Windows OS Platform topics

The New Activation Portal Is Partly Broken But It Is a MAJOR Inconvenience For Me & Others.

MorganDev — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 02:33:38 GMT

I Run Windows 7 Ultimate x64 And I need to Activate Windows,
I am used to the new aka.ms/aoh replacing the phone line.
But I Have Activated Windows XP & Vista Without Any Problems Multiple Times,
I Tested It Too, Tried 7, Starter, Home, Pro, Ultimate, Even x32 & x64.
Though, No matter what, everything BUT Windows 7 Works.
This Is Clearly a Server Sided Issue And I've Had This problem for the past months maybe even about a year.
(The Product Key I Am Using Is Not Public on The Internet So It's Not Blocked/Used Publicly By Everyone, it is the same product key that came with the CD)
And I Can Say For Certain This is a Server Sided Issue.
Please Help.
And Thank You For Your Time.

Follow up to Azure Host OS Article

Steskalj — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 15:46:14 GMT

When will there be a follow up to the Azure Host OS article? It would be great to learn more about how the NT kernel is being used inside Microsoft outside of standard Windows. This is the article:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windowsosplatform/azure-host-os-%E2%80%93-cloud-host/3709528

Allow developers to create their own user space

Steskalj — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 14:20:00 GMT

It would be wonderful if Microsoft and the windows team documented how developers could create their own userspace. The NT Kernel was designed for this, and it would allow better extensibility of the overall OS. It also would be a way to partial opensource Windows. You could license the kernel at a low price, and let others build the user space. This would be in the vain of the original WSL, but it would allow any developer skilled enough to bring enhancements to the system.

Unable to copy desktop files to external drive on Windows 10...

1971Chevelle — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 20:10:27 GMT

I am trying to get a new computer set up for a friend. I have done this many times for other people, but something is wrong with this one. Every time I try to copy the desktop files to an external drive (all of them are PDFs, with one image), nothing happens. I drag and drop them - nothing copies. There are no errors, either. I have tried two different externals - both formatted exFAT. There is literally no reason for this to be happening. If anyone know what to check, your input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

P.S. Too bad that Microsoft isn't smart enough to create a way to move the files easily between computers WITHOUT needing a Microsoft account to do so. Apple had had them beat at this for many, many years now. I can literally fire up a new Mac, and transfer all of my files - INCLUDING applications - in less than 2 hours. Pretty sad...

Windows Update, ESU, System Restore fail, fill C: drive

mpeek — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 14:24:02 GMT

My C: drive on my laptop running Windows 10 Home has gone from about 20 GB free to 133 MB free after aborting Windows 11 installation, trying to sign up for ESU and trying several times to use System Restore to put things back the way they were. I'm hoping you can tell me where to look for the leftover files that are causing my C: drive to be so full. Here's roughly what I did, in order:

I set Restore Points between the steps below.
In Windows Update, chose to update from Windows 10 to Windows 11 24H2. After a lot of downloading, I got an error saying C: was full, that I should attach an external drive and remove about 5 GB from the disk. I tried for a while but realized that installing Windows 11 could fill my C: drive and make the computer useless. So I canceled the update.
I read that ESU (which extends Windows 10 updates for a year) requires a Microsoft account to sign up. I only use local accounts because I'm often not on the Internet, and a Microsoft account requires me to be online. I created a Microsoft account with administrator privileges. From there, I ran Windows Update... but didn't see the option to join ESU. Then I went to the local adminstrator account and tried Windows Update again. I don't remember what happened, but I couldn't get ESU. The worst is that this changed my local admin account to a Microsoft account!!
I tried System Restore to (I hoped) un-do the change to my local admin account, remove the Microsoft admin account, and un-do the files that were clogging my C: drive. But System Restore failed because there wasn't enough disk space. I tried earlier restore points, but for some reason they had been deleted.
I started a chat with Microsoft support, then had to restart the chat after the first reboot during System Restore. The agents ran Disk Cleanup and also cleaned up various folders. That gave me about 3 GB free... not near the 20 GB I used to have. Luckily, the agent was able to restore my previous admin from a Microsoft account to a local account.

What I think I need to know is what folders Windows Update, ESU, and System Restore use. I'm hoping I can go there, find the files changed yesterday afternoon / evening, and see that they take up nearly 20 GB... then I'd delete those files. For example, does ESU signup create C:\Windows\XYZ123? If you have any other suggestions, I'd sure appreciate them!

"Install Windows Windows could not finish configuring the system..." Stuck!

Customstrat — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 02:52:31 GMT

Tried to reset my wife's laptop to factory settings by reinstalling Windows. At one stage of the process after an automatic restart I got this error message.

I then hit Shift/F10 to open Command Prompt and input "cd oobe" and hit Enter. I then input "msoobe" and hit Enter. Now the laptop displays a spinning circle of white dots with the caption "Just a moment..." and has been doing so for the past five hours. After this length of time I'm assuming that it's stuck and nothing will happen.

What can I do?

Connection Refused at TCP/IP Level

Babu_Sundaram — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 07:31:26 GMT

Guys,

i have a web application running on Windows 2025. Occasionally, the application experiences bursts of over 500 simultaneous connections. Even though, the server showing less than 10% CPU utilization and about 75% of RAM still available, I am encountering "connection refused" errors. I can see Windows Performance counter TCPv4 / Connection Failures change when this happens. There is no antivirus deployed during my test, and Windows defender is off. i have seen similar issues on Windows 2019 and 2022 also. I suspected SynAttack detection, but the TCP diagnostic counters for SynAttack detection dont know any values. It appears to me that there is some Windows OS limitation that causes this issue. Does anybody encounter this situation before?

About recommend hardware for the next version of windows in the future

quanbeo — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 07:10:19 GMT

I am a loyal Microsoft Windows user. Now, I have a small problem: I want to upgrade my computer to Windows 11 but my hardware does not meet the requirements; I need to upgrade the hardware for it. I am also a loyal AMD Threadripper Pro user. I see the minimum requirement is Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5945WX. I want to ask when Windows 12 is released, will it still be supported? And Win 13, Win 14 in the future. I do not have the conditions to change the hardware every time there is a new version of Windows. If it is not supported, I may have to learn to switch to another operating system.

P/s: Don't ask me why it have to be Ryzen Threadripper Pro or Recommend another one, Just say I want to use Ryzen threadripper pro to experience playing Pikachu in 1080p mode more smoothly.

Windows Research Kernel Bring it Back!

Steskalj — Thu, 29 May 2025 13:30:11 GMT

I think it is time to revive the Windows Research Kernel! We need the community to be able to understand what is going on without letting everything out of the bag. The last version available was v1.2 which was based off of the kernel for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 SP2. We need a modern release for development, education, and security research. Who is with me?

Windows 11 IOT Core

JSteskal — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 14:51:50 GMT

Will there be a Windows 11 IOT Core released? This was a great way to use raspberry pi devices in industrial situations.

Allow to add share mounts through disk management

Steskalj — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 13:30:01 GMT

Here is a novel feature to add to #Windows and #WindowsServer. Allow to add share mounts through disk management in a similar way to fstab/autofs on posix based systems. Please upvote on feedback hub: https://aka.ms/AAv498a

Realtek drivers, or audio drivers in general not working/not showing up

pensivebohr — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 11:56:43 GMT

Hey, Please check this issue. I don't know from where this app came and I am unable to uninstall this app.

Here it is

Open sourcing the Kernel

Steskalj — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 14:48:48 GMT

Are there any plans to open source just the kernel to allow more developers to create solutions for Windows and Windows Server?

Demote a 2019 server - problem

andersostling56 — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 09:50:54 GMT

I want to demote one of our 2 DC's in preparation for server replacement. Replication between the two works fine and both DNS's are synced and up-2-date. But when I run the wizard, I need to check that "This is the last DNS server" which is not true. If not, I can't proceed to the next step (Next becomes greyed out).

As an experiment, I did this last week and it resulted in a domain where no client could logon, and no file shares was working on the remaining DC/File server. So I restored both backups to get back in business. I do not want to repeat this again.

I have browsed the complete DNS tree for the forward zone and everything looks fine to me (SRV, NS etc records)

dbgeng.h: GetTotalNumberThreads Returns Incorrect Thread Count (According to DAC)

felsokning — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 20:22:03 GMT

When writing custom extensions for Windbg to analyse user-mode crash dumps (using the IDebugSystemObjects4 interface provided by dbgeng.h), IDebugSystemObjects4-->GetTotalNumberThreads returns a smaller number than Strike/SOS.

There is no documentation about where IDebugSystemObjects4 gets the thread count from -- it just states:

The GetTotalNumberThreads method returns the total number of threads for all the processes in the current target, in addition to the largest number of threads in any process for the current target.

(Emphasis mine.)

Below is an example output from Windbg:

0:000> <Custom Windbg Extension Method Here> Getting IDebugSymbols... Getting IDebugSystemObjects... Getting GetTotalNumberThreads... Total Threads: 581 Largest Process: 581 Frames: 32 0:000> !threads ThreadCount: 587 UnstartedThread: 0 BackgroundThread: 26 PendingThread: 0 DeadThread: 47 Hosted Runtime: no

Note that the IDebugSystemObjects4-->GetTotalNumberThreads method is returning 581 threads but Strike/SOS is returning 587.

For what it's worth, Strike/SOS gets this data from the DAC -- which is, presumably, a different source than IDebugSystemObjects4 is getting the thread count from.

Is this a bug in dbgeng.h? If not, is it because IDebugSystemObjects4 ignores finaliser threads; whereas those are not ignored when committed to the DAC?

Also, sorry if this is the wrong place for this, I was thinking Windows SDK-related questions/bugs would fall under "Windows OS Platform".

Questions about Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 support plans.

Neville1632 — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 15:19:38 GMT

I have known that all the supports of Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 has ended at Janauary 9th, 2024, the date where mentioned in Microsoft Lifecycle Policy.

But I have found some updates which released after Janauary 9th, 2024, in Microsoft Update Catalog, and these updates will provide to these Operating System which have 4 years ESU license.

So why does Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 still can receive these updates after Janauary 9th, 2024? Does these Operating System has any additional support plans after that day? When will these OS doesn't receive any updates?

Automatic installation of Roots Updates

Eroesol — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 20:22:55 GMT

You can use the registry parameter to redirect the source of root certificate updates:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\AuthRoot\AutoUpdate
"RootDirURL"="d:\......."

Is it possible to automatically distribute certificates of intermediate certification authorities in this way?

Windows OS for RISC-V

JSteskal — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 13:05:38 GMT

Are there any plans to develop Windows OS for RISC-V? I know Windows OS runs on ARM64 and the same goes for server due to Microsoft Demos, and in the past Windows/Windows Server ran on a number of architectures.

Invalid requesting-user-name value after system reboot (IPP Everywhere)

FilipProchazka — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 15:31:33 GMT

When I add a IPP Printer, it works fine until I restart OS, after system reboot the requesting-user-name contains WORKGROUP\VM132786998$ so it's domain\computerName$. And the user cannot be correctly recognized.

Steps to reproduce it:
1. Add IPP printer
2. Print Test page
3. Restart system
4. Print Test page

Current result if inspecting by Wireshark:
at point 2. requesting-user-name contains correct "Administrator" value
at point 4. requesting-user-name contains incorrect "workgroup\VM132786998$

Expected result: in both cases correct value Administrator must be present.

Currently only restart print spooler or recreating printer solves the issue. (See attached wireshark captures before and after print spooler restart)

Note: The issue is not reproducible in build 22H2 22621.3447. I'm able to reproduce it in 23H2 22635.4076.

Same error is observed here (comment from Douglas Kosovic): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1428508/ipp-everywhere-ipp-2-0-server-basic-authentication

Attached screenshots from wireshark captures when it's happening and after restarting Print Spooler.

How do I boot into Windows 1.01 from MS-DOS 3.30?

awethebird — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 11:54:23 GMT

Hello! I am trying to boot Windows 1.01 but I don't have autoexec and i forgot the command.

thanks,

birb