagefile.sys shouldn’t be doing anything now but it might if you are using a really big program or game that requires massive amount of memory and if you didn’t have the memory requirements for it but still was able to run it. Then you might be using pagefile.sys to do swapping of programs and free up space for that game or big program that you are trying to run.

Other than when you put your Windows system to sleep, it is what is used to throw everything you have loaded up in your laptop or desktop on to the HDD to save for quick retrieval of the programs to start the laptop or desktop where you left off.   This is the only place that I know of that it is currently still be used but I am sure it is still be used on old systems.

In the long run, the pagefile.sys is still used today and probably for a while. It’s uses can be small at times but it was designed to help you with your computer memory and thus should not be tampered with unless you know what you are doing.

Installing Wine on Linux Mint (Cinnamon)

Paul
Wine on Linux Mint (Cinnamon)

Windows Programs

As you know not everything might be on Linux or ported to Linux. So what is a person to do when they find out that they need a particular program. Lately I have been wondering what Wine has been up to lately. I heard about Wine a few years ago, it wasn’t very stable and you had even more problems then you wanted with this little Linux program. Let’s back up and tell you what Wine is supposed to do. Wine allows Linux users to run Windows programs in a Virtual Windows Desktop like environment.   When you installed Linux you probably didn’t even think about the possibility that you might need program.  Wine is here for that one reason.

Don’t Wine about it

What’s Wine Good for?  It general it is used to play a lot of Windows Game on Linux.   From Spore, to Call of Duty, to probably even EVE.   I know most of these games will need a Good Graphics Processing Unit to play on Any system.   I’ve seen people play Sims 3 on Linux and run very Smoothly.  I personally use Wine for programs that I might need to fix Clients computers with.   Each users needs are a little bit different and most of the time may or may not work with Wine.  So you will need to know what you might need to try with Wine before going all in with Linux.   Wine has a great list of apps and programs that will work with it.   People have been trying programs and submitting them to Wine For review of how to make them work better.

More Stability

I’ve used Wine in the past few years I think the last time I played around with it was in 2015 but I had some difficulty installing it and using.   The Wine developers definitely got it more user friendly and now most things are working much better than before.   I even tried my Yumi Multiboot USB tool with Wine and seems to run just fine as long as you don’t use persistence option when you create an ISO on the USB.   Hopefully they will fix some of these issue but it might not be fixable due to Wine capabilities.

Do you use Wine?  Why Do you use it?  Have you left Windows behind?  Did you find it hard or easier to do so?  Why did you do that? Why not leave a comment and answer all these questions and tell me your experiences with Linux.