Replies

What really makes me wonder is after reformatting the SD Card in question on a machine that could “see” it just fine, it now works great on the two devices that had thought it was a RAW partition.

Something on the phone during it’s update last night munged the partition table or the MFT (exFAT) so that other devices on the 14393.67 build could not see it. But not so badly that older devices couldn’t deal with it . . .

~ Group "Weekend" ~

There is a VERY serious new bug regression in build 14393.67 in both the PC and Mobile releases last night.

I updated a Lumia 950 last night to n.67 and on reboot my SD card was no longer visible. (Lot’s of stuff on there too . . . moment of panic!)

Re-seating the card did nothing. Rebooting likewise.

Mounted the SD card into a USB reader and plugged it into a PC running the same build: n.67. Asks me if I want to format it . . . no.
Disk Manager shows that card with a RAW partition.

Mounted same card, in same reader, onto a machine still running 14393.10 and VIOLA – there’s my missing data – still intact! (HUGE sigh of relief at 2 AM emanating from my office.)

This SD card is fully compliant with the Nokia 950/XL and has been working great for several months. Still works fine in any older build I can lay hands on today. Just not in 14393.67.

There is a Reddit on this topic with a MS engineer responding and asking for feedback that looks related, although for these folks this started on n.10. To recap, 14393.10 is fine for me – it was last nights upgrade to 14393.67 that introduced this bug on two separate device types (PC and Mobile.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/4w9lph/pc_stopped_recognizing_external_hdd_after_windows/

~ Group "Weekend" ~

You have chosen . . . wisely! 😀

~ Group "Weekend" ~

We tried pushing the relevant reg-keys out instead of the GPO rules, no change in behavior. I was able to verify that the keys successfully propagated on workstation reboot. But the tiles still came back on our test machine when upgraded from an imaged 1511 to 1607. The reg keys were not changed during the upgrade.

Seems that Microsoft has truly locked out the ability to block Customer Experiences (aka crap-ware tiles in the start menu and apps list) on the Anniversary Edition Pro via supported methods.

Additionally, we think we’re seeing some very odd behavior with another reg-key policy that we’ve been using successfully for years. Still inconclusive until I finish more testing. That policy is one that blocks all EXE files from running from the “%username%%appdata%” folders – we’ve been using that to block unauthorized software from running without admin install permissions, and to mitigate the risk of ransom-ware. This policy method on the W10-Pro AE edition may be borked too . . . as someone was able to install Chrome and Dropbox into their profile without Admin rights.

Ugh . . .

~ Group "Weekend" ~

Our company had a nicely tested GPO packaged that we pushed from any Domain Controller that used the previously “blessed” GP features that MS just killed in the Pro edition.

It’s broken now.

Still have not given up totally on trying to find a clean method, but I have a problem using any hack with our customer base since that may or may not work in the future, and may or may not cause serious problems with the system without warning.

What really needs to happen: We need to somehow convince MS to reverse their last minute decision to remove the Customer Experience control bits from Group Policy on Pro.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

Well . . . I just finished a long meeting with my largest client. We were planning on rolling out W10-Anniversary Edition over their entire workstation inventory. We even prepped last month by reserving the free upgrades for all the W7 and W8.1 machines (which was a pain) because we wanted to wait until the AE upgrade came out – to avoid some known issues with the original 1511 public release.

Short answer, due to the removal of certain group policy features regarding MS CrapWare on the W10-Pro 14393.10 edition, and for a lack of interest on the part of my client to pay a recurring Open License fee for the Enterprise edition . . . they are canceling the entire project and sticking with the current W7/8.1 mix until at least 2020.

Per my advice.

I’ll miss the paycheck this would have generated, but from where I am sitting the W10 Pro base would generate FAR more support issues for which I don’t bill hours . . . (we back our work by contract, and with W7 that worked nicely for everyone.)

~ Group "Weekend" ~

. . . and all this will happen again . . .

(BSG reference.)

~ Group "Weekend" ~

I cannot claim to be the sole discoverer of this key, I think several others on the net simultaneously found it within a small time frame. I reported it on the Feedback App this morning, then found the fix from others almost immediately while searching on the key name as a google keyword. (Was trying to find out more about what that key is really for . . . )

I would also not count on how this reg key interacts with Cortana (on/off) in future builds.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

I tried your idea to reverse the value back to “0” for the BingSearchEnabled key under HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionSearch . . .

Sure enough, Cortana goes away on a relog. Local windows search works great in this mode.

This is on Windows 10 Pro build 14393.10.

Wonder if MS will close this loophole or leave it open for those that want?

~ Group "Weekend" ~

I left a reply in your other post, then afterwords saw this new request from you.

The key you want to change is located at

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionSearch

Change BingSearchEnabled value from 0 to 1.

You can check another related key but in my case it was already set correctly:

CanCortanaBeEnabled should be 1

I have no key called “AllowCortana” in that specific registry location.

Logout, login – Cortana is back.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

I found a workaround to re-enable Cortana by comparing a working account on the same machine to a non-working account.

RegEdit (Run as admin)

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionSearch

Change BingSearchEnabled value from 0 to 1.

Logout, login – Cortana is back.

~ Group "Weekend" ~