CoNetrix

Blog: Windows 10

I was configuring a new Windows 10 PC for a customer and logged in under the local administrator account. I tried to open Edge but received a notification that Edge could not be opened by the built-in administrator account.

After some research, I discovered that Microsoft has become distrusting enough of the local administrator account that they prevent it from opening Microsoft Apps. This was actually introduced with Windows 8, but Windows 10 introduced Edge, which is potentially the first widespread use of Microsoft App.

The options to fix this are to either disable UAC, or adjust group policy to allow the local admin account to access Apps. The details of the issue and the options for a fix are included in this link: https://4sysops.com/archives/why-the-built-in-administrator-account-cant-open-edge-and-a-lesson-in-uac/

Networking, Windows 10,
 

Occasionally, I have the need to open a Visio diagram but don't have a need to create or modify them. So, the Visio viewer seemed to be an ideal option. However, after installing the viewer (I tried this with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions), I was still unable to open a Visio file.

The best I could get was Windows asking what I would like to use to open the file and Visio viewer wasn't an option. After drilling down to find the executable file, I found the viewer (VPREVIEW.EXE) would display a message saying "This program can only run from within another program” when I tried to execute it. I discovered the Visio viewer is designed to use ActiveX controls within Internet Explorer. Since I had disabled IE 11 on my system (using the "Turn Windows features on or off"), the viewer had nowhere to execute since Edge doesn't support ActiveX.

I found a Chrome plug-in in the Chrome web store that will allow me to view Visio files from inside Chrome. However, it requires me to click on a tag in the Chrome header and then drag the Visio file into the Chrome window.

So, the alternatives appear to be to enable IE 11 or use a Chrome plug-in. 

 

Networking, Windows 10, Visio, ActiveX,
 
 

Windows 10 ships with the OneNote app. If you also have OneNote 2016 installed on your computer, you will end up having two OneNote applications installed. The Windows 10 OneNote app is quite often set as the default version, so when attempting to follow a link from someone else, the Windows 10 OneNote app opens and asks you to log in. People who are familiar with OneNote 2016 are completely lost and stuck at this point.

 

To change the default version to OneNote 2016, go to your Start Menu, then choose Settings. Select System, choose ‘Default apps’ and then scroll to the bottom of the list to find ‘Set defaults by app’ entry. Click on this link and in the list under ‘Set your default programs’, find the OneNote (desktop) version, and select ‘Set this program as default’. Click OK to save your changes.

Networking, Windows 10, OneNote,
 

After installing Windows 10 and Office on a new laptop, I started getting the following error message when I tried to click on any link in any email message or click on a table of contents link in a Word doc:

"Your organization's policies are preventing us from completing this action for you. For more info, please contact your help desk"

While it's not an entirely bad thing to have email links require a copy and paste, it's a real problem with other links like the Table of Contents in a long Word document.

There is a KB article at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/310049 that discusses this issue. The solution for Windows 10 is to find a system that doesn't have the problem and export a registry key then import it into the offending system. The key it references was missing from my system.

The steps that worked for me were to find a Windows 10 system that didn't have the problem, run regedit and locate the following subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\htmlfile\shell\open\command

Then you export the subkey to a file, copy the file to the system having the problem and import it into that system's registry (either by double clicking the .reg file or importing it via regedit).

There is a last verification step to verify the String (Default) value of "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \.html" key is "htmlfile".

Networking, Microsoft Office, Windows 10,
 

Windows 10 includes a Spotlight feature to provide random background images that appear on the lock screen. Some of these images are very nice so I found a way to save them for use on other devices like a phone or tablet.

  • Navigate to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets. The <username> should match your current Windows profile. You might have to enable “show hidden operating system files” to navigate to this folder.
  • The images are saved with GUID-type name without a file name extension, but they are in JPG format. I’ve found it’s easier to copy them to a different folder, then add the “.jpg” extension to preview them in your favorite picture viewer.
  • The images are rotated pretty frequently so you’ll want to check right away if you see an image you like. If you’re browsing the folder use the modify date on the file to determine if it’s new.
  • The same image will likely have multiple files for different resolutions and orientations (landscape or portrait).
  • To make future navigation to this folder easier, you can create a shortcut or pin the location to the Quick Access section in Windows Explorer.
Networking, Windows 10, windows spotlight,
 

Recently I worked on a desktop system that was having issues connecting to WSUS and installing patches. This was a Windows 10 system (upgraded from Win 8.1) with Office 2016 (upgraded from Office 2013). Every time that I opened the Windows Update app, it listed several Office 2013 updates that couldn’t install. You could press the Retry Now button and it would run for a minute or two, but always fail with a non-specific and non-helpful error.

After running through troubleshooting steps of resetting the Windows Update agent, I finally started looking at the Office 2013 aspect. I decided to uninstall whatever 2013 components were still there and reinstall, if necessary. I loaded Programs and Features and Office 2013 was not listed.

I found a Microsoft utility to forcibly uninstall Office 2013/2016 products (link) and ran it on this PC. On the first run (and subsequent reboot), Office 2016 was removed, but 2013 was still detected by the Windows Update agent. On the second run (and subsequent reboot), Windows Update installed all of its normal patches without the Office patches listed.

I reinstalled Office 2016 and was able to bring the computer up to date. It really appears as if the 2016 upgrade didn’t fully remove all of the 2013 components as a part of the upgrade.

 

 

Networking, Microsoft Office, Windows 10, windows update,
 

After installing Windows 10 from scratch, I noticed some applications would occasionally need .Net Framework 3.5. If I went to Programs and Features then Windows features to install .Net Framework 3.5, it would ask to download from Windows update which would always fail. I found a KB article at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2734782 that indicated I would have to use the Windows 10 installation DVD (or ISO) as the source for the updates. This was accomplished by editing Group Policy on the local system:

Going to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System

then enabling Specify settings for optional component installation and component repair

then, in the Alternate source file path, point to the DVD or ISO sources\sxs folder

 

You then need to run the gpupdate /force command then add the .Net Framework 3.5 Windows feature.

Networking, Windows 10, .NET Framework,
 

 

When I was upgrading to Windows 10, I decided to install from the Current Branch for Business ISO rather than an in-place upgrade since it'd been more than three years since I'd performed a clean install. Immediately after the Windows 10 install and activation, I decided to enable BitLocker since it seemed like a good idea to do this as early in the process as possible.

After enabling BitLocker and setting a PIN I rebooted and was presented with the BitLocker passcode screen. I entered the code and pressed Enter and the system stayed on the BitLocker screen. After several minutes, I forced power off and then powered the laptop on. The BitLocker screen appeared again with the same results after entering the code. After repeating this cycle several times, I pressed the escape key in order to enter the recovery key. Rather than prompting for a recovery key, the system booted directly into Windows and, after logging in, displayed an error message about C: not being encrypted because the key could not be obtained from the TPM chip.

I tried several things related to UEFI-only boot and UEFI/legacy boot in the laptop startup screens without any success. Every time we changed any boot options on the laptop and then saved and restarted, the system could not find the boot drive until we forced power off. Then, the boot drive could be found.

Finally, I installed Windows patches before trying to enable BitLocker and it worked perfectly.

Networking, Windows 10, BitLocker,
 

I recently attempted to upgrade a Dell Latitude laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I started with a clean Win7 installation with most of the updated device drivers from Dell. The upgrade went smoothly … until it rebooted and I got the following error:
 
xC1900101 - 0x20017 Installation failed during safe OS phase with an error during boot operation
 
The good news was the installer backed out the upgrade and I was able to use the laptop with Win7. Researching this error code provided lots of suggestions related to hardware like removing RAM, disabling wireless and Bluetooth and so on. These worked for some people but not all so I kept digging.
 
Then I remembered that one of the things I didn’t upgrade was the BIOS. It was running version A06 and the current version from Dell was A16. Once I figured out I had to do a two-step upgrade (going directly to A16 did not work), I reran the upgrade tool and it worked, no boot error.
 
As a side note I found out that if you upgrade by downloading the installer from the Internet (rather than an ISO) the install files are stored in “c:\windows\$Windows.~BT”. You can run setup from this folder to avoid downloading the files again.

Networking, Windows 10, Dell,