by ·Comments Off on Microsoft Photos Enhance Error

Has the enhance function in your Microsoft Photos App stopped working? It did for me for a few months. How did I fix it? Well, let’s take a look at why it might have stopped working.

1. There was a bug.

And if so, a Windows Update might come along later to fix it.

2. Your Photos app destroyed itself.

If so, you have to reset or reinstall the app. Try re-registering it first with PowerShell.

Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.Windows.Photos | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

And if it doesn’t work, uninstall and reinstall using PowerShell.

get-appxpackage Microsoft.Windows.Photos | remove-appxpackage

Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.Windows.Photos | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”

3. You need the Photos Media Engine package.

This is the one that worked for me. Go to the Microsoft Store and install the app. Here is the link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/photos-media-engine-add-on/9plk42wd0rc0

References:

  1. Microsoft Answers
  2. Microsoft Answers
  3. WinBuzzer

by ·Comments Off on Windows 10, VPN, and WiFi Refresh Errors

I’m currently working on a project where I set up a Raspberry Pi to host a VPN server so that I can let my extended family view some private pictures. I previously had a PritUNL server running on Digital Ocean with a remote mLab MongoDB server, but it didn’t seem to work too well, with connections getting dropped and some serious compatibility issues. PritUNL does, however, have a very nice interface and supposedly better resource usage than OpenVPN Access Server, the limited-to-two-concurrent-users OpenVPN solution I was using before.

My current setup had a PritUNL client (running unknown in the background) and a SecurePoint client on Windows 10, with OpenVPN on my RPi set up through PiVPN. The SecurePoint client was very easy to use, and it worked when I ran it. After testing that it worked, I hibernated my PC and went to work. And that’s when things went wonky.

When I opened up my PC, I saw three WiFi networks, the SSIDs that are from my house. There’s no way those things would be available at work. No other network was available. I knew it had to be something to do with my VPN software, so I uninstalled those and rebooted.

The problem persisted. I looked online, and it showed me that Windows 10 used to have a bug where old, unsupported VPNs (Cisco) would cause some internet connection issues. So I ran the fix for that (using cmd.exe in admin mode):

reg delete HKCR\CLSID\{988248f3-a1ad-49bf-9170-676cbbc36ba3} /f

netcfg -v -u dni_dne

And the problem persisted. I searched some more and ran a number of ipconfig and netsh commands. Finally, I found this page from Microsoft with some handy netsh tools:

netsh wlab show wlanreport – creates a report of the current wlan setup/status accessible at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WlanReport

netsh -d – resets all network configurations and settings, but MS recommends it only as a last resort

Basically, netsh -d worked, but it also erased all my WiFi profiles. I played around with netsh some more, and I learned you can export current profiles using this command: netsh wlan export profile folder=c:\WifiProfiles\, which sends the profiles to C:\WifiProfiles. It’s not very intuitive, or maybe because I only had one profile, but it would seem that netsh wlan export profile name="George's iPhone" folder=c:\WifiProfiles\ should have worked, but it sends me this error: Profile "George's iPhone" is not found on any interface.

Once you backup your profiles like this, you can probably use netsh wlan add profile filename="ProfileName.xml" interface="Wireless Network Connection" user=current to import profiles that have been erased. I didn’t try it because I didn’t have any profiles backed up.

Then I downloaded OpenVPN and didn’t know how to get it to connect, which actually requires you to put the ovpn profile into the C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config folder, and then right clicking the system tray GUI to get the Connect option to appear. Without the ovpn profile, the Connect option doesn’t pop up.

Anyway, that’s three things learned today: netsh wlab show wlanreport, netsh -d, and OpenVPN config folder. And although PiVPN doesn’t support bridging, I can access all the network drives and printers that I need to.

Interesting.

 

 

Photo by Nguyen Vu Hung (vuhung)

by ·Comments Off on Windows 10 and the EETI Touchscreen Device (Acer W500)

As an owner of an Acer W500 touchscreen tablet PC, I was eager to upgrade to Windows 10. The upgrade seemed to run fine, although I had to restore the system using the Windows 10 system restore tool due to an error or conflict with the Explorer UI.

Everything seemed to work fine until yesterday, when the touchscreen stopped working. I had to plug in an external mouse in order to click things, and I used the On Screen Keyboard from Ease of Use settings to type things in very slowly.

What was the cause? I learned on HP forums that the newest version of the EETI Galax touchscreen device did not function properly. A poster suggested opening the Device Manager, finding the touchscreen device under Mice and Other Pointing Devices, then rolling back the driver. I did, and it worked.

Until the next day. After I restarted the system, I had an unknown device and zero touch capability.

I tried installing the official Acer touchscreen drivers, but as there is only a version for Windows 7, it didn’t work. I tried downloading the latest EETI PCAP touchscreen driver (Projected Capacitive), which installed, but didn’t seem to fix anything.

So I restarted again, and the “unknown device” reverted back to the old (newest), nonworking update. Another post on the HP forums said to use the EETI PCAP driver patch.  Thankfully, it worked, and I uninstalled the EETI Galax driver package using Revo Uninstaller.

For those using the HP TouchSmart or the Acer W500, this seems to work… for now.

by ·Comments Off on Windows 10 App Removal and Restoration
Windows 10, like Windows 8 before it, comes with a bunch of useful apps, and it also comes with undesirable apps. Based on work from Thomas Vanhoutte, here is how to uninstall and reinstall them.
First, open up PowerShell with admin rights (right click on the start menu icon).

Get an official package name

If you want to uninstall calculator, but aren’t sure of the official app name, use this:
Get-AppxPackage *appname*

Uninstall an app

If you want to uninstall something, use this:
Get-AppxPackage *appname* | Remove-AppxPackage

Restore all default apps

If you want to reinstall a default app that you deleted, use this:
Get-AppXPackage | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
Note that this probably results in an English app and may not restore the app you want.

Reinstalling specific apps

If you want to reinstall a default app that you deleted, you might try this:
Get-AppXPackage *appname* | Add-AppxPackage
Learn more about Add functions at TechNet. You might also be interested in how to use Fiddler to manually install apps (designed for Windows 8, for example).