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The devices installed by most of the ISP’s here in the US are like that.

They install their equipment without leaving any “user instructions” and there are no links to such instructions on their support pages (just chat links or, if you’re lucky, a phone number to call a support specialist.)

As pointed out by Cybertooth, you have to visit support for whomever actually manufactured the device to find a manual; provided the “actually manufacturer’s” label hasn’t been replaced with an ISP provided alternate label.

Failing that, you have to resort to searching the web for others using the same device who found a solution to whatever your problem is and “hope” their fix also works for you.

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SueW, WSbobby-p

Noticed the same thing with my own PC’s.

It happened because, contrary to what Microsoft previous announced, the Sept update actually added new features to Win10 22H2.

That means it acted like it was a “feature update” (i.e. 22H2 ⇒ ????) even though the version number didn’t change.

That’s also why it took noticeably longer to finish installing vs all the previous “security only” updates.

At least the “new features” don’t seem to have affected Win10’s stability nor interfered with any of the add-ons I use to make it look & feel the way I want it to!

I just hope they don’t decide to port any more Win11 “features” back to Win10?!?!

The photo app can be completely removed by opening a powershell prompt and entering the following command.

Get-AppxPackage -name “Microsoft.Windows.Photos” | Remove-AppxPackage;

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Tom

Moonbear wrote:

@n0ads

What did you have to do to make the update happen?

When I ran the installer, it would open chrome as if it was a new install but then not update.

Can you tell me what I missed?

I thought it would just drop in on top of my current chrome install but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

I ran it from an Admin account (without using the -system-level option) not a standard account which might be why you encountered the strange behavior.

Also, as I noted, it did NOT indicate it actually updated Chrome (i.e. there was no relaunch chrome prompt) but when I restarted Chrome it showed it was updated to the new version.

Microsoft made some changes in how disabling the desktop search bar works in the new version of Edge!

From the 117.0.2045.31 release notes.

New policies

SearchbarAllowed – Enable the Search bar
SearchbarIsEnabledOnStartup – Allow the Search bar at Windows startup

Deprecated policies

WebWidgetAllowed – Enable the Search bar
WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup – Allow the Search bar at Windows startup

So, while the Group Policy “names” stayed the same, the WebWidgetAllowed & WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup registry entries no longer work!

The new equivalent registry entries are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
SearchbarAllowed = 0 (DWORD)
SearchbarIsEnabledOnStartup = 0 (DWORD)

Note: the old Group Policy names are still present but now say “(depreciated)” at the end.

BTW, my Edge was updated just now and the new settings do still prevent the desktop search bar from displaying.

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b

NaNoNyMouse wrote:

You’re not being alarmist, just realistically sensible

Exactly!

It’s pretty much become SOP for hackers to wait 6 months or longer before using stolen account info to access anything specifically to lure victims into a false sense of “no harm done” so they’ll take no action to protect their now compromised accounts.

Once enough time has past that the user has most likely completely forgotten all about the hacking incidence, the hackers will used the stolen access to hammered the user’s accounts at all once so there won’t be time to respond before the damage is done.

I’d highly suggest your friend take the actions recommended by Alex ASAP.

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kc27

Glad to hear you figured it out but… WOW!

Unless your system was subject to some sort of internal electrical spike/static discharge (which “should” have taken out other components as well) the chances of an i9 CPU going bad after working for quite a while are less than 1%.

According to how to fix my surface is not showing the battery icon in the task bar another possible solution is to download/run  Microsoft’s “Support and Recovery Assistant” (SaRA) from https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=100607.

Then I’d suggest you add the two registry entries.

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Alex5723

Expand the “hidden” taskbar icons by clicking on the double chevron just to the left of the existing icons to see if they’re visible there?

If so, simple drag & drop them onto the taskbar in the location where you want them to appear.

Group Policy > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge

Disable Enable the search bar

When enabled, users can use the search bar to search the web from their desktop or from an application. If you disable this policy, the search bar will be disabled for all profiles.

Disable Allow the search bar at Windows startup

When enabled, the Search bar will start running at Windows startup by default. If you disable this policy, the Search bar will not start at Windows startup for all profiles

For those without Group Policy the equivalent registry entries are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
WebWidgetAllowed = 0  (DWORD)
WebWidgetIsEnabledOnStartup = 0 (DWORD)

I disabled these 2 policies on my PC back when MS first added that feature to Edge and it hasn’t reappear during any of my Edge updates since then; including this mornings update to 116.0.1938.81.

If your keyboard has a “lock” function (typically only available on gaming setups) try toggling it.

Forcing a hard shutdown might reset things (note: powering down using any of the normal Windows shutdown procedures does not do this.)

To force a hard shutdown:

With the laptop powered up, press and hold the power button until it shuts down (it’ll take a few seconds.)

Now power it back up and see if the keyboard works.

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hjf

This is a “known bug” with Windows 10 and here’s how to fix it.

Open Device manager (Win-key+R, enter devmgmt.msc and press the Enter key) and expand the Batteries device.

Right-click each device shown in that section and choose Disable.

Then go back and Right-click each device and choose Enable.

Reboot your PC and the battery icon “should” show up again.

The problem with this is the “Microsoft provided” print drivers are generic (i.e. they support many different makes/models of printer) and only support “basic” printing features but none of the special features many manufacturers build into their printers.

For example, my current “Brother provided” print driver includes a Printer Console that allows me to set specific values for the printer such as sleep mode, character set, emulation mode, etc. and also allows me to “view” important printer stats like # pages printed, total # paper jams, printer error log, replacement counters for the toner cartridge, drum, fuser, etc., etc.

None of those features are available if I use Microsoft’s “generic” print driver.

Just FYI, my particular printer is a low end model that only has 2 buttons, Go & Job Cancel and a series of status lights. It doesn’t have an LCD display that allows you to set the special “built-in” features so it’s important, at least to me, to have an alternate method of dealing with them.

Start regedit and goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power and look for a DWORD entry called CsEnabled.

If it exists, it must be set to 0 for the Power Management tab to be visible.

If it’s not set to 0, change it or, if it doesn’t exist, create it.

Reboot and then open properties for your mouse/touchpad and, if it supports power management, you should now see the Power Management tab.

Note: not all devices support power management.