My apologies for the long post, but it’s all directly related to the live stream and (in the interest of full transparency) I’m combining multiple releases with a good story time on why those releases were necessary and lessons learned. I also tend to be detail oriented and long-winded about it, so please feel free to skim.
A quick note on version numbers and release dates, to give you a better timeline of events. The version number scheme for the Optimizer this time is based on the date of release. So the initial release v25.11.5.0 broke down shows v25 (year 2025) .11 (month of November) .5 (5th day of the month) and the last digit will always be .0 for the first release of the day, and each subsequent release will increase this by 1. Therefore, v25.11.5.1 is the second release of November 5th, 2025. This is important to the story later on.
Be sure to check out the Optimizer’s Documentation page for more information like this.
v25.11.11.0 Release Notes
Lessons learned from the live stream failures:
- Added update check failure message “Failed to reach update server, check internet connection.” when no internet is available, rather than simply reporting no updates found (which was true, but the reason why they weren’t found was infinitely more important, since there were in fact updates at the time.)
- Added message prompt when program is not running as Administrator, just in case the manifest is ever left out or misconfigured again in a future release.
- Added status window popup when clicking on an individual Optimization (just like the Optimize All button.) Reason being that the optimizations apply in real-time when clicking those slider toggle switches, and for those longer optimizations that might take 3-5 seconds on some systems you might otherwise think it’s not working until the slider toggle changes to green. (This exact thing occurred with the Fix Network Browsing demo during the show.)
- Added notification for failure of any Optimization when clicking on them one at a time. Previously failures were only reported when using the Optimize All button.
Updates from other feedback in the live stream and shortly after:
- Added Windows Update button based on feedback during the show.
- Removed PC Manager, Driver Backup, and Disk Cleanup options from Optimize All after a discussion with Carey, as they are already in the On-Demand tasks and should be run from there on an individual basis. Particularly the last two were causing confusion as evident during the show.
- Removed “Non-MS” redundancy text after Local Account in the description of the user name/account. The “Non-Microsoft” account (shortened to MS) verbiage was redundant, but I wasn’t giving people enough credit in understanding what a “local” account is vs. a Microsoft user account, since Microsoft is getting very ambiguous with their terminology about local accounts in an attempt to force everyone into a Microsoft/online based account.
- Added “Refresh Information” under the Options drop down menu at the top, which just rescans the system for everything it did at startup.
- Update check now occurs before scanning the system for the current state of the optimizations, since it is just a waste of time prior to the update check should an update to be found.
- Clicking Driver Backup now reports the date/time of the last driver backup if one exists, giving the user a more informed choice when choosing to delete and create a new backup.
v25.11.5.1 Release Notes
Although released just prior to the live stream, both this and the .0 previous version of the day are featured in the live stream due to an unfortunate mistake, and trouble ensues. Read about below.
- Added application manifest forcing the program to Run as Administrator, which was mistakenly left out of the first public release v25.11.5.0
v25.11.5.0, and What Went Wrong in the live stream
A number of things did not work correctly with the Optimizer during the first live stream (below) demonstrating the Optimizer for the first time. Unfortunately I was not able to make the show until near the end, so I wasn’t there to see the failures and point out the problem from the live chat as it was happening. I am confident that everything which went wrong with the Optimizer’s functionality in the show was well tested and working prior to the show, but this was with a pre-release version that was running with Administrator privileges (as it should.)
Here’s what happened behind the scenes:
The initial public release was actually v25.11.3.0 a few days prior to the live stream, and it worked great. Carey had used the tool in testing for a while even before that, and several people purchased the November 3rd release and used it with no issues detected. I believe it was definitely ready for prime time, but there were a few very minor additions based on early adopter feedback I wanted to get in before the live demo, just a few little niceties to add. We wanted it to look super impressive in the live stream, of course!
The morning of the Optimizer’s first live stream on November 5th, I released the update with those minor improvements. Unfortunately, the application manifest embedded into the final EXE file was missing the flag that causes Windows to show the UAC (User Account Control) prompt, stating the program can make changes to Windows and getting user consent to run the EXE with administrator privileges.
Note that administrator privileges are needed to perform some of the Optimizations, and without the “requireAdministrator” flag in the application manifest, a user would need to right click the EXE file, and select “Run as Administrator” allowing the program to function as intended.
Realizing my error when testing again shortly thereafter, I uploaded v25.11.5.1 which was the same EXE with no code changes, except I embedded the corrected manifest, forcing the UAC prompt and administrator privileges.
I knew that Carey would update the Optimizer in the demonstration because there is an update check prompt, and that Carey would demonstrate that first. Knowing this, all should work smoothly, and no one would notice the error with the first .0 release of the day on the show.
Unfortunately it didn’t go down that way. It was almost as amusing as it was embarrassing for me, in that users in the live stream chat who had already purchased and ran the Optimizer (even the November 3rd release, or the updated/second November 5th release) were reporting it running without failure on their systems, and only Carey seemed to be having difficulties in his live stream, who at one point said something to the effect of “so it’s just me then?”
But why only on the live stream, and no one else had these issues?
At the 1:11 mark in the show, Carey runs the Optimizer for the first time. You will notice it started without the UAC prompt to get administrator privileges due to the bad manifest, BUT it also found no updates when Carey demonstrated the update check. As a result, the program is running in the standard user context with limited privileges, and a number of failures followed during that first run.
But why didn’t the Optimizer find an update?
At around the 1:16 mark, Carey realizes he didn’t have his USB Network dongle plugged in when he is demonstrating the problem with network browsing before he demonstrates the Optimizer’s fix for it. There was no internet connection, so the Optimizer of course didn’t see the v25.11.5.1 update on that first run.
So even after he has the network cable plugged in, and continued to demo the Optimizer (and subsequent failures), it wasn’t until he restarted the laptop and ran the Optimizer again that it had internet connection and saw the update that resolved the missing manifest forcing administrator.
In fact, at around 1:39 mark, Carey realized the program wasn’t running as administrator the whole time and that this may be causing the issues, and he did the right-click Run as Administrator to start it up. Of course, having internet this time when the Optimizer started, it immediately found the update to v25.11.5.1 and updated, making even the right-click Run as Administrator a moot point.
Important lessons learned:
While there weren’t any real “bugs” to fix from the issues in the stream that weren’t already with the corrected manifest, I did learn a few valuable things from this perfect storm of events to improve upon, just in case. I’d consider these oversights mostly, namely lack of failure checks, such as adding a message when the app isn’t running in the administrator context, and a failure message when no internet is detected during an update check!
Going forward, obviously a little more failure check / inform user type of information will be planned out with this line of reasoning, at the very least to remove any accidental or incident specific issues such as occurred on the live stream. For example:
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- Had there been a “Couldn’t check for updates, no internet” type message rather than a “No updates found” prompt, Carey would have noticed the USB network dongle not plugged in and none of the resulting failures would’ve occurred had he been able to update to begin with. Entirely a lack of forethought on my part.
- Had there been a “Oops, this program isn’t running as Administrator” check and prompt, even if there weren’t an update with the fix, Carey would have been informed and known to relaunch with a right-click Run as Administrator. Also, entirely a lack of forethought on my part.
About my process:
I wrote a post processing tool to ready my compiled software for release, which applies the correct manifest settings (among other tasks) based on the file name of the EXE that I’m releasing. Among other tasks it adds the dated version number, the application icon (Carey’s power logo in this case), and signing the EXE with my digital signature verifying trust and ensuring the code is from who it says it is (d7xTech, Inc) before uploading the EXE to my update server, and altering the version information on the server that the Optimizer looks at during the update check.
So this is all normally a 1-click operation for me, and that’s how it worked with the Windows 10 Optimizer. However prior to release, I was doing these tasks manually for the Windows 11 Optimizer, as I had not yet updated my tool for the “11” in the name of the EXE to apply the correct settings. As a result, I simply messed up the option in the application manifest.
For the record, it is now a 1-click process for the Windows 11 Optimizer as well. At least going forward this particular failure should not occur again, and the next issue one might run into will not be over something so simple and embarrassing.
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