Oct 182017
 

Well, it’s October 18th 2017 and the Fall Creators update (Feature update to Windows 10, version 1709) is now available for download. In my particular environment, I use WSUS to deploy and manage updates.

Update: It’s now May 2018, and this article also applies to Windows 10 April 2018 update version 1803 as well!

Update: It’s now October 2018, and this article also applies to Windows 10 October 2018 update version 1809 as well!

Update: It’s now May 2019, and this article also applies to Windows 10 May 2019 update version 1903 as well!

I went ahead earlier today and approved the updates for deployment, however I noticed an issue on multiple Windows 10 machines, where the Windows Update client would get stuck on Downloading updates 0% status.

I checked a bunch of things, but noticed that it simply couldn’t download the updates from my WSUS server. Further investigation found that the feature updates are packaged in .esd files and IIS may not be able to serve these properly without a minor modification. I remember applying this fix in the past, however I’m assuming it was removed by a prior update on my Windows Server 2012 R2 server.

If you are experiencing this issue, here’s the fix:

  1. On your server running WSUS and IIS, open up the IIS manager.
  2. Expand Sites, and select “WSUS Administration”
  3. On the right side, under IIS, select “MIME Types”
  4. Make sure there is not a MIME type for .esd, if there is, you’re having a different issue, if not, continue with the instructions.
  5. Click on “Add” on the right Actions pane.
  6. File name extension will be “.esd” (without quotations), and MIME type will be “application/octet-stream” (without quotations).
  7. Reset IIS or restart WSUS/IIS server

You’ll notice the clients will now update without a problem! Happy Updating!

Sep 082016
 

If you’re like me, you probably have your Microsoft account configured the same as your e-mail address. While many people use @live.com or @hotmail.com addresses, some of us prefer to use our actual real e-mail addresses as Microsoft account logins.

Recently, I did a fresh install of Windows 10 on my Microsoft Surface Pro. After joining the Surface to my domain, and attached my Microsoft account, I went to add my Exchange account (which is the same e-mail address I use for my Microsoft account). When trying to add, I was presented with:

There’s already an account set up to use <e-mail address>. (Account Name)

This message stopped me from configuring my Exchange account with the Windows 10 Mail, Calendar, and People apps. Researching this, I noticed numerous other people reporting this problem on multiple forums, however no one had a fix.

It appears there is a conflict with the Microsoft Account (which of course has it’s own mail, calendar, and contacts), and a separate account with the same e-mail address.

To resolve this, I restarted the machine, and logged in using a different account. I then went to “System” under control panel, “Advanced System Settings”, “Advanced” tab, then “Settings” under “User Profiles”. I then proceeded to delete the user profile and restart the system. I confirmed the user profile was fully deleted and then logged back in. Now at this point, the key is to create the Exchange (or any other mail account) before you actually attach your Microsoft account to your system login account. By configuring the e-mail account first, it will avoid this issue.

PLEASE NOTE: By deleting your user profile, you delete all of the contents of the Desktop, My Documents, Music, Pictures, settings, etc… I’d only recommend this if you have either backed up, or are performing this on a fresh install where you currently don’t have any files.

Nov 162015
 

After upgrading to Windows 10, I immediately noticed that my 3 display setup no longer worked. It was powered by two NVidia graphics cards (GeForce GT 640, and a GeForce GTX 550 Ti).

For some time, I couldn’t find anything on the internet explaining as to why I lost my dual display setup. Finally I came across a forum that pointed to this NVidia Support KB article: http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3707/~/windows-10-will-not-load-the-nvidia-display-driver-for-my-older-graphics-card

Essentially Fermi based GPUs utilize WDDM 1.3 mode, whereas the newer architectures of Maxwell and Kepler support WDDM 2.0. In Windows 10, it is not able to load multiple display drivers using different WDDM versions.

For a really long time I waited and no updates enabled the functionality until September when I performed an update, and out of nowhere they started to work. I assumed they fixed the issue permanently, however after updating once again, I lost the capabilities. In this case I reverted to the last driver.

I’m not sure if they updated the Fermi driver to support WDDM 2.0, but I just know it started working. And then after a short while, with another driver update stopped working again. Again, the driver rollback fixed the issue.

 

I recently upgraded to the latest build of Windows 10, and completely lost the ability once again, and lost the ability to rollback drivers.

It was time to find out exactly what driver version WORKS with both Kepler, Fermi, and Maxwell architectures.

After playing around, I found the WORKING NVidia driver version to be: 358.50

Load this version up, and you’ll be good to go! Hope it saves you some time!