Recent content by Ed Tittel

Has MS released the test package to try out the feature yet? Last time I checked (10 days ago or thereabouts) it wasn't yet available. What do you know? Thanks for another nifty tutorial, too! --Ed--

@Bree: You are absolutely correct. And here's one for the record books: after the recent update in the Beta channel to Build 26120.3984 I had 44 (!) reclaimable packages after running dism ... /analyzecomponentstore. Upon subsequently running dism ... /startcomponentcleanup, that number dropped...

@Bree: I've got 4 spurious reclaimables showing up in Windows 11 Build 26100.3915. They don't show the behavioral pattern of being superseded and feature pack items. Instead, I've got over 50 superseded packages, and over 60 staged packages in WinSxS. Not sure how to clean this up, so I'm...

Please mark this thread as solved. And indeed, the problems that an in-place repair install are many, this apparently being one of them. The Start > Settings > Recovery > Reinstall now feature in recent Windows 11 version is -- IMHO anyway -- worth its weight in gold! HTH, --Ed--

Does it show any lights or indicators when you power it on? If not, power supply is the first thing to verify. Otherwise, if you have access to another PC, you may want to try booting the device to bootable media to start attempting repairs. Please tell us more about your PC so we can help! And...

I'd been having the same kind of problem (different CU, otherwise same behavior). After the Patch Tuesday updates came out yesterday, I ran Settings > System > Recovery > Reinstall now (built-in in-place update repair install) and it fixed the issue. Now on Build 26100.3775. I did, however, have...

It changed my Power Plan from High Performance to Dell, and then "the Boss" (wife, Dina) started noticing she had to push the power button to wake from sleep. Back to High Performance, and her Optiplex D7080 is again working as it had been. Go figure! --Ed--

I'm (almost) afraid to ask, but @LesFerch: "How in heaven's name did you figure this out?" What a terrible thing to have to know... Can't wait for the war story (PM me if you'd rather not clutter up this thread further). Wow! --Ed--

I have to laugh, because Copilot proffers a pretty good explanation (I don't accept its info unreservedly, but it's pretty good at answering Windows specific questions, as one might at least hope...). Basically, it says (TLDR; version): "RAMMap is more focused and detailed; Task Manager is more...

When I posed this issue to Copilot it reminded me that devices can reserve RAM, and GPUs often share memory with the CPU for faster data transfers. Here's what it said: In my own experience in working with Windows from 3.x forward, it is pretty "grabby" with RAM that is not currently in use...

Great discussion of "Van Eck phreaking" in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Where there's a will, physical proximity, and a big budget it's amazing what signals a sniffer can pick up! --Ed--

If you have access to Visual Studio Subscriptions downloads, they keep ISOs for all supported versions of Windows 10 and 11 available. That includes 23H2. Just sayin... --Ed-- PS: You can also find Windows ISOs back to 22H2 (including 23H2) at UUPdump.net.

Hmmm. I thought WinDirStat was frozen in time but it looks like it's been resuscitated and was last updated in January 2025. Good to know! I'll throw in a possible alternate -- namely WizTree, which catalogs a disk more quickly than WinDirStat and is likewise freeware. The home page says "46X...

There are plenty of good tutorials here: Try this =1&c[nodes][0]=14&o=relevance']local search. OTOH, I revised a long-standing story for ComputerWorld last year that gives a general overview of multiple space reclamation tools and techniques. Might want to give it a quick read-thru: 7 steps to...

If it has served as a boot/system drive at some point, it may be encrypted (e.g. BitLocker) and unable to be read without the BitLocker key. That said, I've seen external SSDs (USB-attached, never used as boot/system drives) work fine on one system, but show the behavior you describe in your...