a reasonably quiet week

Hi all.
Well you may have noticed that I’ve been quiet on the windows front.
There hasn’t been much to post really.
Last week adobe and chromium stuff edge and chrome got updates.
Firefox should have released as they got to beta9 of 148 by the end of last month but there is some obviously critical issues going on as the thing is now on beta 13 now and I have no idea when the next release will be at this point.
Thunderbird is on beta 4 of 148 and nothing more has been uploaded so I suspect they are waiting for firefox to release first.
Version 19.48 of the codecguide mega is out so 150 must be coming out sooner rather than later.
Windows 11 is ditching a lot of older printer drivers which probably shouldn’t effect those with new devices or updates to older ones.
I know my brother drivers while haven’t updated since 2024, the internal iprint engine has updated at least once this year and firmware updated in may last year so keep a lookout at your support pages.
If the drivers stop working you may have to reinstall your older manufacturer drivers.
At least you won’t get generics from windows update.
On my mini pc intel updated their network wifi drivers yesterday.
Zoom has a minor update.
Office doesn’t but 365 did update yesterday so thats unknown.
According to windows update history v 2026h1 is out for those devices that can take advantage of it however its not downloadable.
For us here it appears the shut down issue on windows 10 is finally fixed and the nvidia driver issue is also fixed.
No new bugs or critical issues have appeared in fact there isn’t much on the boards this week.
A few more explorer bugs are fixed.
Of course we all know that those errors shouldn’t have happened but I’m not going to bash microsoft when they appear to be actually trying this time.
They say they are transparent.
Naturally there are always lists of things others use.
On your own system I see no issue if you hack and slash to your needs I do that already.
However when you are an admin of multiple systems you need to feel ok with the defaults as broken as they may be at least to what you need.
For example, it is rare I touch the explorer shell at all apart from running a few updater downloads that is I actually don’t even touch the ribbon normally.
Even in my system bar a couple training documents and a few other downloads, renames and transfers of synced files I probably only touch the explorer shell myself about 4 times a day and while they are critical 99.9% of the time is to run a game or music track rather than doing anything constructive.
I rename 1 file a week for a cast I backup and handle but thats about it.
There are drivers for sound but again I wouldn’t touch things that aren’t going to download themselves if they are needed.
A reminder to all that the last entry for the blog is on tuesday this week.
It is possible I will make an entry next week however that assumes there are any enteries to make at all.
The last entry will be probably thursday or friday then I am gone for the month.
When I return, I may build up all the releases and once again just put out things.
A note that the last week in april and last week in may will be no post.
After that there will be a week in august where I won’t be posting and then end october and early november.
Next year’s journeys are on the cards to.
Check out my personal blog.

In addition to the above, it appears office updates in the middle of the day.
The 365 went the previous night, the general office was like at 12 pm my time.
Also google chrome updated later in the day so edge will to so its 145 now.
Firefox 148 is at beta14 now and it never gets past 9 usually or 10 rarely so something is seriously going there.
Maybe its a feature but maybe its a fuckup.
What I fear is its another interface mod which means more mucking about.
Google is testing an update that will try to nag people into starting the brouser at startup as a default.
I personally have no reason anyone wants to run their brouser at startup.
You should only run the stuff you need.
The drivers for your hardware for one thing.
The stuff you absolutely need to boot.
In addition all your cloud services for those that need that.
I mean if you use a web app and need a brouser at startup thats one thing and now we have limitless resources it may not even matter now days what you have running but only what you need and no more.
Often when I get systems maintained the user will say what is slowing them down.
I go and say all this stuff is starting up.
Their responce, the thing installed like that so obviously the fucking thing needs to start.
Default configurations are there for defaults but you should configure them.
One system I got was new and left for several years in default config mode.
Once I had adjusted it it naturally was better.
Seriously you don’t need to do much.
Setting your startup and changing your language to your local dialect as well as customising your shell to your liking and adding and removing what you need or don’t is basically all you need.
In addition if you are a geek like me tweaking the heck out of it.
Though generally you know what fucks it up, and what you use.
I do now of course know what I need and use so its not a problem.
Where one can make and export your configurations of your programs, do so, back them up on multiple locations, hdds, an usb stick and your cloud.
Import them and they will work.
In addition if your app can save or export to cloud it may actually be able to import during setup so when you start your app its configured and works.
One thing I rarely cover in this blog is the windows store as it updates whenever there are things to do so.
Be aware that in addition to apps, extentions and codecs that some system components do update so it pays to run the checker once a day.
I mean it will automatically do so but check in case.
Also if your favorite app runs in store, I would suggest you use the store version rather than the standard one.
Especially when the app updater maybe a bit flakey and not accessible.
The store will update itself and you won’t have to concern yourself.
In addition remember admin mode and the command winget upgrade –all.
That will upgrade most packages on file in the database.
I often do this and it works to clear things up.
There are times like with my keyboard where the system tries to update the logitech app but can’t.
In some situations running the app may cause it to update itself and it will do that itself exclusively.
Dischord is one of these.
It appears from various sources dischord is going to include face id in its setups.
I know for me face id doesn’t work anywhere because of what I am.
I am not any super villain or heroe but I have the starting bits of one as my face can’t be scanned.
There are privacy and correctness of some of this stuff to.
I know that with the ai on the phone unless I spacifficly name things right that the system will detect internal family images wrongly that look to close to eachother.
So thats probably a concern that will continue for a while.
Dropbox has also updated.
On the windows front it appears a validation os is updated for hardware manufacturers.
Its not for users but if I could get something lightweight with a shell instead of what I have I’d probably use it.
This win10 system works but if push came to shove a light weight system that started with the explorer shell would be really good.