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wavy wrote:

It is still there as you said.

And just because it’s deprecated doesn’t mean to say that the Windows PowerShell ISE suddenly stopped working. I still use it nearly every day for testing PowerShell 5.1 code/scripts. 🙂

Hope this helps…

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wavy

wavy wrote:

I see a start shortcut still loads 5.1.19041.2673. However the list of programs only yields 7x the ver 5 links were wiped when I installed 7.

I’ve never heard of the installation of PowerShell 7.x wiping out Start menu entries for PowerShell 5.1

In the Start menu’s alphabetical listing, PowerShell 7.x should be found under ‘P’, whilst PowerShell 5.1 (and its ISE) should be found under ‘W’ (for Windows PowerShell). As such, there’s no reason for the new install to overwrite the older version as they are named differently and quite happily co-exist on the same machine.

Hope this helps…

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wavy

Finding Your Windows 10 OEM Product Key Embedded In Firmware/WMI:

(Get-CimInstance -ClassName SoftwareLicensingService).OA3xOriginalProductKey

Tested with PowerShell 5.1 in Windows 10.

See this Finding Your Windows 10 OEM Product Key Embedded In Firmware/WMI article for more info.

Perhaps look in Event Viewer?

Start typing event in the taskbar’s Search Box and Event Viewer should appear as a result:

My understanding is that Office 2007 doesn’t use the Application or Microsoft Office Alerts event categories that later versions use but, instead, Microsoft Office Diagnostics and Microsoft Office Sessions.

Perhaps one of these categories includes entries that show more info about the issues you are experiencing.

Hope this helps…

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WSepzcaw

There’s no way to remove the new Bing icon in the top-right of Edge‘s toolbar using Edge‘s settings.

I did it with a .REG file:

I’ve attached an edge_hubs_sidebar_disabled.zip file containing the .REG file at the end of this post.

1. Download, unblock and unzip it then open Edge_HubsSidebar_Disabled.reg in Notepad to read what it does. Next, double-click on the .REG file and follow the prompts to merge it into the registry.

2. Open Edge and, in the navigation bar, enter edge://policy.

You should see the policy (a). If not, click on the Reload Policies button (b):

You should now see that the Bing icon in the toolbar has disappeared:

Unfortunately, this tweak also hides the sidebar.

edge_hubs_sidebar_disabled
(Note: This also includes a .REG file to undo the change.)

Both .REG files tested on Windows 10 Pro 22H2 (and should work on Windows 10 Home as well.

Hope this helps…

 

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BobbyB

wavy wrote:

I am missing the nice interface option and can only find the terminal option. Where is it??

Do you mean the (deprecated) PowerShell ISE?

That works with PowerShell 5.1 and older but not PowerShell 6 and upwards. Microsoft advice is to use Visual Studio Code with PowerShell extensions.

wavy wrote:

$GCIArgs = @{NameSpace = “root\cimv2\security\microsofttpm” Class = “Win32_tpm” } Get-CIMInstance @GCIArgs | Select SpecVersion, IsEnabled_InitialValue, IsActivated_InitialValue, ManufacturerVersionInfo | FL

In an elevated PowerShell console the first error you will get is about the unknown token named Class. Use ClassName.

Try this for a simpler one-liner to get the specific information you were looking for:

Get-CimInstance -Namespace 'root/cimv2/Security/MicrosoftTpm' -ClassName 'Win32_TPM' | Select SpecVersion, IsEnabled_InitialValue, IsActivated_InitialValue, ManufacturerVersionInfo | FL

Note: I’ve only tested this using Win 10’s built-in PowerShell 5.1:

To see all the available methods, use this:

(Get-CimInstance -Namespace root/cimv2/Security/MicrosoftTpm -ClassName Win32_Tpm).CimClass.CimClassMethods

I just use Get-TPM if all I want to know is whether TPM is activated:

PowerShell 7.x installs alongside Windows 10’s built-in PowerShell 5.1. Use $PSVersionTable to see whether 5.1 is available to you:

This is immediately after I installed PowerShell 7.3.3, showing PowerShell 5.1 is still available.

Hope this helps…

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wavy

Bob99 wrote:

One other setting within Defender I have that may help reduce the number of notifications you get from Defender: Within Defender’s own settings, I’ve set it to not notify me of its more mundane activities such as having completed a scan. To do this, I opened Defender and clicked on the item in the lower left corner of the window that says, obviously, “Settings” and then under the “Notification” section, I’ve clicked on “Manage notifications” and then, in the resulting window, cleared the check box labeled “Recent activity and scan results”. That may help reduce the number of notices about “hey, there’s an update available” that you get.

‘Recent activity and scan results’ is one of three types of Windows Defender informational notifications, the equivalent of toggling the SummaryNotificationDisabled DWORD value from 0 (On) to 1 (Off) in the Virus and threat protection registry key:

You can turn all three types of informational notifications off at once using the Get infomational notifications toggle switch, the equivalent of toggling the DisableEnhancedNotifications DWORD value from 0 (On) to 1 (Off) in the Notifications registry key:

I’ve included two .REG files (with comments) from the screenshots above in a defender_notifications .ZIP file for those who prefer to make these changes without opening Settings or the Registry Editor. As always, I suggest downloading, unblocking, unzipping then reading the contents of each .REG file in a text editor like Notepad before merging either.

defender_notifications

Hope this helps…

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wavy

Fred wrote:

Today we’re reaffirming our long-standing approach to put people in control of their Windows PC experience

Sorry… I just couldn’t get past this first sentence of quoted hogwash. It was just too funny for words.

Compare the flexibility of the Windows 7 UI, the willingness of its developers to share hidden and/or undocumented tweaks, the wealth of documentation on Technet or developer blogs with how it all changed fundamentally with Windows 10 (and onboarding of Satya Nadella).

Now it’s mostly obfuscation, radically reduced documentation and an ‘our way or the highway’ attitude, coupled with regular updates to thwart third-party apps which still attempt to allow users control.

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oldfry

Note that you can also use Task Scheduler to run PowerShell (with highest privileges and an argument of Update-MpSignature) to do the same… or do the same in an elevated PowerShell console whenever you want:

… or use a PowerShell script.

You can also use an unelevated PowerShell console to query Defender‘s status:

(Yes, I know this screenshot is of an elevated PowerShell console… but it doesn’t need to be. All you’re doing is querying info.)

… or use one of these 3 commands to just query the timestamp of the last signature updates.

(Get-MpComputerStatus).AntispywareSignatureLastUpdated
(Get-MpComputerStatus).AntivirusSignatureLastUpdated
(Get-MpComputerStatus).NISSignatureLastUpdated

You’ll notice that AntiSpyware, AntiVirus and Network Inspection System (NIS) signatures are all updated at the same time so you only need to query one signature:

Note that Windows Defender will fall-back to use the BITS service to update its definitions if, for whatever reason, Windows Update‘s Update Orchestrator Service is unavailable (for example, if disabled by a third-party tool like Windows Update Blocker, after trying Update Orchestrator three times.)

Hope this helps…

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John

WCHS wrote:

Thank you for your help in looking at this Search Highlights problem

Thank you for your kind words. To be fair, it was only your original question that piqued my interest and your subsequent very prescient questions that encouraged me to dig deeper… otherwise I would never, ever have looked at either Search Highlights nor News and interests.

Until your original question, my only prior experience of them both was working out how to automate turning both fripperies off. 🙂

I regret I was unable to help you solve your issue, but I learned a lot along the way – even about the Local Group Policy Editor (which normally I avoid).

I’ll share one last finding with you (and the many obvious lurkers this topic attracted).

It irked me that I couldn’t find any documentation about whether the LGPE used gpupdate or gpudate /force to force a re-read of policy entries in the registry as an alternative to having to restart the OS… so I created a test.

1. I used LGPE to change the Allow search highlights entry (Computer Configuration > Windows Components > Search) from Not configured to Disabled. Result: Nothing changed… the ‘gleam’ in the taskbar Search Box remained and there was no change to Search’s context menu appearance.

2. I opened an unelevated Windows PowerShell console and entered the command gpupdate. Result: No change to either gleam or context menu although the command executed successfully.

3. I entered the gpupdate /force command in the unelevated PowerShell console. Result: No change to either gleam or context menu although the command executed successfully.

4. I opened an elevated Windows PowerShell (Admin) console and entered the command gpupdate. Result: No change to either gleam or context menu although the command executed successfully.

5. I entered the gpupdate /force command in the elevated PowerShell (Admin) console. Result: No change to either gleam or context menu although the command executed successfully.

6. I used Task Manager to restart Explorer. Result: Changes to both ‘gleam’ (which disappeared) and Search’s context menu (Search Highlights disappeared).

Conclusion: Contrary to my previous belief and assertion, LGPE does *not* apparently use either gpudate nor gpupdate /force in either a ‘user’ or ‘Administrator’ context in this scenario when the Apply button is used to implement the change and dismiss the dialog.

The change appears to exist only in the LGPE UI… so I was wrong about my previous assertion ( #2539577) in this scenario.

The other thing I learned is that, depending on the context of the change, restarting explorer.exe is just as effective as restarting the OS in order to refresh the taskbar elements… and certainly much quicker.

_______________________________________________________________

One last thought: Don’t be afraid of the registry. Treat it with respect, create backups of any branches/keys before making changes to them, ask in places like this if you’re unsure… and you’ll have no problems. IMO it’s a valuable friend, not a foe to avoid.

Hope this helps…

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WCHS

ECWS wrote:

When I first reported this problem, I mentioned that News and Interests said “We’re having trouble locating your feed.”

Link?

ECWS wrote:

However when I click on it I get an error.

Where? Onscreen? In browser? Event Viewer? A screenshot or more info would be helpful.

ECWS wrote:

That in turn stops News and Interests from working.

‘Stops working’ doesn’t give much info. In what way does it stop working? After you fixed it using ‘System Restore’, when exactly did it stop working again? Was it after a ‘Windows Update’ or some other change?

Windows 10 22H2 but what edition? Home, Pro, Enterprise or Education?

Home (i.e Workgroup) or work/school (i.e. Domain) environment?

Signed in with? ‘Microsoft Account’ or ‘local’ account?

Apart from your last ‘System Restore’, have you tried anything else (like running sfc /scannow or looking in ‘Event Viewer’, for example)?

Does the linked ‘News and interests’ on the taskbar work to display weather when it’s opened either by click or hover (not by the problematic ‘Weather’ tile)?

Any issues with any other internet-based apps or is it just ‘Weather’/’News and interests’?

Is internet connection wireless or ethernet (wired)? Have you power-cycled your router?

Sorry for all the questions but it’s really difficult, if not impossible, to suggest anything without better info.

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ECWS

WCHS wrote:

I get this gleam, which celebrates International Pi Day. Is this gleam static? Or dynamic?

I had the same gleam yesterday for International Pi Day. It’s a dynamic one.

My current dynamic gleam shows ‘Chat with the new Bing’:

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WCHS

RetiredGeek wrote:

Of course they are all zero length files not very useful.

I didn’t know where the suite of tools was installed at first so used Everything to look for them. I discounted the zero-byte locations as placeholders:

Alex5723 wrote:

Isn’t this the standard search box which I have and is different from Search Highlights ?

The Windows 10 Search Box has had Search Highlights added to its right-hand side:

Whilst the Search Box concentrates on search results (local, web, etc. depending on how Search is configured), Search Highlights are what Microsoft describe as ‘interesting moments in time’.

Search Highlights display initially as a graphic which Microsoft calls a ‘gleam’. There’s actually several ‘gleams’ involved depending on whether the Search Box is using a light or dark background.

There’s also a difference between ‘types’ of ‘gleam’ – static or dynamic. Dynamic ‘gleams’ change based on ‘locale’ and ‘interval’. The ‘locale’ controls the content shown when the ‘gleam’ is hovered over or clicked on. So, for example, the content I see is based on my en-gb locale which, in turn, determines how a .JSON file is populated with URLS of dynamic content feeds – news, weather, memorable dates (Pancake Day, for example), etc. ‘Interval’ controls how quickly the dynamic content is updated.

Hope this helps…

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WCHS