Technology Ramblings

As a tech enthusiast who likes to keep up to date with the latest editions of Microsoft software, one of the great values for years was TechNet.  The TechNet "subscription" allowed you to get basically every OS, Server and Application that MS made.  You were provided fully licensed versions to install on multiple machines and @ $249 or less per year was a great value.    But back in July of 2013 MS killed off TechNet and depending on when you last renewed your subscription was active until June 30, 2014. So at the time I used TechNet to upgrade to Windows 8 - then 8.1 and also Office 2013 on all my machines.  These Windows 8 licenses are what then allowed my to upgrade to Windows 10 - even on older machines. In the fall of 2015 - I wanted to keep current - so bought the next best value at MS - Office365 Home.  With Office365 Home - you get to install Office 2016 Pro - so Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access and Publisher on up to 5 PCs as well as iOS, Android and Wi

Just 4 business days after releasing the first Redstone 2 branch build for PCs, MS released Windows 10 Build 14905. This is the first Redstone 2 build that supported Windows 10 Mobile as well.   For both PC and Mobile there were a handful of improvements/fixes around Edge, Sketchpad and some call actions. As always I installed on a PC, Laptop, Tablet and Phone and all installed with no issues.   As with 14901 - MS called out that Adobe Reader would fail in 14905 on PC, but yet on one of my machines it is working fine.  The difference is that on that machine I have Visio 2013 installed.  My other machines which do NOT have Visio 2013 installed - Adobe fails.  So obviously Adobe see's some library or function was installed with Visio 2013 that allows it to run.  There is no Adobe issue on Mobile. I was happy to see that my lowly Lumia 735 is still supported on Redstone 2.  To be honest I was expecting an updated announcement from MS on supported platforms for Redstone 2 - w

On Aug 11, MS released the first Redstone 2 branch build for Windows Insiders - build 14901.  This was a PC only build.   While we all knew RS2 builds were coming - but this was about a week earlier than I was anticipating. According to the Feedback Hub announcement regarding 14901 - the initial builds are going to focus on OneCore improvements.  As you are aware OneCore is the unified Windows OS components that allow Windows 10 to run on a variety of devices from Mobile to PCs & Tablets to XBox and IoT.   The announcement also called out two known issues.. Support for kernel debugging over 1394 has been removed, but will be available in an upcoming kit release. A work-around will be posted to the Debugging Tools for Windows Blog shortly.  Adobe Acrobat Reader crashes when you try to launch it.  I applied 14901 to a desktop, laptop and tablet and in all cases the update installed fine. As noted I did experience the Adobe failure mentioned and had to revert to the MS R

On Aug 9 - MS released two Cumulative updates to Anniversary Edition. First was Cumulative Update KB3176495 that bumped the build to 14393.51. According to the KB article here are the fixes: Improved reliability for Internet Explorer 11. Addressed issue to keep pen click settings after updating to Windows 10 Version 1607. Addressed issue that may cause Windows 10 Mobile devices to hang after turning Bluetooth on and off very quickly. Security updates to Kernel Mode Drivers, Microsoft Graphics Component, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer 11, and Windows Authentication Methods. 14393.51 was a Production release update so part of the now Current Branch. The update was available for both PC and Mobile.   Only hours later for Insiders a 2nd Cumulative update KB3176931 was released that bumped the build to 14393.67.  This update was also for PC and Mobile and included the following fixes. Addressed issue that causes significantly reduced battery life on Windows Phone when

On Aug 2, MS released the third cumulative update to Windows 10 Redstone 1 release (1607) build 14393 bumping the build 14393.10.  This was a PC only update.   MS did not release any details about the update in the KB and did not place any information on the Feedback Hub about this update.  So to the honest I can't say what this update addressed.    Over the weekend I used the Release Preview setting of Windows Insider on one machine that was running the Threshold 2 (1511) Build 11586.494 to upgrade to the Anniversary release which I noticed after boot came in as 14393.5 - meaning the 2nd cumulative update release on July 30 was integrated.  Then on Aug 2 this third cumulative update was applied.   I applied the update to all of my current test machines and the update installed with no issues. However on one of my machines that runs an AMD Radeon R7 240 video card - I received errors on startup regarding the AMDSettings.exe app.  While I can't say 100% that the cumulati