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  • Another Windows media creation tool? Sure, why not.

    Note: See the bottom of the log for the change history and latest version. Since the initial Windows 10 release, Microsoft has made available the Media Creation Tool (MCT). Now there is a Windows 10 version and a Windows 11 version. But there are some limitations, like being architecture-dependent and only presenting a limited list…

  • VBScript as a removable Windows 11 feature?

    While I generally appreciate Microsoft’s efforts to provide ways to remove old stuff from Windows (and I wish this removal also removed the files from \Windows\WinSXS to free up disk space, but historically this hasn’t happened), an interesting one has shown up in the latest Windows Insider builds, per Neowin: An option to remove VBScript.…

  • Want to block Windows 11 “moments” that add new features?

    Microsoft announced on February 9th that they are adding a new controls to Windows 11 22H2 (and beyond) that allow organizations to temporarily turn off new features that are periodically released on top of Windows 11 through Windows updates. On February 28th, they announced that those new features will be delivered in the March Patch…

  • “Something went wrong”: An Autopilot + AAD + Intune reliability retrospective

    I’m sure it would come as no surprise to anyone that the #1 troubleshooting step when you see an error message is to search for it via Google or whatever other search engine you prefer. There’s one particular error that seems to point people toward my blog post titled “Something went wrong” with OOBEADV10. As…

  • Microsoft supports Windows 11 on ARM for M1/M2-based Macs with Parallels

    I’ve written about my experiences with running Windows 11 for ARM64 on the newer ARM-based Mac devices from Apple, using both Parallels Desktop and VMware Horizon. But Microsoft’s position was always that these were unsupported solutions that you could use at your own risk. With a support article published recently, Microsoft has now “annointed” Parallels…

  • Simplify the process of generating an AAD bulk enrollment provisioning package

    The process is supposed to be fairly easy: Launch Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer (ICD), walk through the wizard, specify that you want to join Azure AD, type in your Azure AD credentials, generate a provisioning package that can be used on multiple machines to join them to Azure AD. But then reality hits you.…

  • The mysterious case of the failed AD domain join

    Sometimes I do some weird stuff, but this wasn’t one of those times. All I was trying to do was simple Configuration Manager task sequences to do bare metal deployment of Windows 10 and Windows 11, nothing fancy (not even any MDT integration, not that there’s anything wrong with that). But a strange thing happened:…

  • Samsung Magician won’t launch? Here’s a simple fix

    If you’ve ever installed the Samsung Magician software to check to see if your Samsung SSD’s need firmware updates, you might have seen an annoying behavior: You might have an older version, and it offers an update to a newer version, and that offers an update to a newer version, and that offers an update…

  • Troubleshooting UEFI boot entries: how #5 is 4th

    Some days things just go in a different direction than you expect. In today’s troubleshooting exercise, I had to figure out why a PC wasn’t booting as expected to a new UEFI boot entry created using the UEFIv2 module that I created sometime back. When I looked at the UEFI boot entries, I could see…

  • MacOS Ventura: Where have I heard this before…

    Apple released a new version of MacOS called Ventura (version 13), and it has generated some heated discussions around a topic that sounds very familiar: The replacement of the venerable System Preferences (the equivalent of Windows’s Control Panel) with a new System Settings app. Old: And new: (And no, the difference isn’t light vs. dark:…

  • Is 2023 the year for Windows on ARM64?

    Windows on ARM goes back over a decade. Fortunately, it’s gone from a relatively-crippled device that only ran store apps (Windows RT) to a much more general-purpose device. But is it ready for general use? The answer to that likely depends on your definition of “general use.” I have a collection of ARM64 devices (certainly…

  • Is 2023 the year for Windows 11?

    I’ve stated in various forums that Windows 11 will be successful, whether you like it or not — eventually. That’s because the cost/benefit analysis shifts greatly as Windows 10 gets closer to its October 14, 2025 end date (unless you are running LTSC 2021, which is supported through 2027; LTSC 2019, which is supported through…

  • Windows 11 had a bad year: More links

    I read lots of tech-related media (on top of lots of tech-related podcasts); it’s probably a holdover from my Windows marketing and product management days when it was important to stay on top of this stuff. Now, it’s my source of entertainment. Not surprisingly, there’s been lots of Windows 11-related information posted over the past…

  • Windows 11 had a bad year

    Windows 11 was originally released in October 2021, and a second new release (22H2) came out in December 2022. Overall, how is it doing? From all signals, it appears to be doing fairly poorly. One example, captured from Statcounter: This measures usage based on web browser data — maybe not the most reliable way to…

  • Want to see end of life dates for, well, anything?

    The Windows 10 and Windows 11 release information pages are useful, and there’s also the Microsoft Lifecycle site (not quite as useful as you have to decipher it), but what if you want more than that, especially if you have to worry about multiple vendors? Fortunately, there’s a website for that, https://endoflife.date, which I saw…

  • Now released: VMware Fusion for running Windows on ARM on M1/M2 Macs

    After a long technical preview period, the released product is finally available. The official announcement can be found here. The previews were fairly rough — functional, but certainly with some rough edges. See my previous post for an overview. So how does this new version look? When it comes to creating a new Windows 11…

  • The mysterious case of broken time sync

    Today was kind of weird — after having a brief conversation about time sync during OOBE that brought back a bunch of memories, touching on a blog that I did talking about the importance of time, I ran into a time sync issue of my own just a few hours later. While testing out a…

  • Project Volterra: my new ARM64 “toy”

    Yes, I am a fan of Windows running on ARM64 hardware. I have a few existing ARM64-based devices, including a super-underpowered one, a surprisingly powerful M1-based Mac Mini that runs Windows ARM64 very well in VMs, and a laptop that has become my travel companion when I want to have a full day of battery…

  • Get ready (and get MDT ready) to deploy Windows 11 22H2

    While many are still sticking with Windows 10, those that have already made the leap to Windows 11 or plan to start investing heavily in devices with 12th generation Intel processors will want to take a serious look at Windows 11 22H2. If you don’t know what’s new in this release, check out the changewindows.org…

  • Windows 22H2’s are here

    While Windows 11 22H2 gets most of the attention, there is also a new Windows 10 22H2 release. So which one will you deploy, and how will you deploy it? The quick summary: You’ll have to do a full feature update (in-place upgrade) to get to Windows 11 22H2, while Windows 10 22H2 requires just…