Technology Ramblings

Across the span of two days - Aug 29 then Aug 31 MS released both build 16278 for the Redstone 3 branch (Fall Creators Update) for Fast Ring Insiders and the first Redstone 4 build 16353 for Skip Ahead members From the documented fixes, etc in the build descriptions it is difficult to say what build 16353 was based from and I can't say that it is actually 75 builds "newer" than 16278 for example.  Build number now seem to just be milestone markers. What I do know if that both builds were very slow to install.   I have machines both in Fast Ring and Skip Ahead and both took a very long time to prep, download and install - well over 90 minutes each.  And post update on my HP laptop several driver installs failed from Windows Update.  I was able to manually install - but I shouldn't have to. Can you tell the difference between the two.   Not really - other than the watermark - the general look and feel seems identical.   Even MS calls out the fa...

On Aug 25 - MS released it's second Fall Creators Update Release branch build to Fast Ring Insiders in a week. This build contained only 7 fixes, but marked the true beginning of the "split"  If you were a member of the "Skip Ahead" group - you did not get this build.  To me that is a good sign that the Redstone 4 branch is about to begin.  The question will be is how long the wait be for Skip Ahead folks to get their first RS4 build. In fact MS also gave a warning -  Note that if you joined Skip Ahead and leave it to take this build, you will be unable to re-join Skip Ahead On the Release side - MS stated with build 16273 on Wednesday that the pace of releases would increase up to release date.  So we could see 2 releases a week for a bit.  It also indicates to me that Fall Creators is close to release - maybe even a build prior to reaching the 16300 number.    The update installed easily on both my Intel NUC and Dell Venue 8 Pro. ...

I recently decided I would retire a 9 year old traditional mini-tower PC.  It still runs great and with an Intel Core i-7 920 CPU, Radeon GPU and Samsung SSD ran extremely well.  I've been running Windows 10 Insider builds on it and they work fine. But as a mini-tower it was also A) eating up precious space and B) the old i7 920 consumed 135W TDP.  With that said versus many "modern" Core I7s the 920 provided 4 cores and 8 threads.  I've been following the Intel New Unit of Computing (NUC) line for many years and as I was browsing around recently - the NUC7I5BNK model was one sale for $328.  This 7th gen Core i5 had Intel Iris 640 Graphics and a 8265 WiFi/BT card I added 8GB of RAM on special for like $38 and a 256GB M.2 NVMe  drive for less than $120.  So all in including tax and shipping I was less than $500 When the unit arrived - it was about 15 minutes before a call I had.  I was able to unbox the NUC, remove the bottom, install the SSD...

On Aug 23rd MS released build 16372 of Windows 10 to fast Ring Insiders on both the release and pre-release branches.   This was some 15 days since the 16257 release back on Aug 8. As we near the Fall Creators Update release next month - the builds were all about bug fixing and polishing prior to release.  According to the MS post about the release some 50+ fixes were included that covered Input Methods, Edge, Windows Shell, plus a new font and the Mixed Reality feature became available in the View 3D app.    With the anticipation of a flood of low cost VR headsets coming out from multiple vendors - it will be interesting to see is folks will opt for VR/AR/MR capabilities and peripherals this holiday season.    I installed the update across all three of my devices.  The newest one a HP Elitebook 745 G3 laptop actually had the hardest time.   The update was exceedingly slow and key drivers like Conexant Audio, HP Sure Protect and Synaptics SM...

So recently I purchased two new laptops for my family.  While both were from the same OEM and the same product line - the Out of Box Experience (OOBE) was night and day. Both units were Dell Inspiron.   The first was a 13" 7000 series - 7378 running a 7th Gen Core i7, 256Mb SSD with 8GB of RAM.  It also supported Windows Hello, Touch, Pen and Ink capabilities.  The second was a 15" 5000 series 5578 running a 7th Gen Core i5 - 1TB HDD, 8GB of RAM with Hello and Touch but not Pen support.   So you might ask - why would you even consider buying a laptop with a HDD versus an SSD ?  The only reason I did was price - and the intent was to replace the drive immediately.  So one could argue that why didn't I do that at purchase and again the driver was price & selection. And the point above about making a drive change was one of the decision criteria for the Dell Inspiron line.  I'm a little old school and like to be able to make easy changes to...

On August 10th - the well known publication Consumer Reports removed the MS Surface Laptops and Tablets from their recommended list due to what they call "poor predicted reliability" with estimated breakage rates of 25% within 2 years. This caused an immediate reaction by all of the various Enthusiast sites as well as the general press and Microsoft themselves - who state that they believe the findings to be flawed.. Subsequently some content has come to light that has shown that MS had experienced return rates of as high as 16 - 17% on some models in their initial months of release and that those rates dropped down below 10% within 4 - 6 months. So what's going on ? As we all know - MS released the Surface line back in October 2012 in coordination with the Windows 8 operating system.  The goal was to highlight a new computing paradigm where capabilities like touch and pen along with features that came later like Hello and Continuum. The goal was to showcase the...

On Aug 2, MS released Windows 10 Build 16257.1 for the release path and 16257.1000 for pre-release. Today the two builds are basically still the same except for the numbering and nomenclature. One of the big new features - is called EyeControl.  If you happen to own products like a Tobii Eye Tracker 4C - you can have Windows track your eye movement to control the cursor and even type.  Not sure if this will eventually become a main stream feature - but great for those who could utilize the technology. The build also included some improvements to Edge, Console, WDAG along with about a dozen general fixes. Currently I have split my machines with 1 laptop running the pre-release path and 2 others running the release path. All 3 machines installed the update fine.  The pace was slightly better than 16251 but not by much.   And I still have to perform an un-install/reinstall of Cisco AnyConnect and wait for some post OS installs of HP specific drivers like Conex...