WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else
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@Applied-Mediocrity There is actually a setting in the UI to move the start button to the left side. Nothing to move the bar to a different side though.
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Devices attempting to install the January 2024 Windows Recovery Environment update ( KB5034441) might display an error related to the size of the Recovery Environment's partition.
Between this and Google Play Services, January 2024 seems like a bad time to update anything
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Status: I noticed yesterday, when shutting down for the afternoon, that Windows decided my left monitor was now my primary monitor. Or so I thought, because it was putting my status bar stuff there.
Went in this morning to fix it, and found out that Display Settings disagreed, and the correct monitor was the primary monitor. So I set it to the wrong, but current actual primary, then back.
Oh, also, it's being super finicky about USB stuff this morning. You'd think even a small company could manage to make an OS that wouldn't complain about not recognizing a mouse that's plugged into it every damn day.
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@boomzilla Yeah, Windows occasionally forgets about the keyboard and/or mouse being plugged into the computer for me too. So reach around the back and pull out/plug in so Windows will rediscover them. And where I also need to pull out both USB plugs for the keyboard, not just the one for the keyboard itself. (The other is a USB extension lead for a USB port on the back of the keyboard.)
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@hungrier said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
January 2024 seems like a bad time to update anything
Well sure, everybody holds off on releasing anything risky in December (kind of like avoiding deploying risky changes on Fridays, only more so with the holidays), so they all get pushed forward into January.
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@PleegWat said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@Tsaukpaetra Since I went 9x32 I actually like having the start button bottom-center. Corners are too far away.
Paul Fitts is spinning in his grave
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@hungrier Are you sure? I kind of think he would just be shuffling over to one corner of his grave.
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@hungrier actually he’d agree - the average linear distance from cursor to middle bottom would (on aggregate average) be smaller than going to any corner unless you’re already nearer that corner.
As a result the start menu can be smaller if in the bottom middle than it would be for the bottom left because with that size of screen area you’re typically going to be nearer middle bottom than bottom corner.
Assuming 9x32 means a 3x3 matrix of monitors. The start button is tentatively borderline on compliance with Fitt’s law in a single screen context and mostly because it’s less frequently hit than the items on the taskbar.
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@boomzilla said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Status: I noticed yesterday, when shutting down for the afternoon, that Windows decided my left monitor was now my primary monitor. Or so I thought, because it was putting my status bar stuff there.
Went in this morning to fix it, and found out that Display Settings disagreed, and the correct monitor was the primary monitor. So I set it to the wrong, but current actual primary, then back.
Oh, also, it's being super finicky about USB stuff this morning. You'd think even a small company could manage to make an OS that wouldn't complain about not recognizing a mouse that's plugged into it every damn day.
Your primary monitor is the monitor full-screen applications will start on by default. It is not necessarily the monitor your primary task bar is on. At least on windows 10.
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@boomzilla said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
make an OS that wouldn't complain about not recognizing a mouse that's plugged into it every damn day.
Perhaps it should tell you your device tree has a misbehaving device that's drawing more current than it says it is and that your mouse can't handle it and stops responding?
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@Arantor said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Assuming 9x32 means a 3x3 matrix of monitors. The start button is tentatively borderline on compliance with Fitt’s law in a single screen context and mostly because it’s less frequently hit than the items on the taskbar.
That depends on whether you are using full buttons (icon + text) or icons only, and whether you are merging them.
With start button in center, it is the combination of start button and taskbar items which is centered, so if you have labels enabled or you have a lot of width in items I'd recommend bottom-left regardless.
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@PleegWat I’d tend to agree in theory, but for the described situation, Fitt’s law would not.
But I am making a lot of buttumptions about that described situation, not least of which that it is as described…
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@PleegWat said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@boomzilla said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Status: I noticed yesterday, when shutting down for the afternoon, that Windows decided my left monitor was now my primary monitor. Or so I thought, because it was putting my status bar stuff there.
Went in this morning to fix it, and found out that Display Settings disagreed, and the correct monitor was the primary monitor. So I set it to the wrong, but current actual primary, then back.
Oh, also, it's being super finicky about USB stuff this morning. You'd think even a small company could manage to make an OS that wouldn't complain about not recognizing a mouse that's plugged into it every damn day.
Your primary monitor is the monitor full-screen applications will start on by default. It is not necessarily the monitor your primary task bar is on. At least on windows 10.
Well, it was on my primary monitor. Oh, also, the left monitor's task bar was on the left originally, but then moved to the bottom for some reason, too. Very odd.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@boomzilla said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
make an OS that wouldn't complain about not recognizing a mouse that's plugged into it every damn day.
Perhaps it should tell you your device tree has a misbehaving device that's drawing more current than it says it is and that your mouse can't handle it and stops responding?
Perhaps. But I'm skeptical either way. The mouse and keyboard are actually plugged into the kvm. And I've been getting the issues irregardless of whether the kvm is plugged into the dock or a USB port on the machine itself.
And it's only ever that machine that has issues. Other stuff has no problems. In the past I've tried using different outlets (kvm has 4) and doesn't seem to matter. It's always my work machine that's the problem.
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@boomzilla said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
my work machine
Ah, corporate "security" software then.
Can't have those "mouse jigglers" slip on through!
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@Arantor said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@hungrier actually he’d agree - the average linear distance from cursor to middle bottom would (on aggregate average) be smaller than going to any corner unless you’re already nearer that corner.
But distance is only a part of it. The corners have the benefit of infinite horizontal and vertical size: No matter where your cursor is, you can throw it and instantly end up in the corner, as opposed to a narrow target kinda-sorta-near the center but offset depending on how many icons, windows, etc you have in the taskbar
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@hungrier said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@Arantor said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@hungrier actually he’d agree - the average linear distance from cursor to middle bottom would (on aggregate average) be smaller than going to any corner unless you’re already nearer that corner.
But distance is only a part of it. The corners have the benefit of infinite horizontal and vertical size: No matter where your cursor is, you can throw it and instantly end up in the corner, as opposed to a narrow target kinda-sorta-near the center but offset depending on how many icons, windows, etc you have in the taskbar
Ohboi, here we go on this topic again....
See also: Mac traffic lights
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@boomzilla said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@boomzilla said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
make an OS that wouldn't complain about not recognizing a mouse that's plugged into it every damn day.
Perhaps it should tell you your device tree has a misbehaving device that's drawing more current than it says it is and that your mouse can't handle it and stops responding?
Perhaps. But I'm skeptical either way. The mouse and keyboard are actually plugged into the kvm. And I've been getting the issues irregardless of whether the kvm is plugged into the dock or a USB port on the machine itself.
And it's only ever that machine that has issues. Other stuff has no problems. In the past I've tried using different outlets (kvm has 4) and doesn't seem to matter. It's always my work machine that's the problem.
I used to run a KVM between my private and work PCs. Aten 4-port dual monitor. I rarely had a misdetected keyboard; simply selecting that PC again would fix it.
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@PleegWat said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
I used to run a KVM between my private and work PCs.
TIL Windows 11 is doing some BS copilot thing when you highlight text. This is what happened...
I guess I can't expect much better from a human. Missing success?
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@Tsaukpaetra Be careful with storage media on the KVM. You need to dismount them every time before switching.
Also, IMO KVM is mainly useful if you do not use the various PCs at the same time. If you do, you're better off using remote desktop software.
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@PleegWat said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
You need to dismount them every time before switching.
Nah, it's fiiinee! Any modern filesystem is totally Ok with surprise removal!
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@Zecc said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Weeks ago and for a couple of days, the logon screen was half in some language I couldn't read. Looked like Icelandic, or some sort of Scandinavian language. Not sure.
Well today it was in Portuguese, which I can at least understand, never mind that half of it was still in English as it was supposed to. Namely the date and the "I like it" UI; ie, the parts that weren't downloaded.
I'm sure MS'll get internationalization right as the company matures.
It has since changed back to English. Today, as I as reading the (English) description of a new picture, it changed pictures on me and the new one had a description in Portuguese again. Fun.
My suspicions are towards different versions or configurations of servers in the CDN.
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Windows is so amazingly stupid, you could hardly top that if you tried.
Was playing a game on a laptop, but hadn’t realized the power wasn’t plugged in. You’d expect it to give you a low battery warning at some point and then you just plug in the power.
It did, kind of. It played a sound and showed up a message saying low battery, then while I was reaching for the cord literally 3 seconds later it decided tough luck, we’re going into standby now. And unlike my Mac where going into standby is instant, I now have the power plugged in, watching and waiting while it prepares going into standby. Once it’s finally finished, I immediately turn it on again. And then it shows a screen that it’s going into hibernation. Seriously, you get out of standby to get into hibernation?
So more waiting for it to turn off to turn it on.
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Well, you can't just stand there shooting aliens.
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@topspin said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Windows is so amazingly stupid, you could hardly top that if you tried.
I can.
See, you used to be able to set power settings in a nifty little control panel, like when to sleep after idle, and if it should hibernate some time after that. Well not in the Settings App!
I had thought I had set this computer up to never sleep, right? Because sleeping is not good for remote access. But lo and behold, it would instantly hibernate after five hours of idle. Where was that specified in Settings? Nowhere of course!
It's there if you use the old control panel applet after cuddling up to some GUID class paths and other DWORD incantations, but it is there!
Setting it to zero fixed the issue.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
I can.
But that's not fair. Compared to us, you're in a whole different league.
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@Zerosquare Hey, that's my line !
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@topspin said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Windows is so amazingly stupid, you could hardly top that if you tried.
I'm sure someone could, but that someone would be Microsoft
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@TimeBandit said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@topspin said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Windows is so amazingly stupid, you could hardly top that if you tried.
I'm sure someone could, but that someone would be Microsoft
...I've got nothing.
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sleeping, hibernation and Modern Windows
So they have this thing called "Modern Standby" where instead of the normal sleep mode that goes like this:
- You press the sleep button (or close the lid or whatever)
- The computer goes into sleep mode
- You can wake it up with the power button or by hitting a key
It now supposedly goes into a lower power mode that still has some network connectivity active so it can wake up instantly when you want to use it again, or in your bag whenever it wants to overheat itself and drain the battery installing Windows updates for your convenience. But in practice it seems to work one of two ways:
- You press the sleep button
- The screen goes dark
- It wakes back up instantly when you reach for the USB cord to undock it and the movement of your arm or a butterfly flapping its wings on the opposite side of the world moves your mouse by half a molecule's width
- You have to start the whole procedure again
or
- You press the sleep button
- Somehow it goes to sleep for real
- When you want to wake it up again it waits for a couple beats, plays the HP Wolf Security/Asus ROG/whatever boot screen depending on your laptop manufacturer, and then takes its sweet time waking back up as if it was in full hibernate mode on a mechanical hard drive
How modern and innovative! This is way better than before
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@hungrier said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Somehow it goes to sleep for real
That's not Modern Standby. In Modern Standby it never turns off because the device that claims it supports it is making the implication that staying on is more power efficient than going into Actual Sleep .
@hungrier said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
takes its sweet time waking back up as if it was in full hibernate mode
Because before Modern Standby that's exactly what it's supposed to do: Normally if in sleep for some time (typically 5 hours ) it will wake itself up so it can immediately enter Hibernate. Except, sometimes this doesn't work as expected (as expected).
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@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Normally if in sleep for some time (typically 5 hours ) it will wake itself up so it can immediately enter Hibernate. Except, sometimes this doesn't work as expected (as expected).
Now the you mention it, I think that's what was happening with that old (>15 years ago) laptop I've mentioned somewhere. IIRC, it did in fact go to sleep correctly. The script running in the background did allow it to sleep, but not hibernate, so when it woke up to hibernate, it stayed awake.
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@Tsaukpaetra (and others) - Before Windows 8 I almost always shut down my laptops instead of letting them go to sleep. I'd close the lid and carry my work laptop to meetings and back, but otherwise I stuck to making sure my portable computers were actually off before putting them away.
Both tablets I've had in the Modern Standby era have worked pretty well. I still shut down more often than I need to (often when it wants to install updates) but I'm OK with just pressing the power button and packing it up.
My desktops have always had most of power management disabled;
powercfg /hibernate off
is an important part of that, saving disk space and disabling detrimental things like Fast Startup.
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@Parody said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
powercfg /hibernate off
should automatically make you ineligible for Fast Startup.
But yeah, when the most power hungry components end up being the GPU screen and spinney disk, I can get behind the idea that running the CPU at minimum would only seep energy slightly more than normal sleep.
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@remi said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
To top it off, I'm on holidays next week and the change is supposed to take effect next week (end of January), so if I can't log in I'll discover it when I come back to the office the next Monday. Double- ahead.
No, wait, there's more! We have to change our password every 3 months () and I'm starting to get the reminder emails that this is coming up soon (next week). I usually do that when I can't log in because... mostly to go out of my way to do it earlier, and it works that way so why bother? But combined with the points above... Triple- ahead!
Well, averted. For once, things were reassuringly boring.
During the holidays I could check my emails on my phone (I know, I know...) without any issue, and this morning when I logged in (or rather, unlocked my hibernating laptop) I just got a "change your password now!" prompt and that was it.
Maybe not all hope at some shred of competence isn't entirely lost?
As for Software Center, it's still retarded as usual : the tray icon persistently says "New software is available" but the Software Center itself doesn't show anything new anywhere (all tabs are either empty, or only show stuff that's already installed).
So there is still some reassuring (??!?) continued incompetence here.
This means I'll keep ignoring this "new software" notification until one day there really will be a new software, which I therefore won't install, until it's forced on me and we'll be back to the forced reboot dialog that started all this.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@hungrier said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Somehow it goes to sleep for real
That's not Modern Standby. In Modern Standby it never turns off because the device that claims it supports it is making the implication that staying on is more power efficient than going into Actual Sleep .
I meant more in the sense of "Not immediately waking up with screen turned on, my account still wide open and doing whatever it was doing before", but that it would at least appear to be off. But also, hibernate that activates after some time period that's hidden for my convenience, and doesn't appear to be consistent
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@remi said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
I could check my emails on my phone (I know, I know...)
Your French nationality is hereby revoked.
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@Zerosquare said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Your French nationality is hereby revoked.
IOW, he's getting rewarded
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@Parody said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
I almost always shut down my laptops instead of letting them go to sleep.
At least Windows laptops (usually) wake back up. Even if it's not when you want. My ubuntu laptops require the multi-second press-and-hold of the power button before they'll come back to life.
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@Zerosquare said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@remi said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
I could check my emails on my phone (I know, I know...)
Your French nationality is hereby revoked.
OTOH, I was taking a week of holidays less than a month after Christmas' holidays, and I have another week of holidays coming up in less than a month.
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If you check your work emails, then it doesn't count as a holiday.
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@Zerosquare I, uh, was... just checking if the predicted was happening or not?
(actually, on the day I left I was officially working the full day except I stopped a bit earlier than is accepted as a "full day" so the next day I thought I'd check to see if anyone had noticed it -- nobody did, as expected, but that required checking emails)
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As a semi-continuation of my previous rant:
I said that my password was expiring, so I started the usual password-reset-dance that I do every time, i.e. changing the password 7 times in a row, once per day, until I can reuse my Only True Password, to work around my company stupid password rules (starting with the fact I have to change it...), i.e. not a password in the last 6, no more than 1 change per day etc. Intermediate passwords are, of course, all extremely secure (
hunter2
,hunter3
etc.):sarcmark:
.First time worked as usual. Second time... nope.
After a couple of tries, it worked when I slightly changed the format of
hunter3
. Which would look like they changed the rules on the password format? Buthunter2
was OK so the change happened juuust in the exact time window between the two (just a bit more than 24h)? Could be, but... sounds suspiciously well-timed...We'll see tomorrow when I move to
hunter4
, I guess.
Filed under: stubbornly spending company time to circumvent company IT policies, just because
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@remi What, during your vacation?
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@PleegWat are you assuming that I would post on TD during my holidays??!
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@remi said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
@PleegWat are you assuming that I would post on TD during my holidays??!
s happen on holiday, too.
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Microsoft revives aggressive Windows 11 upgrade campaign with intrusive popups for Windows 10 users
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@TimeBandit said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Microsoft revives aggressive Windows 11 upgrade campaign with intrusive popups for Windows 10 users
Why do they even bother? At this point, for non-business users, just install it without even asking. They clearly don't care anyway.
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Status: I'm always amazed how long it takes to log in to a running Windows server. Also keep wondering what would happen if you clicked the
x
to close some of these console windows that invariably pop up to do some group policy stuff or whatever. You clearly shouldn't have permissions to close then, but Windows being Windows, that doesn't say anything about if you can actually close them.
Maybe by Windows 13, they figure out how to run service processes without opening console windows.
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@topspin said in WTF is happening with Windows 10? And nothing else:
Why do they even bother? At this point, for non-business users, just install it without even asking. They clearly don't care anyway.
Gotta pester the people with TPM-free hardware with something that will then just go "nope, don't wanna do it"...