I guess we differ in terminology. I can agree with your statements, but what I meant was Microsoft never intended this software to be used this way. Microsoft has changed their philosophy about how they think about stability. They can decide to change some kernel APIs to work differently in a Windows kernel upgrade, which breaks drivers that were stable on a previous kernel. An example is 18362 breaking the kernel API Realtek audio driver used and caused BSOD, which required a new driver update to resolve. I had a laptop from 2015 (Skylake) that came with and had to be used with Windows 10, but did not get a driver update from the OEM. So it would have been preferred that Microsoft continue to provide security updates for 17763 rather than forcing everyone on consumer SKUs onto 18362/19041. And so this (SKUwitch) is the workaround I'm looking at. Edit: Sorry, it was 18363 and Realtek Bluetooth Radio, and 19041 and Conexant Audio.
I was talking as stability as a lack of crashes, as ability of having long uptime... Stability intended as lack of api changes, is a different matter. But to be honest that's where windows shines over Macos and Linux. My old notebook from 2007 or so runs win 11 w/o a blink, using a VGA driver released in 2009. To have a Linux working out of the box I need to use a 12 year old distro, or spend a couple of days patching and compiling... Back to Windows, cases of drivers broken by a new release are as old as windows, luckily they were and still are a small minority..
I was testing whether it's still worth using Server 2022 on my PC at home as a workstation but it lost to the 11, the 11 uses less cpu for anything in the same scenario, it uses less cpu to play YouTube videos at 4k 60 fps, it uses less cpu even in torrents. when the connection is downloading at maximum What do you say about that? @acer-5100 Which system do you prefer? Do you think 2022 converted to workstation or 11 22h2/23h2 is more efficient?
I say the mileage definitely varies depending the HW, it's very likely that a recent kernel manages better the big/little core thing on latest Intel CPUs, or the huge number of cores on Treadrippers/EPYIC processors. Again It depends, on my older notebook, the best OS overall proved to be Server 2016 TP4 (1511), my server is in mutiboot, everything from 1703 to the latest Server 11 26010 work well, teese days I use either Server 2022/Server 11/my Server 2020 (2004) or Win 10 (2009). I don't convert permanently to workstation I don't have a reason to do so except when I have to because a driver or a program need a Client to be installed. Again there isn't Win 11 22H2 and 23H2 there Win 11 22000 OR Win 11 226xx OR Win 11 253xx OR Win 11 259xx/260xx. They are all major builds, there is likely more difference between 22000 and 259xx than there are between 20348 and 22000, the commercial branding means nothing. 20348 should be called Win10.7/Server 10.7, 260xx should be called Win11.3/ Server 11.3, to make the discussion meaningful. No one takes Win8 and Win8.1 as the same OS, why should we talk of win 10 and 11 as single releases?
And why 10.0 is still trailing for so many years? Windows Vista -> 6.0 Windows 7 -> 6.1 Windows 8 -> 6.2 Windows 8.1 -> 6.3 Windows 10 -> 10.0 Windows 10 a (for short a, b, c, ....) -> 10.0 Windows 10 b -> 10.0 Windows 10 ... -> 10.0 Windows 11 -> 10.0 Windows 11 a -> 10.0 Windows 11 b -> 10.0 Windows 11 ... It is just a nightmare.
They just decided (then partly rethreated) to copy the Arch Linux way model of rolling releases. And as usual when Microsoft tries to ape what someone else did, doesn't end well. Win 1/2/3 was a bad copy of the original MacOS/Xerox Alto GUI, they spent more than a decade to get something that worked well as MacOS Zune was the MS "copy" of the ipod and we know how it ended the incredibly stupid Windows phone was an attempt to make the MS iphone, and we know how it ended. Edgium is a knockoff of Vivaldi (and Opium), and how they compare is in front of the eye of any sane minded people Bing is still the son of a lesser god, if compared to google after endless attempt to spoon it to the mouth of everyone. MS wins when do it's own things (or to say better when buy the right companies and evolves their work). Hyper-V, Direct-X, Deduplication, WSL,The Win95 GUI , the backward compatibility spanning decades are all undeniable success stories. The above is a lesson that MS insist to forget, a story that isn't IT only. Mercedes does a bad work building small cars, FIAT does a bad work building premium sedans, Macdonalds failed miserably when tried to sell pizzas. The examples are endless.
How could I figure out why a BT keyboard - Logitech k380 - won't properly use the driver that's already on the system? On W11 Pro it uses bth.inf, which is already installed here and I have another BT device that's using it just fine. After entering the 6 digit number and hitting Enter, Windows will show it as paired and connected(green dot) but the keyboard remains in pairing mode. Only a bit later it will show that there's no driver for it in the settings. Device manager shows also there's no driver, but in the Event Viewer it shows that it's using bth.inf. There's no error or warning in the Event Viewer. I'm confused.. The driver is here C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_dual_bth.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.26040.1000_none_a9efa026a9d606c0 the files are identical between pro and server. Both pro and server installs are 26040.
Maybe it uses the bth.inf interface driver but also needs a device driver (from Logitech) to function? Just a guess.
The ugly ms bt stack isn't only bth.inf. And servers come with a reduced set of drivers, as already discussed in this thread. While the reduced BT of servers should be enough for keyboards and input devices, maybe in the above case Logitech used some extensions, for additional features. The obvious and easy way is to use the Toshiba (or Bluesoleil) stacks, and say goodbye to the useless ms thing.
Thanks for the responses. I tried the Toshiba stack without success. Too much headache with bt, I'll just stick with wired one.
Regarding SKUWitch: Copy the sku certs from pro I don't have pro installed. Can these be gotten somewhere else?
7zip is your best friend. Open the Pro's install.wim and get it from here. Alternatively you can mount the wim using dism/gimagex/dism++/ whatever, but not worth the hassle for that purpose.
ALT+F4 still works on server 2025 released few hours ago, just like it did in Win 3.xx Open Shell has the option to default tho the shutdown dialog
It's not just shutdown. I'm trying to get the old GUI with the drop-down selections. I have a few vbs scripts that use that GUI to auto select depending on what needs to be done. objshell.ShutdownWindows still works on W7/8/10/11, but on server using that vbs statement, the OS just logs you off without showing the GUI. If there's no way, I guess I'll have to change those scripts.
It's called shutdown dialog. Do you have a better name? Like I said Open Shell has the option, and given it's the first SW that one installs on windows anyway.... Perhaps I just tested your vbs On server 2025 and it works as it's supposed to, I can't see why it shouldn't work on 2022 Maybe you have the shutdown tracker still enabled and it interferes.
The shutdown dialog/GUI in Open Shell shows the same symptoms. No dialog/GUI appears and a logoff is performed. ShutdownReasonOn and ShutdownReasonUI are set to "0" for the tracker Glad to hear that the vbs function for the dialog/GUI is still valid. Why it defaults to a direct logoff on this install is unknown to me at the moment.