I installed Windows 11 24H2

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WINDOWS 11 By Will Fastie 24H2 has been running on my laptop for some time so I can check things as required by my editorial duties. Last week, I deci
[See the full post at: I installed Windows 11 24H2]

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fisher75, DLivesInTexas, katiedid, dataman1701, opti1, teuhasn2, Cybertooth, lmacri, abbodi86, Alex5723

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As for File Explorer. The limit of 256 characters for path / file names has been lifted a long time ago in Windows. Except for File Explorer. For some reason, Microsoft seems unable to fix this.

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Since most of the systems I work on are Windows Pro, I used Group Policy Editor to block the update to 24H2. When I decided to upgrade some systems, I downloaded the Media Creation Tool to use for the update. Never had a problem with that. I still had the block in place, but the upgrade did not care. I have since removed it. Another member of our local computer club did the upgrade to one system using the full download in Windows update. The upgrade got horked, but fortunately he was able to restore to v23H2. Later I tried the upgrade on the same system with the Media Creation Tool and had no issues.

About a week or so after I upgraded another system, it crashed while shutting down showing a message regarding the display driver. This computer also has the Intel ARC chip and a new Intel Core Ultra U7 processor. I was working with the manufacturer but they had no answer for the issue. One suggestion they had was to uninstall the current Intel driver, reboot, and see if it picks up a new driver. It did not. So far this has happened only once. If it happens again, I might try the Intel Graphics Command Center to see if that has an update.

JohnD

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Previous to the update, I could nominate folders as favorite folders. This allowed me to save new received files easily to the right folders.

Windows introduced Folders to Pin to quick access as a replacement of favorites.

Unfortunately after restart the Pinned folders disappear. I logged this as an error with Microsoft and after 5-6 months nothing has happened.

If there is a fix please let me know

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Rema,

Haven’t had a problem with this.

Red box shows all my pinned folders.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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24H2 was “pushed” on my three computers. Fortunately, I have experienced no problems yet on any computer.

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I’m curious as if windows offered the update did windows 11 retain the windows 10 license when it was done? My system is a home build and I’ve been wondering whether or not I’m going to need a new license.

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Your computer should retain the digital license after the upgrade from Win10 to Win11.

 

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Will Fastie

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I agree with the comment about Windows 11 File Explorer icons being hard to understand. I wanted the ribbon back and found a powershell command that seems to do the trick. (Maybe I found it on Windows Secrets; I don’t remember.) Here is an example offered for others to review. Use at your own risk.

powershell.exe -nop -ep bypass -c “& {“Start-Process \”Control\”; $wshell = New-Object -ComObject wscript.shell; $null = $wshell.AppActivate(\”Control Panel\”); Start-Sleep 0.75; $wshell.SendKeys(“‘””^”lC:\Users\your_username_here\Documents~”‘”)}”

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Cybertooth

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One thing that I’ve found about Microsoft forcing updates is that once an update starts downloading, there is still one way to interrupt that — go into the Windows Update advanced settings, and enable Pause Updates.  I haven’t needed to do this with avoiding 24H2 upgrades, but there are occasions when I may decide that my machine isn’t quite ready for routine Patch Tuesday updates (typically, waiting for the “all clear” on the MS-DEFCON status).

It’s a minor thing, but it works, if needed.

As a general thing (not just upgrade to 24H2, but even non-Windows platforms), the things to be careful about with drivers tend to be video, sound, and networking, and I’m not sure which is most frequent.  In my own experiences, I tend to find issues with sound the most likely to be disruptive, but YMMV. Those are definitely the things you want to check first after an upgrade.

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Cybertooth

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re: Will’s advice to be sure to update display drivers before jumping to 24H2. Will’s PC uses an Intel graphics card, but nVidia users should be cautioned that some users of 4000 and 5000 series nVidia video cards have been having severe problems including BSODs and black screens with only a flashing icon after updating to nVidia’s March 18, 2025 driver version 572.83. The only fix at this time is to rollback to the previous version driver. Driver version 572.83 may not be affecting 3000 and earlier series cards as adversely. It might be best to wait until nVidia’s next release before updating that driver. I expect they’ll update it again soon.

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opti1

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With regards to what @teuhasn2 just said above, here’s a link to the Nvidia feedback forum for video driver version 572.83 in which a myriad of complaints can be seen with regards to this version of driver and its use with the 4000 and 5000 series Nvidia cards:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/game-ready-drivers/13/560098/geforce-grd-57283-feedback-thread-released-31825/

The first post is the announcement of the new driver (572.83) and its release notes showing enhancements and bug fixes. The real fun starts a couple of posts below the first one, where folks start complaining about serious issues with their cards and their computers crashing suddenly. The remainder of the thread is a compilation of such incidents on many different machines.

Not a peep from Nvidia in that feedback thread about a replacement driver for 572.83, but it probably is coming even though Nvidia’s currently tight lipped about its release timing.

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Cybertooth

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I’m still going to keep 24H2 blocked for now.  I’m in no rush to update and I have until November to use 23H2.  I’ll let other people do the beta testing for me.  

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I have a bare bones Pentium-based PC hooked up to my Samsung TV that is used for streaming content.  I did an in place update to 24H2 and other than it taking a long time, I have not seen any issues at all.  I built a new workstation a month ago and did a clean install of 24H2.  Since I don’t game my GTX 1660 Super GPU works fine for all my needs and there were no issues after installing the current NVidia driver.  Once I got all the apps reinstalled, the system has been working well and is much faster than the retired PC.  I have 24H2 blocked on my wife’s PC; that one is still runing 23H2.

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Will Fastie, Will Fastie, Cybertooth

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On the toolbar in File Explorer, these icons remain unlabeled. I’m sure this was a space issue because the toolbar would have consumed at least 75 percent more vertical space, which is always at a premium.

I call this a halfway measure because many of the Fluent icons are a bit hard to decode visually.

Seems to me MS could have handled that with tool tips when anyone hovers the mouse pointer over these unlabeled icons. Or are tool tips no longer a thing?

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There are tool tips for those icons when the icon is active.

--Joe

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Will Fastie

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Good to know. I’m not there yet.

 

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joep517 wrote:

There are tool tips for those icons

That’s right. But it’s a delay – it takes from 0.8 to 1.0 seconds for the tip to appear in File Explorer. I put tool tips on all the icon bars in the websites I develop, but I consider them backups. I try to choose the most intuitive icon available so the user can select with confidence.

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As with many things in FE right now there is a performance lag. We can only hope that it is improved over time. And I agree about the icons. Something much more intuitive could have been chosen.

--Joe

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Will Fastie

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Still Anonymous wrote:

Pause Updates

That’s a good point, but it is only a pause. I don’t know of any way to completely stop it once it starts, which means that the next time you want security updates you’ll also go down the 24H2 path.

Still Anonymous wrote:

the things to be careful about with drivers tend to be video, sound, and networking

Sound is the most common culprit based on reports from friends and family, but in almost every case it was Windows changing the default input and output sources. That may have been a side effect of a new driver being installed. I was always able to make the correction manually and never lost audio completely.

I don’t think I’ve had a network problem since Windows XP.

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I’ll wait til I can manually install a safe update of 24H2 like I did for 23H2 months back without the forceful update being shoved by my pc’s throat. Least I can do it on my own terms.

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joep517 wrote:

As with many things in FE right now there is a performance lag

Well, I’ve written Windows apps, too, and I’ve never seen that kind of tool tip lag. In Edge, the lag when hovering over the bookmarks bar is about 0.4 to 0.5 seconds, which is what I typically expect.

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gwt10 wrote:

I’ll let other people do the beta testing for me.

You mean like the AskWoody crew? Right, right – that’s our job.

Actually, I feel like a beta tester every week. Something seems to crop up regularly, 24H2 or not.

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Cybertooth

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magigreen1 wrote:

I’ll wait til I can manually install a safe update of 24H2

I understand. It’s just too bad we can’t rely on Microsoft to deliver reliable, safe updates.

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Cybertooth

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What are you finding unsafe about 24H2?

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PL1

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This is the best description I’ve seen about current issues with 24H2:  https://www.zdnet.com/article/10-pesky-windows-11-24h2-bugs-still-haunting-pcs-despite-several-patches/

For a significant number of users, it’s probably OK to upgrade, and there won’t be issues.  However, this is definitely a YMMV situation, depending on your hardware setup (and drivers) and what you have actually running on the computer.  If there are issues, then these are the likely places you’ll see them. And if you do see them, they’ll turn up immediately after the upgrade.  It’s not like a network connection issue will lurk for a while.

As for Will’s situation, if there are no symptoms that have been seen yet, then I think it’s safe to assume that it’s a faultless upgrade.  For the rest of us, it’s now in the realm of “Move on, nothing to see here”, other than noting that that’s the condition.

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b wrote:

What are you finding unsafe about 24H2?

Nothing. So far.

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b

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We have run into one noticeable issue on a 5-month-old workstation that was delivered with Windows 11 Pro Version 24H2 installed.

We have set up the computer to mirror Windows 10 as closely as possible including having a Windows 10 like task bar stretch across the bottom of one of the screens.

From time to time the task bar icons on the left-hand side of the bar will disappear.

After a restart, the icons reappear.

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Still Anonymous wrote:

I think it’s safe to assume that it’s a faultless upgrade.

As it turns out, this morning (one day after Patch Tuesday), Windows lost control of my dual displays again. Another Intel driver update was required, but it crashed twice during installation. I finally got it installed on the third try, and everything was restored.

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