Update Connectivity – You are just not updating it right

The title of this post is tongue in cheek. Last week Microsoft has posted an article about Update Connectivity value and what role it plays in PC’s ability to install updates in a timely manner. Post made some waves on various IT news sites and also garnered critical response from systems administrators.

I cannot check if this parameter correlates with problems with updates (we use 3d party tools for updates). But, if you use Intune, maybe you can test this theory and find some useful insights. Although Microsoft provided rather vague explanation on how much time is actually required for PC to successfully update:

Specifically, data shows that devices need a minimum of two continuous connected hours, and six total connected hours after an update is released to reliably update.

Does this mean that only 2 continuous hours needed to initiate update, but the rest 4 can be divided in chunks, but still 6 in total needed to complete? So, if PC is online just 2 hours every day it will take 3 days to update? They need to clarify this part. By the way, this means being connected to Windows Update service, not just being online. But can update itself be interrupted? If not, then why they not say 6 continuous hours. Download already can be resumed next day and shouldn’t be that long anyway. Lots of confusion and questions here as it seems that you kind of need to keep it online for 6-8 hours to make it to update for sure. Which is not optimal. And this probably came from all the smart things introduced in Windows 10 gradually (active hours, Windows trying to find time to update when you are not actively using it). Updates got so big and they need so much time to install that it became a problem for users (being interrupted with updates). But Microsoft’s solution for this was not installing updates at all. Which is bad for security and a headache for administrators. And response from Microsoft is – Windows 11 has smaller and faster updates. Right. Though Windows 10 is not going away yet. And it was “last Windows” version and was intended to be polished and improved all the time. Why not improve update process in it instead of as usual touting better things for new and shiny versions? Who knows, maybe updates will not require a restart. In Windows 65 🙂

Blog annual stats (v2021)

This year has a lot less posts as i have stopped doing M365 news in January. I still post in Technology category occasionally and some new articles get some views, but not that many. Also sometimes i repost in LinkedIn and i get some traffic from there. I have decided to post about interesting M365 news directly on LinkedIn. Got tired of collecting all the news and summarizing them. Again a few posts about board games, books. Will use Matomo for page views stats this year again. Because numbers differ from Google Analytics (Matomo has a bit higher count) and it will be better to compare with numbers from the same system.

  • Posted 26 entries (-50):
    • Technology – 15 (-36), stopped doing M365 news, also decided not to post Firefox release notes, so next year will have even less posts;
    • Reviews – 6 (-12), less books read, less movies or TV series watched;
    • Movies – 3 (-5), only 3 movies watched during Kinopavasaris, no completed TV series to write about, but i have watched lots of old movies, starting with all James Bond films;
    • Books – 2 (-6), bad year for reading, only managed to finish two first books in Dune series;
    • Board Games – 2 (-2), only 1 review in LT for Carcassonne and yearly stats, not playing that much either;
    • General – 2 (-);
    • Artwork – 2 (-);
    • Top 10 – 1 (-);
    • TV series – 0 (-1).
  • No comments this year (-2).

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Yearly Board Games Stats 2021 [EN]

Usual stats from Board Games Stats app. At some point stopped playing a lot on Yucata. No live plays this year. So numbers dropped considerably again. I have only tried a few new games at the very beginning of 2021, but they didn’t grab me, so not many plays and not enough to review even. Based on number of plays i have cooled down on Oracle of Delphi and Firenze. But they still are my favorite games, just less desire to play anything this year 🙂

General stats:

  • Plays: 46 (-61)
  • Games: 18 (-10)
  • Players: 41 (-59), 99% Yucata, a few games on BGA
  • Locations: 2 (-) (Yucata and Board Game Arena)
  • H-index: 4 (-1) (x games played at least x times)

Most played games:

  • Rajas of the Ganges: 7 (-5)
  • The Oracle of Delphi: 6 (-15)
  • Thunderstone: 5 (-4)
  • Cacao: 4 (-1)
  • Firenze: 3 (-15)
  • Hadara: 3 (new)
  • Zooloretto: The Dice Game: 3 (-1)
  • Las Vegas: 2 (-1)
  • Res Arcana: 2 (new)
  • Santiago de Cuba: 2 (new)

Favorite player count: 2 (no change 🙂 )

Games played live: 0 (-6)

Cloud managed Edge IE Mode site list [EN]

In my last article regarding IE Mode i have griped that MS allowed to host site list file in the cloud, but there was no option to actually modify and publish it using M365 console. Well, this is now fixed. Microsoft presented a new section in M365 Admin Console called Microsoft Edge site list, which allows to manage multiple site lists, add URLs, save versions and publish them. There is also an option to import xml file with a list. Then you can copy ID of such site list and use it in Intune device profile to push that site list and a setting to use it to selected groups of devices. Alternatively you can use ConfigMgr or regular group policies. Although it is not clear how you can use just ID with group policies. I think it still requires a path to the file. But if you are in Intune camp completely, then this is a nice way to get rid of hosting files manually in Azure and a nice way to have different rings of devices with different sets of sites that has to be opened with IE mode. More information in this article on MS Tech Community.

Windows 10 November 2021 Update (21H2) [LT]

Šį pirmadienį, lapkričio 16, Microsoft išleido eilinį Windows 10 funkcinį atnaujinimą (feature update). Kuris po Windows 11 pasirodymo sulauks ne tiek daug dėmesio. Ypač turint omeny, kad paskutiniai Windows 10 atnaujinimai beveik neturi vartotojams skirtų naujovių. 21H2 ne išimtis. Praktiškai visi pokyčiai yra saugumo ar veikimo patobulinimai “under the hood”. Tuo metu Windows 11 kas savaitę sulaukia Insider versijų su naujomis opcijomis ar vartotojo sąsajos pakeitimais, atnaujintomis programomis (Photos, Paint, t.t.). Todėl nebuvo staigmena išgirsti, kad nuo šiol Windows 10 sulauks tik vieno funkcinio atnaujinimo per metus. Taigi pavasarį nebebus 22H1 versijos, o rudenį sulauksime 22H2, tikriausiai. Taip jie suvienodina palaikymo modelį su Windows 11. O kartu tai rodo, kad Windows 10 yra saulėlydžio fazėje.

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Fixing Japanese and Chinese IME problem [EN]

From my understanding the “Japanese IME is not ready yet.” (or Chinese) error started appearing sometime around 1903 was released. There are tons of articles and questions on internet regarding this issue with not many working solutions. Especially for restricted corporate environment. We have started seeing reports about this error while pushing 20H2 version. But it seems such problems were also observed after 1903 update (or maybe even earlier) and some IT staff was “fixing” it by copying IME files from older version into new essentially replacing it. This doesn’t work with latest Windows 10 versions. Not to say this is not a pretty solution anyway. I had to involve Microsoft support recently to tackle this and below are my findings and kind of a solution for this.

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Windows 11 oficialiai išleista (21H2) [LT]

Šią savaitę Microsoft išleido pirmą Windows 11 oficialią versiją su pakeista Start meniu, užduočių juostos ir kitų komponentų išvaizda ir funkcionalumu, papildomais saugumo reikalavimais. Apie būsimas naujoves rašiau po pirmojo pristatymo birželį. Taip pat apie pagrindinius akcentus galima perskaityt išleidimo straipsnyje MS bloge. Per kelis mėnesius nuo paskelbimo buvo kažkiek aptaisytos klaidos ir nušlifuotos įvairios vietos. Tačiau ši Windows versija kaip jau įprasta yra išleidžiama su sąrašu oficialiai žinomų problemų, o iškart po išleidimo vartotojai pradėjo viešint įvairias kitas klaidas. Šis įrašas yra trumpas rinkinys techninės informacijos ir nuorodų į pagalbinius Microsoft straipsnius ir susijusias naujienas.

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Fixing Windows Defender RCE vulnerability in mpengine.dll [EN]

In this post I will share my experience with fixing a vulnerability related to built-in Windows/Microsoft Defender antivirus (not to confuse with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint service). This is an integral part of Windows 10 and is still present on the system in some form even when you use a third-party AV solution. In that case it should be dormant and can be used for just a simple scan. But sometimes it can be not the case.

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SMTP Server As a Relay to Exchange Online [EN]

With Microsoft hammering down on Basic Auth support in Exchange Online many systems admins are wondering what to do about email function in multi function printers and scanners and other internal systems that have to send emails (SharePoint and similar). Although it seems that SMTP Auth might stay available a bit longer even after the final date in October of 2022. Still, there could be better options to avoid problems when Basic Auth is gone and MFPs cannot send emails directly to Exchange Online using just email and password. I am not 100% sure below provided setup will work all the time, but it was recommended by our MS partners and listed on Microsoft support page. Read More